Stocks fall, bond yields tumble after Fed’s latest rate hike – Business News

The Canadian Press – Mar 22, 2023 / 2:14 pm | Story: 417419

The Canadian Press – Mar 22, 2023 / 11:56 am | Story: 417385

The Chevrolet Camaro, for decades the dream car of many teenage American males, is going out of production.

General Motors, which sells the brawny muscle car, said Wednesday it will stop making the current generation early next year.

The future of the car, which is raced on NASCAR and other circuits, is a bit murky. GM says another generation may be in the works.

“While we are not announcing an immediate successor today, rest assured, this is not the end of Camaro’s story,” Scott Bell, vice president of Chevrolet, said in a statement.

The current sixth-generation Camaro, introduced in 2016, has done well on the racetrack, but sales have been tailing off in recent years. When the current generation Camaro came out in 2016, Chevrolet sold 72,705 of them. But by the end of 2021 that number fell almost 70% to 21,893. It rebounded a bit last year to 24,652.

GM said last of the 2024 model year of the cars will come off the assembly line in Lansing, Michigan, in January.

Spokesman Trevor Thompkins said he can’t say anything more about a future Camaro. “We’re not saying anything specific right now,” he said.

The company, he said, has an understanding with auto-racing sanctioning bodies that the sixth-generation car can continue racing. GM will have parts available and the Camaro body will stay on the race track, he said.

NASCAR said that because the Generation 6 Camaro was in production when GM originally got permission to race, it remains qualified to race in NASCAR Cup and NASCAR Xfinity Series races.

GM will offer a collector’s edition package of the 2024 Camaro RS and SS in North America, and a limited number of high-performance ZL-1 Camaros. The collector’s edition cars will have ties to the first-generation Camaro from the 1960s and its GM code name “Panther,” the company said without giving specifics.

GM’s move comes as traditional gas-powered muscle cars are starting to be phased out due to strict government fuel economy regulations, concerns about climate change and an accelerating shift toward electric vehicles.

Stellantis, will stop making gas versions of the Dodge Challenger and Charger and the Chrylser 300 big sedan by the end of this year. But the company has plans to roll out a battery-powered Charger performance car sometime in 2024.

Electric cars, with instant torque and a low center of gravity, often are faster and handle better than internal combustion vehicles.

Stellantis, formed in 2021 by combining Fiat Chrysler and France’s PSA Peugeot, earlier this week announced the last of its special edition muscle cars, the 1,025 horsepower Dodge Challenger SRT Demon 170. The company says the car can go from zero to 60 mph (97 kilometers per hour) in 1.66 seconds, making it the fastest production car on the market.

The Canadian Press – Mar 22, 2023 / 11:17 am | Story: 417375

The Federal Reserve extended its year-long fight against high inflation Wednesday by raising its key interest rate a quarter-point despite concerns that higher borrowing rates could worsen the turmoil that has gripped the banking system.

“The U.S. banking system is sound and resilient,” the Fed said in a written statement released after its two-day meeting.

At the same time, the Fed warned that the financial upheaval stemming from the collapse of two major banks is “likely to result in tighter credit conditions” and “weigh on economic activity, hiring and inflation.”

The central bank also signaled that it’s likely nearing the end of its aggressive series of rate hikes. In a statement it issued, it removed language that had previously indicated that it would keep raising rates at upcoming meetings. The statement now says “some additional policy firming may be appropriate” — a weaker commitment to future hikes.

And in a series of quarterly economic projections, Fed officials forecast that they expect to raise their key rate just one more time – from its new level Wednesday of about 4.9% to 5.1%. That is the same peak level they had projected in December.

The latest rate hike suggests that Chair Jerome Powell is confident that the Fed can manage a dual challenge: Cool still-high inflation through higher loan rates while defusing the financial upheaval in the banking sector through emergency lending programs and the Biden administration’s decision to cover uninsured deposits at two failed U.S. banks.

The Fed’s decision to signal that the end of its rate-hike campaign is in sight may also soothe financial markets as they continue to digest the consequences of U.S. banking turmoil and the takeover last weekend of Swiss bank Credit Suisse by its larger rival.

The Fed’s benchmark short-term rate has now reached its highest level in 16 years. The new level will likely lead to higher costs for many loans, from mortgages and auto purchases to credit cards and corporate borrowing. The succession of Fed rate hikes have also heightened the risk of a recession.

