Traders now banking on back-to-back jumbo rate hikes in Canada

The Bank of Canada will likely deliver a repeat of last week’s jumbo rate hike at its next policy decision, according to market pricing.

The Bank of Canada will likely deliver a repeat of last week’s jumbo rate hike at its next policy decision, according to market pricing.  

Trading in overnight swaps show investors are now fully pricing in a second 50-basis-point increase at the central bank’s June 1 meeting. Odds for the second outsized rate hike next month rose to 100 per cent on Wednesday for the first time, after annual inflation blew past expectations.

Markets are now in line with a majority of Canada’s lenders. Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce and Laurentian Bank of Canada switched their calls to a 50 basis point hike after the inflation report. Toronto-Dominion Bank, Bank of Nova Scotia and Bank of Montreal were already predicting an outsized rate increase in June.

“We think the Bank of Canada will be concerned that inflation continues to surprise to the upside of their forecasts,” Andrew Grantham, an economist with CIBC, said by email. “They’ll want to make sure that these strong inflation readings don’t start to impact longer-run inflation expectations.”

Statistics Canada reported Wednesday that inflation rose to 6.7 per cent in March, the highest since January 1991. Economists were anticipating inflation would hit 6.1 per cent.

Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem increased the benchmark overnight interest rate by 50 basis points to 1 per cent last week, and reiterated he would “act forcefully” to wrestle inflation back to the central bank’s 2 per cent target.