Bloomberg Toronto home sales shot to a record in May and prices surged amid fierce competition for single-family homes. There were 12,870 homes sold in May, 11 percent higher than last year, according to the real estate board in Canada’s biggest city. With listings falling 6.4 percent from last year, average prices rose 16 percent to C$751,908 ($581,207). Detached …

  Bloomberg MCAP Corp., a Canadian mortgage finance company, will seek to raise about C$275 million ($212 million) through an initial public offering as soon as next month, according to people with knowledge of the company’s plans. The Toronto-based business, which has about C$55 billion of mortgages under administration, filed a preliminary prospectus with Canadian regulators last month for an …

  Bloomberg China’s central bank will further adjust how it assesses the amount of deposits banks must set aside with it as reserves to help ease swings in cash markets. From July 15, the People’s Bank of China will check banks’ average deposit value during a certain period, instead of at the end of a period, it said in a …

  Bloomberg A JPMorgan Chase & Co foreign-exchange salesman who was fired for failing to follow rules introduced in the wake of the market-rigging scandal said his suspension left him anxious and isolated and eventually cost him 2 million pounds (US$3 million). Patrice Ktorza, a former executive director, is suing the bank for unfair dismissal in a London tribunal. He …

  Bloomberg Bank of Nova Scotia said fiscal second-quarter profit fell 12 percent on higher losses from energy loans and restructuring charges as it shifts toward digital banking. Net income for the period ended April 30 slid to C$1.58 billion ($1.21 billion), or C$1.23 a share, from C$1.8 billion, or C$1.42, a year earlier, the Toronto-based bank said Tuesday in …

  BLOOMBERG Mario Draghi’s insistence that his stimulus programme is only half done brings with it a worrying thought. What if its best effects are already spent anyway? At least four times at Thursday’s press meet in Vienna, the European Central Bank president emphasised how policy makers need to see the ‘full impact’ and must ‘focus on implementation’ of their …

  Bloomberg Federal Reserve Governor Lael Brainard said a ‘sobering’ US employment report suggested the labour market has slowed, as she continued to warn against moving too quickly to raise interest rates. “In this environment, prudent risk management implies there is a benefit to waiting for additional data to provide confidence that domestic activity has rebounded strongly and reassurance that …

  Los Angeles / AFP He called himself “The Greatest,” and few disagreed. Muhammad Ali — who died on Friday in Arizona at age 74 — was one of the iconic sporting heroes of the 20th century, the three-time heavyweight champion of the world who said he could “float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.” Ali, who came of …

  Relaxnews There has been much talk of modular smartphones this spring, after LG released its G5 handset and Google presented a near-final version of its Project Ara. Modular smartphones differ from regular mobiles thanks to their “building block” design, made up of various interchangeable modules containing different hardware components. These can be switched quickly and easily to boost performance …

  Relaxnews Google is celebrating My Account’s first birthday with new features and better ways to try to find out if your phone is lost or stolen. The three new features, announced on Google’s official blog on, are intended to improve users’ My Account experience and help locate and control missing or stolen phones. Find your phone is a new …