Financial Update For May 3, 2010

• TSX +10.38 As confidence in Europe erodes, the attraction of Canada, with its stable economy and rising currency, has grown ever stronger for international investors looking for sure-fire returns
• DOW -158.71 .
• Dollar -1.02c to 98.44cUS
• Oil +$.98 to $86.15US per barrel.
• Gold +$11.90 to $1,180.70 USD per ounce Gold has been climbing steadily for the past two weeks as fears over European sovereign debt have prompted investors to embrace the metal as a safe-haven asset giving signs the metal could be set to top last year's record highs.
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Shoppers in British Columbia and Ontario start paying the HST on Saturday on a number of services — including theatre packages, airplane tickets and gym memberships — that will continue to be delivered after July 1, the day the HST will start to be broadly applied in both provinces.
The tax, which combines the five per cent federal goods and services tax with the provincial sales tax, has met with opposition from those who fear it will drive up the cost services that were previously exempt from provincial sales tax.
Islands join Greek party
Diane Francis, Financial Post Published: Saturday, May 01, 2010
Greece isn't a country. It's a party.
The Germans, one of the few groups in Europe who work, are furious. They are balking at the bailout but must come across because a couple of big German banks are on the hook for Greece's IOUs.
Best suggestion by a German politician, not altogether silly, is that Greece should pay off its lenders with islands. These Aegean beauties are government-owned and their privatization might help skate the whole place onside quickly.
Despite the world's crisis, there are plenty of well-heeled buyers: the suits at Goldman Sachs (dubbed "haves" and "have yachts"), Russian oligarchs, oil sheiks or Mexican cartelistas.
That aside, the details oozing out about Greece's spendthrift ways, make it obvious that the real legacy of Goldman Sachs and Wall Street is that they democratized greed.
Greek retirement ages are 60 and 65 years, respectively, for males and females, but the average is more like 53 years because many jobs are considered physically strenuous or hazardous. These include hairdressers (all that standing and putting your hands into chemicals); musicians (all that plucking into the wee hours); bakers and radio presenters.
Public-sector employees have got bonuses for showing up to work on time. They received a 13th month's wages at Christmas and a 14th month's wages at Easter.
While these perqs are now history, at the insistence of the IMF and EU, it's hard to imagine the Greeks rolling up their sleeves and getting back to work. The same goes for the other members of PIIGS, more elegantly dubbed the "Club Med," which includes fellow miscreants Portugal, Italy, Ireland and Spain.
Well, the party's over for them, but not for Goldman Sacks (sic) yet. The investment banking casino played a starring role in the Greek comedy when it gave the country a strategy to hide debts from euro zone officials.
As we write, Goldman trading desks are busily shorting all those Greek stocks and bonds they once sold long to clients, and its underwriters are undoubtedly preparing a series of IPOs to peddle those islands.
Read more: http://www.financialpost.com/story.html?id=2973587#ixzz0mobwuzPX
5 year Fixed rate at 4.39% (unpublished).
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• Closing date now extended to June 15th 2010.
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