The U.S. Federal Reserve’s independence is the backbone of its inflation-fighting credibility.

That's why, before Trump, most U.S. presidents—Johnson and Nixon excepted—avoided overt political pressure on the Fed.

Trump, of course, completely ignored that long-standing norm, calling Fed Chair Powell:

• “Too Angry, Too Stupid, & Too Political”
• “Mr. Too Late”
• “Major Loser”
• “A stupid person” / “not smart”
• "Mental"

Trump said he’d “love to fire his ass.”

But none of that got the President what he wanted: 100 to 300 bps of rate cuts, ideally yesterday.

After insults failed to move the needle, the Trump-led Justice Department recently decided to try a fresh angle.

We got a small update on OSFI's mortgage stress test plans this week.

Here's what we know...

Few economic releases move mortgage rates more than the monthly jobs numbers. This time, however, rate traders treated them like background noise.

While they don't make for sensational headlines, today’s labour data reinforces rate stability, and that counts for something.

Markets took their cues from a grab bag of labour, trade, and commodities data, alongside a growing chorus of armchair central bank quarterbacks. The result was a familiar story: yields edged higher on hard data and leaned lower on policy chatter.

All eyes now move to Friday’s labour numbers.

Tumbling crude prices and job openings weighed down yields on Wednesday. But resilient PMIs keep insisting the economy has more fight than the headlines suggest.

Yields edged up on Tuesday amid expectations of a busy data week that crescendos with Canadian and U.S. jobs numbers on Friday.

Meanwhile, bond markets (so far) appear serenely indifferent to the U.S. capture of ousted Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro.

In 2026, local credibility beats clever SEO tricks, says search marketing expert Shamil Shamilov from Toronto-based dNovo Group.

For mortgage brokers and lenders to show up in AI responses—ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI, etc.—it hinges on reputation engineering and source authority. That's a fancy way of saying you need to prove you aren’t a fraud to a machine that's much smarter than all of us.

What follows is part I of MLN's video interview with Shamilov. In it, he lays out how web search is mutating and where mortgage marketers should actually be spending their hours. If you're in a hurry, note the key takeaways below the video.

The bond market's seasonal hibernation is over. Time to strap in for an action-packed January, which means that volatility in fixed mortgage rates could pick up.

Here’s what to watch for...