The Fed’s latest decision, after a two-day policy meeting, reflects an abrupt shift. Early this month, Powell had told a Senate panel that the Fed was considering raising its rate by a substantial half-point. At the time, hiring and consumer spending had strengthened more than expected, and inflation data had been revised higher.

In its statement, the Fed included some language that indicated that its fight against inflation is still far from complete. It said that hiring is “running at a robust pace” and noted that “inflation remains elevated.” It removed the phrase, “inflation has eased somewhat,” which it had included in its statement in February.

The troubles that suddenly erupted in the banking sector two weeks ago likely led to the Fed’s decision Wednesday to impose a smaller rate hike. Some economists have cautioned that even a modest quarter-point rise in the Fed’s key rate, on top of its previous hikes, could imperil weaker banks whose nervous customers may decide to withdraw significant deposits.

Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank were both brought down, indirectly, by higher rates, which pummeled the value of the Treasurys and other bonds they owned. As anxious depositors withdrew their money en masse, the banks had to sell the bonds at a loss to pay the depositors. They were unable to raise enough cash to do so.

After the fall of the two banks, the Swiss bank Credit Suisse was taken over by its larger rival UBS last weekend. Another struggling bank, First Republic, has received large deposits from its rivals in a show of support, though its share price plunged Monday before stabilizing.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Federal Reserve is grappling with a hazier economic picture, clouded by turmoil in the banking industry and still-high inflation, just as it meets to decide whether to keep raising interest rates or declare a pause.

Most Fed watchers expect the central bank to announce on Wednesday afternoon a relatively modest quarter-point hike in its benchmark rate, its ninth increase since March of last year. Yet for the first time in recent memory, there remains some uncertainty about what the Fed will announce when it issues its policy statement at 2 p.m. Eastern time.

The central bank will not only have to decide whether to extend its year-long streak of rate hikes despite the jitters roiling the financial industry. The Fed’s policymakers will also try to peer into the future and forecast the likely path of growth, employment, inflation and their own interest rates.

Those forecasts will be particularly difficult this time. In their most recent forecasts in December, Fed officials projected that they would raise their short-term rate to about 5.1% by the end of this year, roughly a half-point above the current level. Some Fed watchers expect the policymakers on Wednesday to raise that forecast to 5.3%.

But the upheaval in the banking industry has made any expectations far less certain. The Fed is meeting less than two weeks after Silicon Valley Bank failed in the second-largest bank collapse in American history. That shock was followed by the failure of another major bank, Signature Bank. A third, First Republic Bank, was saved from collapse by a $30 billion cash infusion.

Given the heightened uncertainties overhanging the financial system, there’s a small chance that the Fed could decide not to issue its usual quarterly projections. Three years ago, when the pandemic struck, the Fed moved up a scheduled policy meeting to a Sunday, rather than on Tuesday and Wednesday, to urgently address the economic anxieties caused by new pandemic restrictions. After that meeting, the Fed didn’t release any quarterly projections.

At the time, Powell said that issuing economic and interest rate forecasts, when the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic were so unclear, “could have been more of an obstacle to clear communication than a help.” Still, the unusual decision then was as much a reflection of the chaos of the early pandemic as it was of the uncertain outlook.

If the Fed does raise its key rate by a quarter-point on Wednesday, it would reach roughly 4.9%, the highest point in nearly 16 years. Early this month, Powell had said in congressional testimony that a half-point rate increase would be possible at this week’s meeting. The banking crisis has suddenly upended that outlook.

It will be a tough call for the 11 Fed officials who will vote on the rate decision. With hiring still strong, consumers still spending and inflation still elevated, a rate hike would normally be a straightforward move.

Not this time. The Fed is expected to treat inflation and financial turmoil as two separate problems, to be managed simultaneously by separate tools: Higher rates to address inflation and greater Fed lending to banks to calm financial turmoil.

Complicating matters will be the difficulty in determining the impact on the economy of the collapse of Silicon Valley and Signature. The Fed, Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., and Treasury Department agreed to insure all the deposits at those banks, including those above the $250,000 cap. The Fed also created a new lending program to ensure that banks can access cash to repay depositors, if needed.

But economists warn that many mid-sized and small banks, in order to conserve capital, will likely become more cautious in their lending. A tightening of bank credit could, in turn, reduce business spending on new software, equipment and buildings. It could also make it harder for consumers to obtain auto or other loans.

