The Bank of Canada said in a statement on Wednesday that it has decided to maintain the target overnight rate of 0.25 percent
TORONTO (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 04th June, 2020) The Bank of Canada said in a statement on Wednesday that it has decided to maintain the target overnight rate of 0.25 percent.
"The Bank of Canada today maintained its target for the overnight rate at 0.25 percent, which the Bank considers its effective lower bound," the statement said. "The Bank Rate is correspondingly 0.5 percent and the deposit rate is 0.25 percent."
Canada's central bank said it is scaling back certain market operations, including reducing the frequency of its term repossession operations to once per week as market conditions improve following of the peak of the coronavirus-induced uncertainty.
In March, Bank of Canada announced three consecutive rate cuts in the span of a month that saw the overnight rate drop from 1.75 percent to its effective lower bound as Canada is trying to mitigate the effects of the fiscal crisis caused by the measures imposed to fight novel coronavirus pandemic.
The Toronto Stock Exchange went to into bear market territory dropping by almost 38 percent since the February 21 high in a span of a month. Since bottoming out on March 23, it reversed some of the loss rising by 39 percent, although is still down by more than 13 percent since the February high.
