JOURNALISM
I’m a Toronto-based financial journalist covering topics on banking, central banks, housing, economics, as well as a wider array of topics in business news…
TO SAY THAT 2021 was a year that had an unrelentingly break-neck speed of a news cycle would be an understatement, and there was no shortage of stories capturing the attention of Canadian financial journalists (or any journalist for that matter).
Here’s an often-quoted statistic: 20 per cent of businesses don’t survive in the first two years of their opening. Five years go by and that number balloons to 45 per cent. Give it ten years, and that’s 65 per cent. Only a quarter of these businesses make it to their 15th birthday. This is a … Continue reading Tug-of-War: Canada’s Small Business Community & Rolling Restrictions
WHEN YOU THINK OF AN INTERNET SPAT between two opposing viewpoints, you probably wouldn’t expect a crown insurance lending corporation and a few major real estate companies to be at the center of it. Then again, you also probably wouldn’t expect an unprecedented global pandemic of COVID-19’s scale, which was enough to push the Canadian … Continue reading Evan Siddall Versus the World: A Summary of the 2020 CMHC Saga
The court of public opinion is a very delicate place, and a company like AirBnB – with all of the unsubtle characters that brought it success – show just how quickly an organization can find itself on the jury’s bad side. AirBnB was founded in 2008, marketed as a discount accommodation service for cash-strapped travellers … Continue reading Why No One is Buying into the AirBnB Pity Party
Even more valuable than the profits investors make in the stock market are the hard lessons they learn along the way… Thing is, the lessons are only valuable if they’re actually learned. I’ve been meaning to write about this topic for a while since the year 2019 presented an interesting case study with (often misplaced) … Continue reading The Lessons Learned from the Tech Unicorn Stampede of ‘19
If you worked an office job many years ago and five o’clock rolled around, you would stretch, gather your things, and clock out for the day. Maybe you’d even leave a half-hour earlier if it’s a Friday. It’s five o’clock freedom and you’re probably running through weekend plans, chores to cross off your to-do list — anything … Continue reading The End of Nine-to-Five: The Inevitable Gig Economy
As the secular market is turning, the U.S. is locked in a “retailapocalpyse”. However, the Great North isn’t immune to these same late-cycle dynamics, as the Hudson’s Bay Company signalled this year. (Source: Can Pac Swire) The Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) closures represent a contraction in its business plan after the company underwent an overly optimistic … Continue reading How Hudson’s Bay — and Canada — Is Not Immune to the U.S. Late-Cycle Retail Market
Introduction The Toronto housing market stands at the intersection of housing affordability and availability, with asking rents trending higher amid wages that struggle to keep up. While average rental rates for private condominiums (condos) have outpaced increases in wages, so too have rates for purpose-built rentals. Exacerbating the issue further, developers are economically incentivized … Continue reading High and Low: The Soaring Demand and Limited Supply of Toronto’s
Purpose-Built Multifamily Market
Last August was devastating for British Columbia (B.C.) and California — each had declared a state of emergency because of wildfires. Both the province and the state experienced a severe decline in tourism, mass evacuations and seemingly unending fights to contain the conflagrations. There was significant loss on both sides, though as far as impact on … Continue reading Scorching Real Estate: Comparing the California, B.C. and Fort McMurray Wildfires’ Impact
Introduction Having a roommate is not just part of the college experience — it is a growing trend in the workforce. More and more companies are working together under the same roof in nine to five harmony in what is known as coworking space: a more flexible alternative to traditional office space where multiple workers can share … Continue reading How Coworking Co-Opts the Traditional Office Space
Stephanie Hughes 