we've been going through months and months of fairly gloomy numbers out there but finally there's a little bit of good news in the consumer sentiment category i know some people call me red flag mark because I'm always pointing out the potential downsides of what's happening out there this is possibly a green flag that you might want to take a look at the University of Michigan's consumer sentiment index rose to 60.5 in June and that's up from 52.2 in both April and May and for context that 52- week range was almost at a bottom so this is a meaningful shift in an upward direction here now economists here were only expecting a small bump to 53.5 so this beat the forecast by a very wide margin two key things improved in this survey first off the how people feel right now part of it that's the current conditions that went up to 63.7 from 58.9 also how do people feel about the future that jumped to 58.4 from a very dismal 47.9 and this is the first positive move now in around half a year or so so maybe people are starting to feel a little bit better but we do have to remember that we're still 20% below where things stood in December of last year so just 6 months or so ago when there was a brief boost in confidence at that point after the US election there's also a concern in the background especially about the US tariff policies and that kind of uncertainty still makes people a little bit nervous out there now as far as inflation expectations are concerned one-year inflation expectations dropped from 6.6 in May to 5.1% in June we also saw long-term inflation outlooks inching down to 4.1% and that continues a downward trend for retail investors so this is us this is pretty key because it does affect the Federal Reserve's next move or next series of moves as of today the odds are 99.9 so pretty sure that the Fed is going to hold its rates when it meets this Wednesday and it's not until the September meeting that the odds are now showing a cut but if inflation looks like it's cooling the Fed might take this as a as a reason to start cutting interest rates again a little bit sooner than what those numbers are showing right there now as for Canadian investors this all matters it's a US number but it does matter to us here at home as well when we see a softer US inflation picture that could lead to a weaker US dollar which would then boost Canadian exports and resource stocks again all factoring in the tariff issues there if we see that we'll see improved demand for Canadian goods us consumers will start spending again but it is a little bit of a wild card so if you're holding US ETFs or US stocks or even just companies that rely on US consumers then this report is a potential green light as opposed to the usual red flag now I do think it's important that we do stay cautious here the numbers that we're seeing this the past month are better but they're still low we can look back to 2018 and see how we are in comparison to the past number of years even with COVID and the market correction in 2022 being factored in so confidence still probably is a bit fragile out there a lot could change depending on what happens with these trade tensions or interest rates plus keep in mind that these are preliminary reports the final numbers might tell a different story it is so an encouraging signal and we haven't seen enough of those in the last little while so if this rebound in confidence holds if inflation does trend down we could see a stronger second half of the year for the markets for retail investors that might mean opportunities to add positions especially in certain value sectors or dividend paying stocks that benefit from economic stability i would say keep your eyes open though if tariffs heat up again volatility could come screaming back pretty darn quickly so what is your take on this do you see this as a sign to lean in or are you just sort of staying defensive for the time being let me know what your thoughts are in the comments now a second positive note in today's show canada's housing market isn't exactly booming but May did bring a little bit of good news home sales they were down 4.3% compared to last year that's not the good news this is the first time in over half a year that sales actually rose from the previous month they went up 3.6% in April not a huge jump but at least it is enough to suggest that we might be seeing a little bit of a turnaround here now Sean Cathkart he's from the Canadian Real Estate Association and he says the markets could have started recovering earlier if it wasn't for all of the uncertainty that was caused by the tariffs that we've seen out throughout the course of the year he says it's only one month of data and one car doesn't make a parade but there is a sense that maybe the expected turnaround in housing activity this year was just delayed for a few months by the initial tariff chaos and uncertainty so it does look like buyers are maybe starting to dip their toes back into the market after sitting out for the first part of the year now also sellers a little bit of selling activity is reappearing as well listings rose 3.1% in May there are almost 202,000 properties on the market and that's up more than 13% from a year ago now even with that increase though listings are still a bit lower than what's typical for May so the supply hasn't fully caught up yet if you're shopping for a new home you're going to like this prices have slipped as well the average home in Canada sold for about $691,000 in May that's about 2% roughly than a year ago realistically though affordability obviously is still a big hurdle for many but with that slight uptick in sales it could be a sign that things are slowly getting back on track for both the buyers and the sellers who are looking for a bit of a steadier market now if you are a young person in Canada if you're trying to land a job right now you're not imagining it it is very very rough out there gen Z is facing the worst youth job market in the country has seen in over two decades and there are several factors that are making things harder inflation there's a flood of new workers and then of course the shaky economy thanks to the trade war with the US this chart compares the overall population growth rate to those aged 15 to 24 and you can see that divergence there now in May the youth unemployment rate in Canada was 14.2% that is more than double than the overall employment rate which was 7% now when you look at returning students specifically ages 15 to 24 the unemployment rate was 20.1% and the last time we had that excluding COVID was 2009 and then 1999 before that so we're at a level that we don't see very often when you look at young men returning students the unemployment rate was 22.1% for young women that was 18.4% both very very high if we just look back a little bit not that distance in history we did see sort of a brighter scenario right after CO when all those restrictions were lifted we saw companies there hiring at a pretty torrent pace young workers were the major benefactors of that but that doesn't appear to have last we saw interest rates jump of course we saw inflation spike and then hiring cooled off now Brendan Bernard he is a senior economist at Indeed and he says that the bump in hiring that we saw coming out of CO realistically was unsustainable he says as things have turned back and employer appetite has fallen back down to earth the youth employment situation has weakened now for a lot of our Gen Y community uh this could have long-term effects some grads they're taking whatever jobs they can take right now just to pay the bills the studies do show that starting your career during a downturn can lead to lower wages for years and years and that is a trend known as wage scarring so a lot of people are doing what they can right now but it does feel like they're sort of stuck in a hard place while they're waiting for their real life to take off that is a wrap for today's program as always I do appreciate you watching we'll see you in the next