Some economists worry that such a slowdown in lending could be enough to tip the economy into recession. Wall Street traders are betting that a weaker economy will force the Fed to start cutting rates this summer. Futures markets have priced in three quarter-point cuts by the end of the year.

The Fed would likely welcome slower growth, which would help cool inflation. But few economists are sure what the effects would be of a pullback in bank lending.

Other major central banks are also seeking to tame high inflation without worsening the financial instability caused by the two U.S. bank collapses and a hasty sale of the troubled Swiss bank Credit Suisse to its rival UBS.

Even with the anxieties surrounding the global banking system, the Bank of England faces pressure to approve an 11th straight rate hike Thursday with annual inflation having reached 10.4%.

And the European Central Bank, saying Europe’s banking sector was resilient, last week raised its benchmark rate by a half point to combat inflation of 8.5%. At the same time, the ECB president, Christine Lagarde, has shifted to an open-ended stance regarding further increases. In light of uncertainties, she said, “we are neither committed to raise further nor are we finished with hiking rates.”

In the United States, most recent data still points to a solid economy and rampant hiring. Employers added a robust 311,000 jobs in February, the government said earlier this month. And while the unemployment rate rose, from 3.4% to a still-low 3.6%, that mostly reflected an influx of new job-seekers who were not immediately hired.

Consumer spending was robust in January, fueled in part by a large cost-of-living adjustment for 70 million recipients of Social Security and other benefits. The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta projects that the economy will have expanded at a healthy annual rate of 3.2% in the first three months of this year.

The Canadian Press – Mar 22, 2023 / 11:16 am | Story: 417373

The Bank of Canada says it’s still concerned inflation might be harder to bring down than expected, noting the economy is still in excess demand.

On Wednesday, the central bank published a summary on the governing council’s deliberations ahead of its decision to hold its key interest rate steady on March 8.

The members of the governing council, which include governor TIff Macklem and his deputies, were encouraged to see the economy and inflation both slowing, supporting their decision to hold the key interest rate steady at 4.5 per cent.

However, the governing council remained concerned about the risk of inflation getting stuck above two per cent and agreed that supply was still outstripping demand in the economy.

In the fourth quarter, the Canadian economy posted no growth as the accumulation of business inventories slowed.

“With inventories adjusting earlier than anticipated, governing council concluded that growth in early 2023 may be a bit stronger than the bank had forecast,” the summary said.

Ahead of the federal and provincial governments rolling out their budgets, the governing council also discussed the risk of elevated government spending further fueling demand in the economy.

Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland has pledged that her March 28 budget will be fiscally restrained, noting that the federal government doesn’t want to make the Bank of Canada’s job of fighting inflation harder.

The central bank said it will incorporate the fiscal plans of both levels of government into its updated projections to be released in the next monetary policy report.

The Bank of Canada will release the report along with its next interest rate decision on April 12.

Economists widely expect the central bank to continue holding its key interest rate steady.

The latest consumer price index report showed inflation slowed further in February, with the annual rate falling to 5.2 per cent.

However, an ongoing concern for the Bank of Canada is the tight labour market and strong wage growth.

The unemployment rate continues to hover near record lows, while average hourly wages have been increasing at an annual rate of four to five per cent.

The Bank of Canada notes in its summary of deliberations that the governing council continues to believe that the pace of wage growth will make it harder to get inflation back to its two per cent target, given wage growth isn’t accompanied with productivity growth.

The Canadian Press – Mar 22, 2023 / 7:05 am | Story: 417326

U.K. inflation accelerated for the first time in four months in February as high food and energy prices hit consumers battered by the nation’s cost-of-living crisis.

The consumer price index jumped to 10.4% in the 12 months through February from 10.1% the previous month, the Office for National Statistics said Wednesday. The figures surprised analysts who had forecast inflation would slow to 9.9%.

The figures increased pressure on the Bank of England to approve an 11th consecutive interest rate increase when it meets on Thursday, regardless of concerns about the economic impact of strains on the global banking system. Many economists now expect the central bank to boost its key bank rate by at least a quarter percentage point.

“In recent days, some have suggested that the febrile environment in the banking sector should give central banks pause for thought before raising rates further,” said Kitty Ussher, chief economist at the Institute of Directors, a business lobby. “Today’s data suggests the opposite — the Bank of England’s job is not yet done.”

