Here are five things you need to know this morning
Gold rally sparks $5.5 billion takeover: As the price of gold continues to set record highs, we are starting to see merger and acquisition activity in the sector. Toronto-based Allied Gold has signed a friendly deal to be acquired by Chinese miner Zijin Gold for $5.5 billion in cash. Hong Kong-listed Zijin has agreed to pay $44 per share in cash for Allied, which has a portfolio of three producing assets and development projects in Côte d’Ivoire, Mali and Ethiopia. Meanwhile the price of gold has broken through the US$5,000-an-ounce threshold for the first time, extending a sharp rally fueled by U.S. President Donald Trump’s reshaping of international relations and investor flight from sovereign bonds and currencies.
Trump threatens 100 per cent tariffs on Canada: U.S. President Donald Trump revived one of his most pointed insults toward Canada on Saturday, calling Prime Minister Mark Carney “governor” and threatening to slam the country with a 100 per cent tariff over its growing ties with China. The remark revives a familiar taunt Trump previously used against former prime minister Trudeau and comes as relations between Ottawa and Washington continue to deteriorate. During Carney’s recent trip to Beijing last week, the two countries announced a trade deal exchanging reduced tariffs and quotas for Chinese electric vehicles in Canada for the lifting of China’s tariffs on Canadian agricultural products. Carney responded to Trump’s posting by stating Canada has no intention of seeking a free trade deal with China.
Carney announces affordability measures: Mark Carney made an announcement on affordability this morning in Ottawa. The prime minister will present a broad package of measures targeting affordability. The measures will reportedly include an increase to the GST credit.
Winter storm hits Canada & U.S.: Many Canadians are still digging out from Sunday’s record-setting snowfall. Meanwhile U.S. power grids are under mounting pressure as the storm drives up heating demand and raising the risk of blackouts. The storm affected millions of people across the eastern two-thirds of the U.S. Roughly 825,000 homes and businesses were without electricity as of 7:30 a.m. ET. The winter storm has knocked an estimated 10 per cent of U.S. natural gas production off-line and forecasts for persistently frigid weather caused prices to jump 20 per cent in early trading today. The surge followed a 70 per cent rally last week that saw the biggest weekly advance in records dating back to 1990.
Nvidia investing another US$2 billion in CoreWeave: In the latest example of the ‘circular investing’ trend in artificial intelligence, Nvidia is investing an additional US$2 billion in CoreWeave. Nvidia is the dominant maker of artificial intelligence chips, CoreWeave is a specialized cloud-computing provider used by AI services. There has been a trend of AI-related firms investing billions in each other and sparking spikes in the share prices of everyone involved.
