As expected, the Bank of Canada has left the overnight bank rate at 3.25% this morning. This should help to keep the Canadian dollar strong. The loonie has been trading above the 73¢ mark Tuesday morning.

On the downside, the Bank commented that it expects some near-term weakness in the Canadian economy. The caution reflects concern over SARS and the possibility of cutting rates in the next quarter.

There was more positive news from Statistics Canada Tuesday. StatsCan reported that the value of investment in the housing sector reached $12.1 billion in the first quarter. That’s a whopping increase of 15.9% from the first quarter of 2002. Increased expenditures on new housing accounted for much of the gain. Conditions favourable to the growth of the housing sector, such as attractive mortgage rates, a vigorous job market and a relatively limited supply of existing housing, continued to prevail, says StatsCan.

On the equities markets, profit-takers are expected to prevail today, following the jump on Dow Jones Industrial Average yesterday above 9,000.

In Europe, markets are down. London’s FTSE index is down 0.75% at midday. Frankfurt’s DAX has slipped1.56%. Paris’s CAC 40 has lost 1.05%.

Despite Wall Street’s rally on Monday, trading in Asia was mixed. In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng Index crawled up 25.29 points, or 0.26%, to 9,662.82. Though, many investors were sidelined on Tuesday due to a public holiday celebrating the Dragon Boat Festival on Wednesday.

Japan’s Nikkei Stock Average gained 17.32 points, or 0.20%, to 8,564.49 points. The Nikkei benefited from gains by blue-chip stocks such as Toyota, Sony and NTT DoCoMo.

South of the border, securities regulators continue their vigilance. They have signalled their intent to pursue stock-research conflict cases up Wall Street’s chain of command.