Bank of England policymakers have struggled to contain the fallout from Russia’s war in Ukraine, which drove up the cost of food and energy. Those pressures have in turn fueled broader price increases and demands for higher wages.

The inflation report highlights the pressures faced by British consumers who spent the winter with one eye on their thermostats and the other watching the steady rise of prices for staples such as milk, eggs and vegetables as the nation’s cost-of-living crisis triggered the biggest decline in living standards since the 1950s.

“February’s surprise increase in inflation will raise more concerns for households whose budgets are already stretched to their limits,” said George Dibb of the Institute for Public Policy Research, a progressive think tank. “With some of the biggest contributions to rising prices coming from essentials like food, drinks and clothing, most households will find that their pay packet doesn’t stretch as far.”

Food prices jumped 18% in the 12 months through February, compared with the 16.7% rate recorded the previous month.

Even after government subsidies designed to shield consumers from the jump in global energy prices, the average household bill for electricity and natural gas rose 27% last year.

Economists expect inflation to slow rapidly later this year as recent declines in wholesale energy prices feed through to consumers and last year’s big price increases drop out of the calculations.

The Bank of England forecast inflation will drop to 2.9% by the end of this year.

But U.K. Treasury chief Jeremy Hunt warned that more work is needed to head off further price increases.

“Falling inflation isn’t inevitable, so we need to stick to our plan,” he said.

James McCarten, The Canadian Press – Mar 22, 2023 / 6:50 am | Story: 417323

A high-tech industry coalition in the United States is urging President Joe Biden to take a hard line against Canada’s approach to digital services. 

The group says the proposed digital services tax unfairly targets U.S. companies and is offside with international efforts to establish a global standard. 

In a letter to Biden, they also complain about two controversial federal bills: the Online Streaming Act, known as Bill C-11, and the Online News Act, or Bill C-18.

They warn C-11, which is meant to protect Canadian content providers, could backfire and ultimately increase costs to consumers. 

And they fear the Online News Act, which would compensate Canadian news organizations and broadcasters, could violate the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement. 

Biden is meeting Prime Minister Justin Trudeau later this week as part of his first visit to Canada since taking over the White House in 2021. 

“We are concerned that Canada is pursuing a number of problematic proposals and actions that could significantly limit the ability of U.S. companies to export their goods and services and fairly compete in the Canadian market,” the letter reads. 

“It is critical for the United States to hold Canada accountable to its USMCA commitments to ensure the continued success of this important agreement.” 

The letter is signed by 10 different associations in the digital services space, including the Computer and Communications Industry Association, the Information Technology Industry Council and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. 

First and foremost in their sights is Canada’s “discriminatory and retroactive” digital services tax, which the group estimates would collect US$4 billion over five years, primarily from U.S. companies. 

The tax, designed to ensure tech giants pay their fair share of taxes in countries where they earn revenue without a physical presence, would only take effect next year if a new multilateral tax framework doesn’t take shape by then.

Canada has endorsed that so-called “inclusive framework,” established under the auspices of the G20 and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. 

“Canada’s pursuit of a DST would set a harmful precedent for other inclusive framework participants to adopt similarly targeted taxes on U.S. digital services.” 

Precedent elsewhere is also a concern with the Online Streaming Act, which the associations say smacks of an effort to impose on the internet a regulatory scheme designed for the “traditionally restricted world of broadcasting.”

If passed, the bill “could have disastrous consequences for content production and distribution and could inspire other countries to implement similar content-preference schemes.”

And they say the Online News Act, which is already fuelling mounting tensions between the federal government and tech giants like Google and Meta, appears to exclude digital companies from outside the U.S., a violation of the terms of North America’s trilateral trade agreement.

“It is critical for the United States government to hold Canada to its trade commitments and to underscore the negative global precedent that would be set if Canada implements these measures in their current form.”

The Associated Press – Mar 22, 2023 / 6:43 am | Story: 417321

TikTok’s CEO plans to tell Congress that the video-sharing app is committed to user safety, data protection and security, and keeping the platform free from Chinese government influence.

Shou Zi Chew is due to answer questions Thursday from U.S. lawmakers concerned about the social media platform’s effects on its young user base and possible national security risks posed by the popular app, which was founded by Chinese entrepreneurs.

Chew is sticking to a familiar script as he urges officials against pursuing an all-out ban on TikTok or for the company to be sold off to new owners.

