Plus: other stories from Q3. October 2, 2023 Sign Up | View Online IN THIS ISSUE 7 min read Welcome to TLDR’s guide to what happened (and why and how) in the third quarter of 2023. We hope it’s a handy way to catch up. Rest assured that the FOMO Index will be back next week. — The Editors Q3 IN NUMBERS Jul. 1 — Sept. 30 TSX: -3% (+0.8% YTD) S&P 500: -3.6% (+11.7% YTD) BoC rate hikes in Q3: 0 Canada’s Aug. inflation rate: +4% (up from 3.3% in July) Grocery prices YoY: +6.8% Five-year-fixed mortgage rate: ~5.5% (up from 1.6% two years ago) Change in Canadian mortgage interest costs YoY: +30.6% Canadians who say they can’t pay all their bills: 35% Sources: Bloomberg, Bank of Canada, CBC, Trading Economics, RateHub, StatCan, MNP. THE BIG IMPORTANT STORY GUESSWORK How 2023 Cracked Wall Street’s Crystal Ball By Kyla Scanlon TLDR asked Kyla Scanlon — a writer, video creator, and podcaster (surely you’ve seen her financial explainers on social media, right?) — to unpack why pro investors guessed all wrong about what would happen this year. | Melanie Lambrick Imagine you have a crystal ball that can glimpse the future. Now imagine that crystal ball rolls down a hill, hits some rocks, splashes into a river, pops out over a waterfall, and magically rolls back to your feet. The crystal ball might still work, sure, but it’ll probably be damaged and everything inside will look murky. That’s not unlike what happened this year in markets. Surging oil prices, wildfires, a China slowdown, economic storm clouds retreating and reappearing: these unforeseen events clouded Wall Street’s and Bay Street’s yearly forecasts. And, as a result, nearly everything that professional investors expected at the beginning of the year — a recession! layoffs! — hasn’t come to pass; that, or the complete opposite thing has happened. The bad predictions began in January and have continued into autumn, with stocks unexpectedly sliding in recent weeks and inflation worries resurgent. So, why have pro investors been so wrong? Some of their biggest missed predictions help answer that question: PREDICTION: People Would Stop Spending, Causing a Recession What happened: If you raise interest rates a lot, as central banks did in 2022 to battle inflation — making it much more expensive to borrow money and simply to be alive — people will stop buying stuff and the economy will slide into a recession, right? That’s what pro investors assumed heading into 2023; economists put the odds of a recession at 60% for Canada and 70% for the U.S. And no wonder. Mortgage rates were near 5%! Excess savings from COVID-19 were being rapidly depleted! But what actually happened was that Canadians and Americans kept spending money — a lot of it — on TSwift tickets, on travel, on entertainment, on everything. PREDICTION: There Would Be Mass Layoffs What happened: In January, Wall Street was convinced that unemployment would shoot up if consumers stopped spending money, which would further dampen economic growth, creating a negative feedback loop of increasingly soft demand and more pink slips. But, partly since spending stayed strong, the labour market boomed. The job market was so tight that employers boosted pay to fill openings, and real wages finally rose. In fact, jobs were so plentiful that workers felt comfortable enough to demand better pay and working conditions, sparking a series of high-profile strikes — a sign, in their own way, of labour-market strength. PREDICTION: Inflation Would Stay High/Inflation Would Keep Falling What happened: Adding to the economic tailwinds, inflation fell far faster than expected, sliding from a high of 8.1% in 2022 to 2.8% in June. Some economists argued that this so-called immaculate disinflation stemmed not from rate hikes but from an increase in the supply of goods. Either way, the BoC and the Fed shrugged their shoulders and said, “Okay, good job then, everyone,” and paused their painful rate-hike path and said there wouldn’t be a recession after all. So investors changed their forecasts, predicting that central banks would cut interest rates, perhaps as early as December of this year. Wrong again: last month, inflation surprised everyone, coming in hotter than expected. So investors revised their forecasts again, betting the first rate cut would come well into 2024 (if it comes next year at all). PREDICTION: Stocks Would Tumble … or Go to the Moon? What happened: All the good news we got this summer fuelled an unexpected stock rally. The S&P 500 surged by 8.7% in June and July, while the TSX popped about 5%. Nvidia shares soared by 25% in a single day! But stocks didn’t shoot all the way to the moon as many investors hoped. That’s because if rates do, in fact, stay higher for longer, that will weigh on stocks, and that possibility has thrown cold water on the rally. The S&P 500 and TSX have slid by nearly 5% over the last month. Surprise after surprise (though, to be sure, drawdowns are so common they probably shouldn’t surprise us at all). WHY WAS WALL STREET SO MISTAKEN? One reason pro investors were so wrong is because they’re usually wrong. Analysts largely failed to predict the five big swings of the S&P 500 over the past 15 years. More specifically, though, COVID upturned much of what