Here are five things you need to know this morning:
You want earnings? We’ve got earnings: After trading based on geopolitics and animal spirits for much of the past few weeks, we’ve got a ton of corporate earnings for investors to digest this morning. On the positive side of the ledger, profit jumped at General Electric and General Motors on booming sales for jet engines and gas-powered trucks, respectively. But things are not firing on all cylinders over at UPS, where the package delivery giant missed expectations on weak demand and sharply higher labour costs. Music streamer Spotify also posted blowout profits even as it slightly missed on revenue, while Visa and Coca-Cola are also on the docket. But even the above mentioned cornucopia of earnings are but an amuse-bouche for the main course set to be served after markets close today, with numbers from Tesla and Alphabet likely to set the tone for the Magnificent Seven tech giants that have been driving the market this year.
Wiz rejects Google takeover: Speaking of Big Tech, Google has been rebuffed in its attempt to buy up cybersecurity startup Wiz Inc. for US$23 billion. Bloomberg reports that Google has been trying to beef up its cybersecurity business, and was thus seeking to buy Wiz, which connects with cloud service providers like Amazon and Microsoft to scan the data for security threats. But Wiz has rejected the offer and is pushing ahead on IPO plans because it is confident it could one day ultimately be worth far more. “Saying no to such humbling offers is tough, but … I feel confident in making that choice,” CEO Assaf Rappaport said.
Canadian AI startup Cohere valued at US$5B: Canadian artificial intelligence startup Cohere Inc. has seen its valuation double in the past year, with a new US$500 million funding round valuing the Toronto-based company in excess of $5.5 billion. The world of AI is replete with breathless valuations, but being a unicorn five times over speaks to how much potential Cohere’s technology has. A builder of large learning models designed to compete with the likes of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Cohere was generating $35 million in annualized revenue as of the end of March, according to Bloomberg, citing sources granted anonymity. That’s almost three times as much as the company was taking in just three months earlier.
Couche-Tard buying back 8M shares from Caisse: Alimentation Couche-Tard Inc. says it plans to buy back $700 million worth of its own shares from Quebec pension plan the Caisse. The convenience store chain says it will buy back 8.7 million of its own shares from the Caisse for $80.50 apiece, a roughly three per cent discount to what the shares closed at on Monday. The two sides made a similar deal this time last year, and when this one is completed, Caisse will retain a stake of about 32 million shares in Couche-Tard. That’s about 3.5 per cent of the company.
Hottest. Day. Ever.: The wildfire situation around Canada’s oil and gas heartland remains concerning, and Jasper National Park is currently being evacuated as a blaze bears down on the picturesque region, but Canada is far from the only place on Earth feeling the stifling heat. Sunday was officially the hottest day on earth on record, according to provisional data from the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service. The average temperature for the year through June 2024 was 1.64 degrees higher than the era between 1850 and 1900. Bloomberg reports that much of Europe is under extreme wildfire risk right now, with some parts of Spain set to hit 43 degrees Celsius.
