The 2 per cent rise in the S&P 500 Index for the year to date masks some very divergent performances. The companies most exposed to international trade actions have done the worst. Materials companies are down 12 per cent on the year, while industrials are down 7 per cent. Technology companies, in contrast, have risen 8 per cent over the same period.
After a long period of productivity underperformance starting in the 1970s, productivity growth in Canada accelerated in the second half of the 1990s, keeping pace with a roughly coincident pickup in U.S. productivity growth (Chart 13). But since 2001, productivity growth  BIS central bankers’ speeches  3  in Canada has slowed to historically low rates.