Morning. In focus today, we’re betting on the Bank of Canada’s interest rate announcement, monitoring the Mideast, and tracking how a youth movement is moulding Canada’s labour market.
Up first
In the news
Trade: Splitting the Gordie Howe bridge profits with the U.S. is a ‘good deal’ for both countries, Infrastructure Minister Gregor Robertson says
Deals: OMERS takes a nine-figure loss as TouchBistro is sold to Constellation Software for $100-million.
Energy: General Fusion completes SPAC merger despite high redemptions to become public company.
Willis: Why the Maple Leafs will haunt Larry Tanenbaum.
Wildfires on Friday in Alfaix, a hamlet in southern Spain.Stringer/Reuters
In focus
On our watch this week
1. Hold steady: The Bank of Canada is weighing weak economic growth against the potential of inflation stoked by rising oil and gas prices.
Still, the bank is widely expected to keep its overnight rate parked at 2.25 per cent on Wednesday, marking its sixth consecutive pause.
Fighting between the U.S. and Iran has intensified after a brief period of calm, setting oil prices climbing again.
But while higher gasoline prices have raised costs for households, economists at RBC wrote to clients on Friday, those increases haven’t really spread across other expenses to a worrying degree. The central bank’s recent Business Outlook Survey, too, showed longer-run inflation expectations “well-anchored” in May when oil prices were above US$100 a barrel.
Business owners seem to be seeing through the short-term volatility. And though the U.S. opted against renewing the United States-Mexico-Canada free-trade agreement for another 16 years, the deal remains in place, protecting most Canadian exports from U.S. tariffs.
The economy is hardly thriving, Mark Rendell writes, but recession-talk has been shelved.
» In the U.S., tomorrow’s June inflation report is expected to show pressure on core measures tracked by the Federal Reserve. Persistent inflation and renewed Gulf military strikes have cemented bets that newly minted Fed chief Kevin Warsh will raise lending rates in September, but make no cuts through 2028.
2. Talk talk: A new deal between the union representing Canadian autoworkers and Ford Motor Co. is expected to serve as a jumping-off point for bargaining with General Motors and Stellantis.
A tentative three-year contract, struck on the weekend, covers roughly 5,000 workers at five plants in southern Ontario and one in Alberta. Details were being kept under wraps until they can be presented to Unifor members for ratification.
The union has been at the bargaining table with the automaker since June 23, as deals with the Detroit Three are set to expire this fall.
3. Wildfire watch: Dozens of properties in British Columbia’s East Kootenay region are under an evacuation alert as another out-of-control wildfire burns.
The Regional District of East Kootenay placed 72 properties in the Premier Lake area under an evacuation alert after the Lussier River fire grew on Sunday.
Two wildfires already burning near Boston Bar, B.C., together measured more than 114 square kilometres, forcing residents to evacuate from more than 200 properties.
In southern Spain, firefighters battled to bring one of the country’s deadliest blazes on record under control. A series of early summer heatwaves has left large parts of Spain parched and vulnerable to any spark, fuelling an early start to wildfire season.
4. On Wall Street: Earnings from the big U.S. banks are expected to kick off another strong quarter for corporate America.
» The banks: Five of the lenders – including JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs – report tomorrow, followed by Morgan Stanley on Wednesday.
» Netflix and spill: It’s been more than a year now since the streaming giant stopped reporting subscription metrics, so investors will try to evaluate its lofty stock price by tracking the company’s expensive (and, one might argue, concerning) pivot into commercials and live sports.
» Zooming out: S&P 500 companies are forecast to post a hefty 23.4-per-cent jump in second-quarter earnings from a year ago. But this is a bull market in search of a rationale, Ian McGugan writes.
5. Hot chip: Taiwan’s TSMC, the world’s largest manufacturer of advanced AI chips, is expected to offer one of the clearest readings yet on AI demand when it reports earnings on Thursday. Asia’s most valuable listed company is a supplier to Nvidia, Apple, AMD and Broadcom.
The results come days after South Korean memory-chip giant SK Hynix pulled off a blockbuster US$26-billion share sale. It listed on the Nasdaq on Friday, Andrew Galbraith reports, offering Canadian investors a chance to decide: Does that ease or heighten concerns of an AI bubble?
“There’s gonna be some tears along the way because there’s just too much capital at play for it all to be winning capital,” one Toronto-based portfolio manager told him.
With a file from Reuters
Charted
Youth movement
A better start to the youth summer jobs market helped the economy record steady employment gains in June, Statistics Canada reported. Employers added 18,000 jobs last month, pulling the unemployment rate down a tenth of a point to 6.5 per cent.
Looking back, BMO chief economist Douglas Porter wrote in a client note on Friday, “probably not a single Canadian economist would have guessed a year ago that the jobless rate would fall by almost half a point, even as auto and metals tariffs stayed in place and the USMCA uncertainty continued to dangle in July 2026.”
Quoted
Staying up to date on defence happens by osmosis in this community.
— Barb Stegemann, The 7 Virtues Perfume Atelier
How Halifax’s “defence city” dreams are running into a riptide of infrastructure risks.
Morning update
Global markets were mixed as investors grappled with concerns over a fresh escalation in the Middle East conflict and valuations in AI-related stocks.
Wall Street futures were also mixed, with the Dow pointing higher, while TSX futures were in positive territory.
Overseas, the pan-European STOXX 600 was down 0.08 per cent in morning trading. Britain’s FTSE 100 slid 0.09 per cent, Germany’s DAX rose 0.2 per cent and France’s CAC 40 gained 0.04 per cent.
In Asia, Japan’s Nikkei closed 1.92 per cent lower, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng rose 0.16 per cent.
the Canadian dollar traded at 70.70 U.S. cents.