Chief Economist and Managing Director Economics
Douglas Porter has over 30 years of experience analyzing global economies and financial markets. As Chief Economist at BMO Financial Group and author of the popular Talking Points, he oversees the macroeconomic and financial market forecasts and co-writes the firm’s weekly flagship publication, Focus. Mr. Porter manages the team that has won numerous forecasting awards. Most recently, Douglas led the team to a #1 ranking for Top U.S. Forecaster among 60 global firms in the 2023 Focus Economics Survey, and #1 for Top Canadian Inflation Forecaster among 28 firms. Also, his team took the #1 spot in the StarMine Awards for Most Accurate Forecasters for Canada in 2022.
As a respected commentator on economic and financial trends, he is regularly quoted in the national press and often interviewed on radio and television.
The Through Line: A dearth of official data (thanks to the longest U.S. government shutdown on record) needn’t prevent investors from gathering the information necessary......
Debt of all flavors has ballooned over the past several decades thanks to low interest rates, willing lenders and increasingly sophisticated ways to borrow. This week’s piece focuses on sovereign (a.k.a. government) debt, the allure......
Consumption is the sole end and purpose of all production; and the interest of the producer ought to be attended to only so far as it may be necessary for promoting that of the consumer......
The Through Line: After months of relative calm, market volatility has spiked in recent days in response to flaring trade tensions between the U.S. and China......
Three-quarters of the way into 2025, and the Canadian and U.S. markets are in a significantly different – yet arguably better – place than where many people expected them to be at the start of the year......
Well, bitcoin is a currency. Bitcoin has no underlying rate of return. You know, bonds have an interest coupon. Stocks have earnings and dividends. Gold has nothing, and bitcoin has nothing......
The Through Line: Organized capital markets play a vital role in facilitating the transfer of funds from those with excess resources to those in need of backing......
The Through Line: Global stocks have been repeatedly hitting new highs, leaving investors looking over their shoulders for the bubble-bursting bogey man to appear......
The Through Line: After decades in development, machine learning and its latest iteration – AI – burst into the public lexicon with the introduction of ChatGPT in November 2022......