The Myplace Playbook // 069

Hey Everyone,

Six weeks ago I told you markets were pricing a 3% chance of a rate cut at the June 10 decision.

Yesterday the Bank of Canada announced.

No cut. The overnight rate stays at 2.25%, prime stays at 4.45%. That's five holds in a row.

I'm not here to say I told you so. I didn't predict anything. The market did, and I just passed it along. But I did promise that when the answer came, you'd get it straight. So here it is.

Strip away the central-bank language and the June statement comes down to two things.

One: the economy is soft and trade uncertainty with the US is still hanging over everything. That's the part that argues for cuts.

Two: oil is still elevated because of the war in the Middle East, and the Bank said directly that it won't let higher energy prices turn into persistent inflation. That's the part that blocks them.

Those two things pull in opposite directions, so the Bank did what it's been doing all year. Nothing.

The forecasts have shifted to match. RBC now expects the Bank to hold for the rest of 2026 and start hiking moderately in 2027. Hiking. Not cutting. One Scotiabank economist described the June statement as a placeholder.

Nobody serious is penciling in a cut this year anymore. If your plan needs one, your plan needs a rewrite.

This is a question I get all the time, and it's the most useful thing in this edition.

"If the Bank hasn't moved since October, why did my fixed rate quote change?"

Because fixed mortgage rates don't follow the Bank of Canada.

The overnight rate, the one announced eight times a year, drives prime. Prime drives variable mortgages and lines of credit. If you're in a variable, yesterday's announcement matters to you directly, and the answer is your rate didn't move.

Fixed rates are a different animal. They follow the bond market, mostly the 5-year Government of Canada bond yield. Lenders fund fixed mortgages against bonds, so when bond yields move, fixed rates follow within days.

And bond yields don't wait for announcements. They move every day, on inflation data, on oil prices, on war headlines, on what investors think happens next. That's why fixed rates climbed this spring while the Bank sat still through five straight announcements. The Bank did nothing. The bond market did plenty.

So if your strategy has been watching Bank of Canada announcement dates and waiting for a green light, you've been watching the wrong screen. The screen that matters moves every single day, and lately it moves on oil tankers, not Ottawa press conferences.

It's the second week of June. The lakes are warming up, listings are moving, and the summer crowd we talked about back in April is here now, walking through houses and writing offers.

Here's what I keep noticing. The people shopping with confidence right now are mostly the ones who got pre-approved in March and April. They have rate holds in their pocket. June 10 was a non-event for them. They already knew their number, and yesterday changed nothing about it.

The people still waiting for a cut just spent another six weeks of peak season on the bench. And the next decision isn't until July 15.

If you're buying or renewing in the next 120 days, a rate hold is still the easiest hedge in the business.

You lock today's rate. If rates drop before you close, you take the lower one. If oil keeps inflation hot and rates firm up instead, which is the more realistic risk right now, you're protected.

It costs nothing. Most people still don't use it.

Back in April, a bunch of you finished my sentence with "I'll buy when rates come down."

This is me following up. The rates didn't come down. Five holds. The big banks have stopped forecasting cuts this year.

So the question changes. It's not "when do rates come down" anymore. It's "do the numbers work at today's rate?" And most of the people carrying that question around have never actually run it.

Hit reply. Tell me you were one of the waiting-for-rates crowd, roughly what you earn, and what you've got saved. I'll run your number at today's rate.

Twenty minutes of looking beats another six weeks of waiting.

You might find out the plan you've been postponing already works.

-Andrew