investors thought was true about the economy, and their trusty models weren’t built for the weird new world that COVID created. “Most economic models do not treat the economy as an evolving thing, undergoing constant change,” The Economist explained not long ago. “They instead describe it in terms of its equilibrium: a stable state...” And this economy is anything but stable. Implausibly strong consumer demand isn’t something you can predict, nor is the slowdown of a global power, nor is immaculate disinflation. And since there are still a lot of open questions about the near future — Will oil prices keep inflation stubbornly high? Will the BoC hike rates in 2024? How will the labour market fare? — the world might have a few surprises left for us yet. SHARE TLDR WITH YOUR FRIENDS 🐷 Put this link in your group chats, your Slack threads, tattoo it on your back — whatever works for you! FROM ON SPONSOR This content is provided for informational purposes and should not be construed as financial, investment, or tax advice by any individual. For full details about the FHSA, refer to the CRA website. THE THIRD QUARTER, TOLD IN THREE CHARTS The big story of the stock market over the past three months is that not much really happened (mostly because of the rate concerns described above). Just look at the very flat TSX Index line. One of the bright spots for the index was — what else? — oil. Energy stocks rose almost 10% in Q3. Nuclear power is (excuse the pun) hot, as nations shift away from natural gas and coal. The result? Uranium prices rose 40% this year to their highest level in more than a decade. Canada stands to benefit; it produces 13% of the world’s yellowcake, the stuff used to power reactors. The stock price of one yellowcake producer, Cameco ($CCO), has already climbed by more than 70% this year. When the Bank of Canada began hiking interest rates last year, it was generally assumed that the housing market would cool. Which it did. But across Canada, prices are still well above 2019 levels. A median apartment in Halifax — Halifax! — now costs nearly as much ($446,000) as a Toronto apartment did four years ago ($490,000). Meanwhile, in Calgary, home costs have risen by nearly 9% in just the past six months. ✨ VIBE CHECK ✨ An unscientific, mostly feels-based assessment of what’s hot and what’s, well, less hot. By Stacey Woods 🔥 🥶 🗣️ Oversharing on LinkedIn The job-search site has become the latest place for people to post about things like bladder control and divorce. And they’re getting all the good bed-wetting jobs. 🙊 Oversharing with your manager They may ask you to be honest, but the only feedback your boss actually wants is “It would really help me if you could try to be less wonderful.” 🏝️ Bosses who let you duck out early on Fridays The tight job market has finally given some employees the freedom to stop pretending that they do anything on Fridays. 🕣 Bosses who track how late you stay Companies are using badge-swipe data and heat and weight sensors to see if you’re at work. So much for your life-size-dummy idea. 🎤 Obsessing about Olivia Rodrigo The pop star’s ’90s-alt-rock bent might make Gen Z a little less embarrassed of their Gen X parents’ pink hair and piercings. 🏛️ Obsessing about the Roman Empire Women asking men how often they think about the Roman Empire has become a silly TikTok trend. Everyone knows men only think about WWII. 🏅 Honouring Martin Short Friends and fans jump to the beloved comedian’s defence after an op-ed in Slate reminded everyone that Slate is still around. 👎 Honouring a Nazi in Parliament Parliament faced backlash for mistakenly honouring an ex-Nazi. So we’re guessing now the Pol Pot parade is off. 👞 Ugly shoes The meteoric success of Hoka, the marshmallow shoe, marks the first time in history that the French have tried to make people comfortable. 🖥 Ugly workstations People are trying to warm up their hot desks with cool plants in hopes that doing so will bring back the lukewarm glory of the cubicle era. ONE VERY GOOD READ 🧡 Orange Shirt Day Isn’t About Shopping There are better ways to honour residential-school survivors on the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation than ordering from Amazon. | IndigiNews THOUGHTS ON TODAY’S ISSUE? Love it Good So so This week’s newsletter contributors: Sarah Rieger (news writer), Kyla Scanlon (writer), Melanie Lambrick (illustrator), Jacob Weinstein (art director), Mohini Tailor (senior specialist, lifecycle marketing), Ambrose Martos (fact checker), Ciara Rickard (copy editor), Nikki Holmes (copy editor), Sara Black McCulloch (fact checker), Jared Sullivan (senior editor), Kat Angus (managing editor), and Devin Friedman (editor-in-chief). Wealthsimple Media Inc. 80 Spadina Ave Suite 400 Toronto, ON, M5V 2J4 Replies to this email address are not monitored. Have questions? Visit our Help Centre or submit a request to our Client Support team. VIEW IN BROWSER PRIVACY POLICY UNSUBSCRIBE TLDR is offered by Wealthsimple Media Inc. and is for informational purposes only. Any views expressed are those of the individual author and/or of Wealthsimple Media Inc., not of Wealthsimple Financial Corp or any of its other subsidiaries or affiliates. 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