Canada

Whether we’re discussing the ancient merchants that traversed the legendary Silk Road, or the transfer of goods across modern border lines, trade has always been about building close relationships.

As Visual Capitalist's Jeff Desjardins notes, there are many examples of strong and mutually-beneficial trade relationships all throughout history, but one doesn’t have to look far back to find what could be considered the closest bilateral relationship ever known: the one between the United States and Canada.

For a while it seemed that the Vancouver housing bubble, the direct result of a relentless tidal wave of Chinese "hot money", had burst after last August the British Columbia province implemented a 15% property tax to stem the inflow of offshore funds. And indeed, in the immediate months that followed, Vancouver's housing priced tumbled from record highs.

However, it was not meant to be, and less than a year later, the Vancouver housing bubble is back, and it's (almost) bigger than ever.

As discussed first thing this morning, the fate of Canada's largest alternative mortgage lender, Home Capital Group, appears to have been decided over the weekend, when in the span of just one week, over 70% of the company's deposit base had been withdrawn, effectively mothballing the business, leaving just a sale or liquidation as the two possible outcomes even as a $2 billion emergency line of credit keeps the company afloat, at least until HCG's $12.8 billion in GICS mature some time over the next 30 to 60 days.

With the bank run at Home Capital Group hitting a crescendo on Friday, when in one day 36% of the liquidity at Canada's largest non-bank lender escaped through the front door, and only an emergency rescue loan yielding over 20% has prevent a liquidation at HCG so far, suddenly some are wondering if the dreaded "C" word is applicable to what Bloomberg has dubbed "one of the world’s strongest financial systems."

After two years of recurring warnings (both on this website and elsewhere) that Canada's largest alternative (i.e., non-bank) mortgage lender is fundamentally insolvent, kept alive only courtesy of the Canadian housing bubble which until last week had managed to lift all boats, Home Capital Group suffered a spectacular spectacular implosion last week when its stock price crashed by the most on record after HCG revealed that it had taken out an emergency $2 billion line of credit from an unnamed counterparty with an effective rate as high as 22.5%, indicative of a business model on the verge