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TORONTO, Feb. 5, 2026 /CNW/ – TD Bank Group (“TD” or the “Bank”) (TSX: TD) (NYSE: TD) announced today that it expects catastrophe claims of approximately $7 million after reinsurance and before tax to be reflected in the Bank’s Wealth Management & Insurance segment’s first quarter results. 

Catastrophe claims are insurance claims that relate to any single event that occurred in the relevant fiscal quarter, for which the aggregate insurance claims are equal to or greater than an internal threshold of $5 million before reinsurance. The Bank’s internal threshold may change from time to time. The total amount of catastrophe claims presented reflects the estimated pre-tax cost of these claims net of recoveries from related reinsurance coverage and, when applicable, includes the cost of reinsurance reinstatement premiums. The total amount of catastrophe claims is included in Insurance service expenses and amounts related to reinsurance coverage are included in Other income (loss) on the Bank’s Consolidated Statement of Income.

Additional information about the Bank’s insurance catastrophe claims (including catastrophe claims, net of reinsurance for the comparative quarter) is available on its website here: https://www.td.com/ca/en/about-td/for-investors/investor-relations/financial-information       

Quarterly Earnings Announcement

TD will release its first quarter fiscal 2026 financial results and host an earnings conference call on Thursday, February 26, 2026.

Caution Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

This document contains forward-looking statements. All such statements are made pursuant to the “safe harbour” provisions of, and are intended to be forward-looking statements under, applicable Canadian and U.S. securities legislation, including the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements are typically identified by words such as “will”, “would”, “should”, “believe”, “expect”, “anticipate”, “intend”, “strive”, “confident”, “estimate”, “forecast”, “outlook”, “plan”, “goal”, “commit”, “target”, “possible”, “potential”, “predict”, “project”, “may”, and “could” and similar expressions or variations thereof, or the negative thereof, but these terms are not the exclusive means of identifying such statements. By their very nature, these forward-looking statements require the Bank to make assumptions and are subject to inherent risks and uncertainties, general and specific. Especially in light of the uncertainty related to the physical, financial, economic, political, and regulatory environments, such risks and uncertainties – many of which are beyond the Bank’s control and the effects of which can be difficult to predict – may cause actual results to differ materially from the expectations expressed in the forward-looking statements. Please refer to the “Risk Factors and Management” section of the Management’s Discussion and Analysis in the Bank’s 2025 Annual Report, as may be updated in subsequently filed quarterly reports to shareholders. All such factors, as well as other uncertainties and potential events, and the inherent uncertainty of forward-looking statements, should be considered carefully when making decisions with respect to the Bank. The Bank cautions readers not to place undue reliance on the Bank’s forward-looking statements. Any forward-looking statements contained in this document represent the views of management only as of the date hereof and are presented for the purpose of assisting the Bank’s shareholders and analysts in understanding the Bank’s financial position, objectives and priorities and anticipated financial performance as at and for the periods ended on the dates presented, and may not be appropriate for other purposes. The Bank does not undertake to update any forward-looking statements, whether written or oral, that may be made from time to time by or on its behalf, except as required under applicable securities legislation.

About TD Bank Group

The Toronto-Dominion Bank and its subsidiaries are collectively known as TD Bank Group (“TD” or the “Bank”). TD is the sixth largest bank in North America by assets and serves over 28.1 million customers in four key businesses operating in a number of locations in financial centres around the globe: Canadian Personal and Commercial Banking, including TD Canada Trust and TD Auto Finance Canada; U.S. Retail, including TD Bank, America’s Most Convenient Bank®, TD Auto Finance U.S., and TD Wealth (U.S.); Wealth Management and Insurance, including TD Wealth (Canada), TD Direct Investing, and TD Insurance; and Wholesale Banking, including TD Securities and TD Cowen. TD also ranks among North America’s leading digital banks, with more than 13 million active mobile users in Canada and the U.S. TD had $2.1 trillion in assets on October 31, 2025. The Toronto-Dominion Bank trades under the symbol “TD” on the Toronto Stock Exchange and New York Stock Exchange.

