Canadians may not be travelling the US as much as we used to but we sure are investing in that country.
The monthly tally of Canadian securities transactions shows a couple distinct patterns: we are investing more money in US financial instruments and they are selling ours. With one exception – government bonds.
Following the money offers a unique insight into Canada’s standing on global financial markets. For example, we wanted to get in on the AI train but to do that we have to buy American stocks because we don’t much in that arena. In the month of May alone Canadian s bought $16 billion worth of American equities, mostly tech stocks. We also pumped $10 billion into US-denominated bonds.
International investors, meanwhile, lost their appetite for Canada, buying $8 billion worth of stocks and bonds which down from $50 billion a month earlier.
And you can see how we are financing our government deficits: foreign investors bought $15 billion worth of federal and provincial bonds in May after purchasing nearly three-times that volume in April.