TikTok’s efforts to ensure the security of its users’ data, including a $1.5 billion project to store the information on Oracle servers in the U.S. and allow outside monitors to inspect its source code, go “above and beyond” what any of its rivals are doing, according to Chew’s prepared remarks released ahead of his appearance before the U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce.

“No other social media company, or entertainment platform like TikTok, provides this level of access and transparency,” he said.

Chew pushed back against fears that TikTok could become a tool of China’s ruling Communist Party because its parent company, ByteDance, is based in Beijing.

“Let me state this unequivocally: ByteDance is not an agent of China or any other country,” Chew said.

He distanced TikTok from its Chinese roots and denied the “inaccurate” belief that TikTok’s corporate structure makes it “beholden to the Chinese government.” ByteDance has evolved into a privately held “global enterprise,” Chew said, with 60% owned by big institutional investors, 20% owned by the Chinese entrepreneurs who founded it and the rest by employees.

It’s “emphatically untrue” that TikTok sends data on its American users to Beijing, he said.

“TikTok has never shared, or received a request to share, U.S. user data with the Chinese government,” Chew said. “Nor would TikTok honor such a request if one were ever made.”

TikTok has come under fire in the U.S., Europe and Asia-Pacific, where a growing number of governments have banned the app from devices used for official business over worries it poses risks to cybersecurity and data privacy or could be used to push pro-Beijing narratives and misinformation.

Chew, a 40-year-old Singaporean who was appointed CEO in 2021, said in a TikTok video this week that the congressional hearing comes at a “pivotal moment” for the company, which now has 150 million American users.

U.S. regulators have reportedly threatened to ban TikTok unless the Chinese owners sell their stake. Lawmakers have introduced measures that would expand the Biden administration’s authority to enact a national ban and called for “structural restrictions” between TikTok’s American operations and ByteDance, including potentially separating the companies.

Chew said TikTok’s data security project, dubbed Project Texas, is the right answer, not a ban or a sale of the company.

The company started deleting the historical protected data of U.S. users from non-Oracle servers this month, Chew said. When that process is completed later this year, all U.S. data will be protected by American law and controlled by a U.S.-led security team.

“Under this structure, there is no way for the Chinese government to access it or compel access to it,” he said.

He said a TikTok ban would hurt the U.S. economy and small American businesses that use the app to sell their products, while reducing competition in an “increasingly concentrated market.” He added that a sale “would not impose any new restrictions on data flows or access.”

The Canadian Press – Mar 22, 2023 / 6:37 am | Story: 417317

With two kids under the age of six living in a two-bedroom, one-bathroom household, Jacquelin Forsey and her husband have long known it would only be a matter of time before their family outgrew their beloved home.

Long hours in the small space while Forsey was pregnant and toiling away from home during the COVID-19 pandemic, along with a visit to a neighbour who was selling their “beautiful” place that was “the perfect size,” convinced the couple to start their new home hunt recently.

“If there was any way to make this place bigger, we would never leave,” said Forsey, a PhD student, of the home her family owns in the Leslieville area of Toronto.

“We love it. We love the neighbourhood, we love our house, but we just can’t all be in this tiny house forever.”

The couple has spent recent months scouring listings and put in at least one failed bid, but Forsey has her fingers crossed that their fortunes will change this spring as economists and brokers predict activity to return to Canada’s housing market.

The market has been sluggish since last year, when prospective buyers started putting off plans to purchase homes as the Bank of Canada aggressively hiked interest rates eight consecutive times.

The quick succession of increases eroded buying power as borrowing costs rose and sent prices falling, discouraging sellers from listing their homes.

With Canadian Real Estate Association data showing average prices have dropped 19 per cent from their February peak of $816,578 to $662,437 last month and BMO Capital Markets’ chief economist predicting they will bottom out after falling 20 to 25 per cent, realtors see many edging toward a purchase once more.

“We got a flood of buyers in January, in February and we still are getting more and more and we started seeing multiple offers return and bully offers return,” said Michelle Gilbert, a Toronto broker with Sage Real Estate Ltd.

“We’ve started getting calls where buyers are just like ‘I think I’ll just adjust what I want, but I don’t want to miss my opportunity.”

These clients are a mix of people who have to move because they are relocating for work or growing their families and also first-time homebuyers keen to not let lower prices pass them by. 

Many first-time buyers are finding it harder to qualify for mortgages, but still want to make a purchase, so they are compensating by adjusting their expectations, said Gilbert.

