Here are five things you need to know this morning
Royal, TD and CIBC post results: Another day, another set of quarterly numbers from Canada’s biggest lenders. Royal Bank, TD and CIBC all posted results before the bell on Thursday, and the numbers are broadly in line with what we saw from Scotia, BMO and National earlier this week. For the most part, all three lenders reporting this morning beat analyst expectations on most metrics. The capital markets business showed strength across the board, but Royal and CIBC reported higher-than-expected loan loss provisions, while TD’s number also went up even as it still came in below expectations. If the banks are setting aside more money to cover potentially bad loans, that doesn’t augur well for their outlook on the future and given the uncertainty of tariffs and a looming trade war, who could blame them. We’ll have extensive coverage through the day on the numbers from all three lenders.
Breaking down Nvidia numbers: I’m glad that I wasn’t the only one who couldn’t get a clear read on Nvidia numbers after the bell yesterday. To be clear, the company definitely beat expectations in its latest quarter (as it often does) but it didn’t leap over the bar to the level that it often does, so the stock seesawed in aftermarket trading, up initially before dipping into the red within a few minutes. CEO Jensen Huang was his usual effusive self, describing demand for the company’s next-gen Blackwell chips as “amazing” but after more than eight quarters in a row of blowout numbers, “amazing” doesn’t cut it and the market seems to have been hoping for something a little more (*grabs thesaurus*) astonishing, breathtaking or perhaps even transcendent. Edward Jones analyst Logan Park had a different adjective to describe the numbers: underwhelming. And given the stock reaction, that’s probably a fair comment. The stock is up about two per cent from Wednesday’s close as I write this, but investor sentiment feels anything but solid, so this stock will be one to watch today as the market has more time to digest the data.
7-Eleven back in play? The will-they-or-won’t-they saga slowly unfolding for months over at Seven & i Holdings has taken an interesting turn this week, as a management-led plan to buyout the company and take it private has fallen apart after a major financial backer walked away. The buyout group which included the founding Ito family and Itochu Corp. could not hammer out the financing to make the biggest ever Japanese takeover happen, so all options are back on the table. That theoretically includes Canada’s Alimentation Couche-Tard, which has been trying to buy the 7-Eleven chain for months while being constantly rebuffed. Seven & i shares are down 12 per cent on the Nikkei today.
U.S. economy grew at 2.3% pace: New numbers out of the U.S. this morning show that country’s economy was expanding at a healthy pace to close out 2024, adding to stubbornly high inflation. America’s gross domestic product grew by 2.3 per cent in the fourth quarter. That’s unrevised from an earlier reading, but the primary driver of economic growth – consumer spending – expanded by even more: a 4.2 per cent clip. The Q4 numbers mean that for the year as a whole, the U.S. economy expanded by 2.8 per cent. That’s better than the 2.3 per cent forecast for this coming year.
Quebecor earnings beat: Quebecor posted quarterly results before the bell this morning, and the Quebec-based telecom company beat expectations on most metrics, even as most of them declined on an annual basis. Revenue came in at $1.5 billion, better than $1.48 expected. We’ll hear from the CEO of the company, Pierre-Karl Peladeau, in an interview with BNN Bloomberg in the 1 p.m. eastern hour today. Tune in for that one.
