Section 2: Economic events
Archived Content
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Canada
The Bank of Canada maintained its target for the overnight rate at 1%.
Pembina Pipeline announced a $3.2 billion all-share deal to take over Provident Energy. Chevron will joint-venture with Norwegian-owned Statoil and Spanish-owned Repsol to boost oil exploration in the Orphan and Flemish Pass basins off the coast of Newfoundland and Labrador. Athabasca Oil Sands triggered an option to sell its 40% interest in the MacKay River project to partner PetroChina, making PetroChina the first Chinese national oil company to have 100% ownership of a northern Alberta oilsands project.
Adriana Resources struck a joint-venture agreement with China's Wuhan Iron and Steel to develop the $12.9 billion Quebec-Labrador Lac Otelnuk iron ore mine.
Canadian Pacific Railway announced it will spend up to $1.2 billion on capital projects this year.
Canada and the United States agreed to extend the 2006 softwood lumber agreement by two years to October 2015, with no modifications made to the agreement.
World
The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) maintained the target range for the federal funds rate at 0% to ¼%. The FOMC also announced, for the first time, participants' projections on the appropriate target for the federal funds rate over the medium term.
Standard and Poor's cut its long-term ratings on Italy, Portugal, Spain and Cyprus by two notches, and those of France, Austria, Malta, Slovakia and Slovenia by one notch. France and Austria lost their triple-A ratings. Subsequently, Spain raised 6.6 billion euros in debt maturing in 2016, 2019 and 2022, with the 10-year bond interest rate at 5.40%, down from 5.54% in the previous auction in December. France sold 7.965 billion euros of medium-term bonds (it received bids for 18.9 billion euros), with the 10-year bond interest rate at 1.07%, down from 2.32% in December. Italy raised 4.5 billion euro in a two-year bond with a yield of 3.763%, down from 4.853% in December.
The IMF announced it aims to add $500 billion (US) to its resources so it can give out new loans to help mitigate a financial crisis.
A German issue of 3.9 billion euros of six-month Treasury bills resulted in an average yield of minus 0.0122%, the first negative yield ever for Germany. For European banks, German T-bills can be used as collateral for borrowing from the ECB.
Protests against austerity and liberalisation laws in Italy escalated to road blockades and rotating strikes halting distribution channels and disrupting production across the country.
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