“Maybe they can’t get the square footage they thought they could get because they can’t qualify for as much but they still really want to get a good deal,” she said.

Over in Vancouver, Coldwell Banker Prestige Realty agent Tirajeh Mazaheri has also seen a resurgence in buyers.

Weeks after the Bank of Canada signalled further interest rate hikes were unlikely, she said properties started selling quickly and with multiple offers.

She spotted a condo listed for $699,000 garner 11 offers and a house listed for $2.8 million snag five bids last month.

Others aren’t wading into the market just yet but are preparing to do so soon.

“Everyone who wasn’t pre-approved is getting themselves pre-approved because people want to jump on buying something because they’re worried that prices are going to start going way too high again,” said Mazaheri.

Despite such sentiment, she doesn’t see the market returning to the frenzied pace of 2021, largely because of the lack of properties available.

February’s new listings totalled 51,366, down 26 per cent from a year ago, the Canadian Real Estate Association recently revealed. On a seasonally-adjusted basis, they hit 57,535, down nearly eight per cent from January.

“A lot of sellers are beginning to want to list, but most of them, I am noticing, are a little bit cautious,” Mazaheri said.

“They’re noticing the shift in the market as well and they want to get top dollar for their property, so they’re thinking maybe let’s wait until the spring or the summer.”

For Forsey, there is no rush to buy a home, but she admits the pause on interest rates is giving her family some confidence in its decision to look for a new place.

While her engineer husband has been crafting spreadsheets calculating what they can afford, their amortization and the effects of potential interest rates, she said they’ve accepted “that we can’t time the market and we just have to do the best we can do and what we’re comfortable with and then hope it works out.”

“We can stay here until the right opportunity comes and we don’t have to rush out and we don’t have to make a rash decision,” she said. 

“And if it doesn’t work out for a long time for us, that’s OK because what we’ve got is pretty great.”

The Canadian Press – Mar 21, 2023 / 9:23 am | Story: 417151

Food inflation appears to be easing in Canada, but experts say shoppers shouldn’t expect lower prices at the grocery store.

Statistics Canada says the cost of groceries in February rose 10.6 per cent compared with a year before, down from an 11.4 per cent year-over-year increase in January.

Yet a falling food inflation rate doesn’t mean the price of food is coming down.

Instead, it means prices are rising less quickly, signalling the worst of the era of grocery price hikes could be behind us.

Sylvain Charlebois, director of the Agri-Food Analytics Lab at Dalhousie University, says the food inflation rate is expected to continue to cool throughout the spring and into summer.

But he says Canadians may still experience sticker shock at the grocery store as some food prices are still significantly higher than a year ago.

The Canadian Press – Mar 21, 2023 / 9:11 am | Story: 417146

Alejandra Laria Aleaga was thrilled to see a job offer pop into her inbox in October 2021.

At the time, she was in her final year of college and actively seeking opportunities at video game companies and animation studios after completing her illustration degree.

“Me being a student with student debt and sort of desperate to find a job and make sure that I had a job after I graduated, I got really excited and I was like, ‘Oh wow, a video game company is asking me to work for them,’” Laria Aleaga recalled.

The email, which didn’t land in her spam folder, seemed to be from a reputable video game company in the United States and mentioned that the company found her through a portfolio website where up-and-coming artists share their creations in order to find work, she said.

Laria Aleaga said she then proceeded to engage in what appeared to be a legitimate hiring process, which involved an interview over text messages, signing a contract and purchasing gift cards to buy equipment she was told she needed for the new job from a manufacturer online with the promise that she would be reimbursed.

But it was all too good to be true, said the young professional living in Kingston, Ont., and she ended up losing $3,000.

“It made me feel really frustrated and just really, really stressed out,” she said.

While young Canadians may feel immune to financial fraud, a recent survey by the Chartered Professional Accountants of Canada says they are the most at risk, with 63 per cent of those aged 18 to 34 reporting being a victim of at least one type of financial fraud in their lifetime — higher than any other demographic.

And with financial fraud on the rise, experts say it’s crucial for young Canadians to remain cautious in order to avoid losing hundreds — if not thousands — of dollars.

“Always be vigilant and pay attention to the activity you’re conducting and vigilant of the requests coming your way. And these requests can come through phone calls, SMS, even on social media,” said Mohamed Manji, vice president of Canadian Fraud Management at TD.