SOURCE TD Bank Group

Matthew Hornbach: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I’m Matthew Hornbach, Global Head of Macro Strategy.

 

Michael Gapen: And I’m Michael Gapen, Morgan Stanley’s Chief U.S. Economist.

 

Matthew Hornbach: Today we’ll be talking about the Federal Open Market Committee meeting that occurred last week.

 

It’s Thursday, February 5th at 8:30 am in New York.

 

So, Mike, last week we had the first Federal Open Market Committee meeting of 2026. What were your general impressions from the meeting? And how did it compare to what you had thought going in?

 

Michael Gapen: Well, Matt, I think that the main question for markets was how hawkish a hold or how dovish a hold would this be. As you know, it was widely expected the Fed would be on hold. The incoming data had been fairly solid. Inflation wasn’t all that concerning, and most of the employment data suggested things had stabilized. So, it was clear they were going to pause.

 

The question was would they pause or would they be on pause, right? And in our view, it was more of a dovish hold. And by that, it suggests to us, or they suggested to us, I should say, that they still have an easing bias and rates should generally move lower over time.

 

So, that really was the key takeaway for me. Would they signal a prolonged pause and perhaps suggest that they might be done with the easing cycle? Or would they say, yes, we’ve stopped for now, but we still expect to cut rates later? Perhaps when inflation comes down and therefore kind of retain a dovish bias or an easing bias in the policy rate path. So, to me, that was the main takeaway.

 

Matthew Hornbach: Of course, as we all know, there are supposed to be some personnel changes on the committee this year. And Chair Powell was asked several questions to try to get at the future of this committee and what he himself was going to do personally. What was your impression of his response and what were the takeaways from that part of the press conference?

 

Michael Gapen: Well, clearly, he’s been reluctant to, say, pre-announce what he may do when his term is chair ends in May.   But his term as a governor extends into 2028. So, he has options. He could leave normally that’s what happens. But he could also stay and he’s never really made his intentions clear on that part. I think for maybe personal or professional reasons. But he has his own; he has his own reasons and, and that’s fine.

 

And I do think the recent subpoena by the DOJ has changed the calculus in that. At least my own view is that it makes it more likely that he stays around. It may be easier for him to act in response to that subpoena by being on staff. It’s a request for additional information; he needs access to that information. I think you could construct a reasonable scenario under which, ‘Well, I have to see this through, therefore, I may stay around.’ But maybe he hasn’t come to that conclusion yet.

 

And then stepping back, that just complicates the whole picture in the sense that we now know the administration has put forward Kevin Warsh as the new Fed chair. Will he be replacing the seat that Jay Powell currently sits in? Will he be replacing the seat that Stephen Myron is sitting in?

 

So yes, we have a new name being put forward, but it’s not exactly clear where that slot will be; and what the composition of the committee will look like.

 

Matthew Hornbach: Well, you beat me to the punch on mentioning Kevin Warsh…

 

Michael Gapen: I kind of assumed that’s where you were going.

 

Matthew Hornbach: It was going to be my next question.   I’m curious as to what you think that means for Fed policy later this year, if anything. And what it might mean more medium term?

 

Michael Gapen: Yeah. Well, first of all, congratulations to Mr. Warsh on the appointment. In terms of what we think it means for the outlook for the Fed’s reaction function and interest rate policy, we doubt that there will be a material change in the Fed’s reaction function.

 

His previous public remarks don’t suggest his views on interest rate policy are substantively outside the mainstream, or at least certainly the collective that’s already in the FOMC. Some people would prefer not to ease. The majority of the committee still sees a couple more rate cuts ahead of them.

 

Warsh is generally aligned with that, given his public remarks. But then also all the reserve bank presidents have been renominated. There’s an ongoing Supreme Court case about the ability of the administration to fire Lisa Cook. If that is not successful, then Kevin Warsh will arrive in an FOMC where there’s 16 other people who all get a say. So, the chair’s primary responsibility is to build a consensus; to herd the cats, so to speak. To communicate to markets and communicate to the public.

