Price cuts return, carbon credit under scrutiny and why the BoC cut interest rates: Must-read business and investing stories

Getting caught up on a week that got away? Here’s your weekly digest of the Globe’s most essential business and investing stories, with insights and analysis from the pros, stock tips, portfolio strategies and more.

The return of discounts: Price cuts are the latest sign of fading inflation

After the worst inflation in four decades, Canadians are experiencing something that has been exceptionally rare in recent years: price cuts. In April, around one-third of the goods and services that make up the Consumer Price Index dropped in price on a year-over-year basis, according to a Desjardins Securities analysis of Statistics Canada data. While this doesn’t mean prices are heading back to where they were before the inflation surge, it’s the highest proportion of declining prices we’ve seen since January, 2021. Matt Lundy looks at the one-year and five-year price change on five key household expenses.

A huge B.C. carbon credit project is under scrutiny

As the broader carbon market grapples with a crisis of confidence, the credibility of a carbon credit program in B.C. is being questioned, Wendy Stueck reports. For more than a century, the forests of Vancouver Island had been the economic backbone of the region. In 2022, one of the biggest of those companies, Mosaic Forest Management Corp. flipped that model on its head, saying it would defer logging on 40,000 hectares of its land throughout coastal B.C. for at least 25 years. Instead of logging those sites, Mosaic said, it would package the carbon stored in those trees into nature-based carbon credits, to be sold to customers looking for ways to offset their own greenhouse gas emissions. But this past February, Renoster Systems Inc., a carbon-credit-ratings agency based in Austin, Tex., gave the project a failing grade.

Investors hate the Canadian dollar

Investors are betting against the Canadian dollar in a big way. Short positions on the loonie have grown to record levels, according to data from the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission. This means investors are looking to profit off a decline in the value of the loonie, relative to the U.S. dollar. The Canadian dollar has stumbled by around 3 per cent this year and trades at roughly 73 US cents. Matt Lundy takes a closer look at the figures in this week’s Decoder.

Bank of Canada considered holding off interest rate cuts until July, summary says

On June 5, the central bank cut its policy rate to 4.75 per cent from 5 per cent, the first cut in four years and the start of a long-awaited monetary policy easing cycle. The summary of deliberations that informed the Bank of Canada’s latest rate decision showed the council considered holding off interest-rate cuts until July, but were persuaded to move earlier this month by a string of encouraging inflation reports and economic signposts suggesting that price pressures will continue easing, Mark Rendell reports.

Fidelity Canada receives approval to launch wealth-management dealer, plans to recruit advisers

One of Canada’s largest asset managers, Fidelity Investments Canada ULC, announced this week the launch of Fidelity Wealth, a dual-licensed investment dealer that has been approved by the Canadian Investment Regulatory Organization to sell both securities and mutual-fund investment products. The move is a major shift for the company, Clare O’Hara reports, and will create a new independent competitor in the Canadian market for financial advice where the big banks are dominant players.

Indigenous groups in Washington and Alaska want the right to consult on B.C. mining projects

Native Americans in Washington and Alaska who want status as aboriginal peoples of Canada are considering legal action against the government of British Columbia, after the province said it would create a consultation process on mining and industrial projects for U.S.-based groups that is separate from that held with Canadian groups. A letter sent earlier this year from the B.C. Environmental Assessment Office confirmed that B.C. intends to give U.S.-based groups a voice in the development of projects on Canadian soil, such as a current proposal to expand the Roberts Bank marine container terminal near Vancouver and mines in the province’s mountainous northwest corner. But the Lummi in Washington State, and the Alaska tribes under the SEITC, argue that is not enough. They believe their peoples’ historic use of territory that is now Canada entitles them to be consulted in the same way as Canadian Indigenous groups, Nathan VanderKlippe reports.