Noah Zivitz

Managing Editor, BNN Bloomberg

Archive

Canada’s Big Six banks have gone six for six, as CIBC and TD delivered profit beats this morning. Both banks benefitted from the same big themes we’ve seen play out this week as provisions for future loan losses fell and capital markets profit surged. An interesting wrinkle at TD was double-digit profit erosion in its U.S. banking operations. Paul Bagnell is digging into all the details for us.

LOONIE AT HIGHEST SINCE FEBRUARY 2018     

For the first time in more than three years, the Canadian dollar has traded above 80 cents U.S. after a stunning climb of more than 10 cents since the mid-March of last year. Today we’ll address the drivers and how much unease this might cause at the Bank of Canada, where for years governors have been warning about a lofty dollar’s impact on our exporters’ competitiveness.

BUDGET DAY IN ALBERTA

We’re extending our programming today to deliver special coverage of Alberta’s 2021 budget. Most recently, Jason Kenney’s United Conservative government forecast a $15.5-billion deficit in 2021-22 after an anticipated $21.3-billion shortfall in the fiscal year that wraps at the end of next month. Worth pointing out that since that outlook was presented on Nov. 24, WTI oil prices have surged 45 per cent and Western Canadian Select oil has rallied 68 per cent. We’ll explore the province’s fiscal outlook and whether tough medicine – like a sales tax – will ever be palatable.

EXXON TAKES HATCHET TO CANADIAN RESERVES

The beleaguered energy giant nearly wiped its exposure to the oil sands off its books (for now) in a massive re-calculation of its accounting for global reserves. Three-point-one billion barrels of bitumen at Kearl: gone. Zero-point-six billion barrels at Cold Lake: gone. We'll chase reaction and insight as to what this tells us about how Canada factors into Exxon's future.                      

OTHER NOTABLE STORIES

• Moderna shares are rising in early trading after a pair of announcements by the company that’s at the forefront of the global fight against COVID-19. First, it announced it shipped a vaccine specifically designed to address the South Africa variant to the U.S. National Institutes of Health for a Phase 1 clinical trial. Separately, the Massachusetts-based biotech firm announced its base plan for vaccine production this year has been lifted to 700 million doses from 600 million, and said that figure could potentially rise to 1 billion.
• The Pfizer-BioNTech COVID vaccine tag-team is also in the news this morning, with a disclosure that they’re in talks with regulators to also develop a variant-specific vaccine.
• Bitcoin is holding above US$50,000 this morning, and we’ve got one of the biggest names in the crypto space lined up today. Mike Novogratz joins The Open at 8:20 am to discuss the recent volatility, where the cryptocurrency goes from here, and how it’s all been a massive boon to his TSX-listed Galaxy Digital Holdings. In the same space: CI has filed paperwork for what’s being called the first exchange-traded Ether fund.
• The army of Reddit traders is apparently back at it: GameStop shares have been up almost 60 per cent in pre-market trading, building on yesterday’s 104% surge, after the retailer disclosed its chief financial officer is resigning. Good day for a check-in with one of the better known U.S. short sellers. Spruce Point Capital Management Founder Ben Axler joins us at 2:40 p.m.
• Loblaw fell short of analysts’ profit expectations in the latest quarter as adjusted earnings rose a little more than 6 per cent. One number that stood out to me in scanning the release: e-commerce sales surged 160 per cent year-over-year.
• Quebecor is raising its dividend 38 per cent while reporting gains in fourth-quarter revenue and profit. The company added 28,500 wireless subscribers in the period.
• Maple Leaf Foods also announced a boost to its quarterly dividend this morning as it reported an 11 per cent increase in fourth-quarter sales and a 150 per cent surge in adjusted profit per share.
• Twitter shares have been up more than 10 per cent in early trading after company set a goal of at least doubling its annual revenue by 2023.