 

So, if Mr. Warsh wanted to deviate substantially from where the committee was, he would have to build a consensus to do that. So, we think, at least in the near term, the reaction function won’t change. It’ll be driven by the data, whether the labor market holds up, whether inflation, decelerates as expected. So, we don’t look for material change.

 

Now you also asked about the medium term. I do think where his views differ, at least with respect to current Fed policy is on the size of the Fed’s balance sheet and its footprint in financial markets. So, he has argued over time for a much smaller balance sheet. He’s called the Fed’s balance sheet bloated. He has said that it creates distortions in markets, which mean interest rates could be higher than they otherwise would be. And so, I think if there is a substantive change in Fed policy going forward, it could be there on the balance sheet.

 

But what I would just say on that is it’ll likely take a lot of coordination with Treasury. It will likely take changes in rules, regulations, the supervisory landscape. Because if you want to reduce the balance sheet further without creating volatility in financial markets, you have to find a way to reduce bank demand for it. So, this will take time, it’ll take study, it’ll take patience. I wouldn’t look for big material changes right out of the box.

 

So Matt, what I’d like to do is, if I could flip it back to you, Warsh was certainly one of the expected candidates, right? So, his name is not a surprise. But as we knew financial markets, one day we’re thinking it’d be one candidate. The next day it’d be thinking at the next it was somebody else.

 

How did you see markets reacting to the announcement of Mr. Warsh? For the next Fed share, and then maybe put that in context of where markets were coming out of the last FOMC meeting.

 

Matthew Hornbach: Yeah, so the markets that moved the most were not the traditional, very large macro markets like the interest rate marketplace or the foreign exchange market. The markets that moved the most were the prediction markets. These newer markets that offer investors the ability to wager on different outcomes for a whole variety of events around the world.   But when it comes to the implications of a Kevin Warsh led Fed – for the bigger macro markets like interest rates and currencies, the question really comes down to how?

 

If the Fed’s balance sheet policies are going to take a while to implement, those are not going to have an immediate effect, at least not an effect that is easily seen with the human eye. But it’s other types of policy change in terms of his communication policy, for example. One of the points that you raised in your recent note, Mike, was how Kevin Warsh favored less communication than perhaps some of the recent, Federal Open Market Committees had with the public.

 

And so, if there is some kind of a retrenchment from the type of over-communication to the marketplace, from either committee members or non-voters that could create a bit more volatility in the marketplace. Of course, the Fed has been one of the central banks that does not like to surprise the markets in terms of its monetary policy making. And so, that contrasts with other central banks in the G10. For example, the Swiss National Bank tends to surprise quite a lot. The Reserve Bank of Australia tends to surprise markets. More often, certainly than the Fed does. So, to the extent that there’s some change in communication strategy going forward that could lead to more volatile interest rate in currency markets.

 

And that then could cause investors to demand more risk premium to invest in those markets. If you previously were comfortable owning a longer duration Treasury security because you felt very comfortable with the future path of Fed policy, then a Kevin Warsh led Fed – if it decides to change the communication strategy – could naturally lead investors to demand more risk premium in their investments. And that, of course, would lead to a steeper U.S. Treasury curve, all else equal. So that would be one of the main effects that I could see happen in markets as a result of some potential changes that the Fed may consider going forward.

 

So, Mike, with that said, this was the first FOMC meeting of the year, and the next meeting arrives in March. I guess we’ll just have to wait between now and then to see if the Fed is on hold for a longer period of time or whether or not the data convinced them to move as soon as the March meeting.

 

Thanks for taking time to talk, Mike.

 

Michael Gapen: Great speaking with you, Matt.

 

Matthew Hornbach: And thanks for listening. If you enjoy Thoughts on the Market, please leave us a review wherever you listen and share the podcast with a friend or colleague today.