The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) is urging central banks to stick to their guns when it comes to further interest rate increases to combat sky-high inflation. In its latest economic outlook, the OECD said further tightening is “essential” to get price pressures under control, even at the expense of economic growth. To the former, the intergovernmental organization sees inflation moderating somewhat in the year ahead. To that latter point, the OECD sees global economic growth slowing to 2.2 per cent in 2023, while here at home it sees Canadian expansion running at a paltry one per cent.
OIL STABILIZES AFTER WILD RIDE
Oil prices are stabilizing this morning, with West Texas Intermediate hovering around the US$80 per barrel mark, after something of a wild ride to start the week. WTI swung in an almost parabolic arc yesterday, falling as much as US$5 per barrel, on concerns the OPEC+ cartel was willing to open the spigots in spite of concerns over slowing Chinese demand. That move, in turn, played out quite significantly back here at home – the TSX energy subgroup fell as much as 3.4 per cent before recovering most of those losses to finish 0.8 per cent lower.
SHAW WARNS OF 'NO VIABLE PATH FORWAD' WITHOUT ROGERS
Shaw Communications is warning that it has “no viable path forward” if it cannot complete its $20 billion sale to Rogers Communications. In testimony before the Competition Tribunal yesterday, Shaw’s CFO said the company has been struggling to compete with western rival Telus, and those struggles will only mount if it continues as a standalone firm. The Competition Tribunal has been hearing from a range of parties in its deliberations after Competition Commissioner Matthew Boswell made it clear he wants to quash the deal, but a final ruling isn’t expected until early next year.
THE STATE OF THE CANADIAN CONSUMER
Something of a mixed bag in today's retail sales data – on the one hand, sales fell the expected half per cent in September, on the other hand, StatsCan's flash estimates suggest a robust rebound in October of 1.5 per cent. To dig into September's details (the flash estimate doesn’t get into the nitty gritty, so we'll put it aside), the declines were led by lower sales of gasoline and food and beverage stores. One last aside – overall, sales fell one per cent in the third quarter, the first decline since the second quarter of 2020 when the pandemic triggered widespread lockdowns and forced store closures.
PORING THROUGH FTX’S BOOKS
It looks like Sam Bankman-Fried’s fallen empire has a little bit more cash on the books than previously expected. A bankruptcy filing shows the cryptocurrency firm and a number of affiliates had a combined cash balance of US$1.24 billion – more than its debtors had identified just a few days ago. All that said, there’s still the rising risk of contagion – our Bloomberg partners are reporting digital asset brokerage Genesis is struggling to raise fresh cash for its lending unit and is warning potential investors a bankruptcy may be in the offing if those efforts fail.
OTHER NOTABLE STORIES
- Shares of Best Buy are popping in the premarket – up about seven per cent – after the big box retailer topped quarterly earnings estimates and reaffirmed its outlook for the holiday quarter.
- On the flip side, shares of Zoom are under pressure – down some nine per cent – after the video-conferencing company reported its slowest sales growth on record and modestly trimmed its full-year revenue forecast.
NOTABLE RELEASES/EVENTS
- Notable data: Retail Sales, New Housing Price Index
- Notable earnings: Alimentations Couche-Tard, George Weston, Canadian Solar, Dollar Tree, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Abercrombie & Fitch, Warner Music Group, Best Buy, HP, Nordstrom, Guess
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