Amid the rising costs of living, Manji said fraudsters are preying on the vulnerability of Canadians who are simply trying to make ends meet.

In 2022, the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre said it received fraud and cybercrime reports totalling a staggering $530 million in victim losses, nearly a 40 per cent increase from the year before.

To protect yourself from financial fraud, Manji recommends keeping your pin numbers and passwords both private and strong, not opening links from sources you don’t recognize and reviewing your financial transactions regularly to monitor for any suspicious activity.

Most importantly, he encourages people to become better informed of the types of financial fraud that exist such as credit card fraud, email or phishing fraud and debit card fraud.

“Take the time to learn about the common types of scams and how to protect yourself,” said Manji.

“In addition, whenever you conduct financial transactions, you should be sure to know who you’re dealing with and ask probing questions. Take a step back and ask yourself if you notice any red flags, if you’re being pressured, if someone is asking you to lie. If the answer is yes to any of these, chances are it could be a scam.”

Garth Sheriff, a financial literacy volunteer with CPA Canada and founder of Sheriff Consulting, said it’s important to ensure the websites that you enter your personal information into are secure — starting with “https” and featuring a lock symbol — and that you take a moment to ask yourself what information you’re being asked to provide and whether it’s necessary.

“Usually, those couple of diagnostic steps may stop you from entering information into potentially a fraudulent website or an email or an app,” he said.

However, if you fall victim to financial fraud, Sheriff said you shouldn’t be ashamed. He suggests changing your passwords and reporting it to your financial institution, the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre, police, as well as people you know to help prevent them from becoming a victim, too.

“A lot of this is also making sure we spread the word about it,” said Sheriff.

“So just make sure you know where to go when it happens and that we keep everyone else aware of what’s happening.”

In hindsight, Laria Aleaga said there were some red flags that she wished she noticed from the fake job offer she received.

She said the experience taught her to be wary of email job offers, always do research on companies that reach out unprompted, create strong passwords, frequently check her bank statements, and ask several questions before sharing personal information.

Her advice to other young Canadians is to take similar protective measures.

“Especially if people are really adamant and forcing you to make a purchase or something of that sort, be aware of that,” she said.

“We always think it’s seniors who are the ones that are the victims of financial fraud, but I guess as scammers are getting more sophisticated, everyone is basically at risk of it — everyone is fair game.”

The Canadian Press – Mar 21, 2023 / 9:09 am | Story: 417145

BlackBerry Ltd. has signed a deal to sell a portfolio of what it says are non-core patents related to mobile devices, messaging and wireless networking in an agreement that could be worth up to US$900 million.

The company says Malikie Innovations Ltd., a newly formed subsidiary of Key Patent Innovations Ltd., will pay US$170 million in cash up front and an additional US$30 million in cash by no later than the third anniversary of closing the deal. 

BlackBerry will also receive annual cash royalties from the profits generated from the patents that will initially be capped at US$700 million. The cap is subject to an annual increase of an amount equal to four per cent of the remaining portion of the US$700 million that has not been paid to BlackBerry as of the date of the increase. 

BlackBerry has transformed itself from a smartphone company to one focused on security software and services.

The portfolio being sold includes about 32,000 patents and applications relating primarily to mobile devices, messaging and wireless networking.

The deal comes after a previously announced patent portfolio sale to Catapult IP Innovations Inc. failed to close after Catapult was unable to secure the required financing

The Associated Press – Mar 21, 2023 / 9:08 am | Story: 417144

U.S. auto safety regulators are investigating complaints from Honda Civic drivers that their steering can stick, causing a momentary increase in effort and increasing the risk of a crash.

The probe by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration covers an estimated 238,000 Civics from the 2022 and 2023 model years.

The agency says it has 145 complaints about the problem, which happens mostly at highway speeds. The complaints came over the past 11 months and occurred mostly on vehicles with low miles.

An increase in steering effort can cause an overreaction or inability to avoid a road hazard, the agency said in documents posted Tuesday on its website.

NHTSA has no reports of crashes or injuries from the problem.

The agency will determine how many vehicles are affected and how severe the problem is. A recall is possible.

Honda said that it will cooperate with the investigation, which is in its early stages and may not lead to a recall. The company also is doing an internal review.

The company says most of the Civics should be under warranty, and that if any owner feels something is not right, they should contact their dealer.