Here are five things you need to know this morning
Timberrrrrr! Another day, another tariff threat for markets to digest. This time it’s lumber getting whipsawed, as U.S. President Donald Trump says he is going to bring in tariffs on Canadian lumber imports to the U.S. soon. Speaking to reporters at an event in Miami on Wednesday evening, Trump added lumber to the list of items he plans to slap tariffs on in the near future. As a well-known hewer of wood -- and drawer of water, as the old saying goes -- Canada would feel any such policy directly, but perhaps not as painfully as you might think. As is the case with oil, lumber is one front in the trade war where Canada can do a lot of collateral damage of its own. Currently, Canada is the source for about a quarter of the lumber that the U.S. consumes every day, and while the U.S. theoretically has enough trees to meet its own needs, ramping things up both in terms of the logs and the capacity to process them would be next to impossible in the short term, or without raising the ire of local opposition or running afoul of regulations. Recall during the pandemic when Canadian lumber prices spiked by more than 300 per cent, yet U.S. buyers kept buying. With demand like that, perhaps the U.S. should open itself up to the idea of becoming Canada’s 11th province? Just a thought. That’s for others to decide but in the meantime, we’ll watch the movement in lumber company shares today as investors ponder the various permutations.
TFI keeps on truckin’ down to the U.S. of A: TSX-listed logistics firm TFI says it is planning to move its headquarters from Montreal to the U.S., noting that 70 per cent of its business is there. It’s a move that’s likely to be welcomed with open arms south of the border, where U.S. President Donald Trump has made it clear from Day 1 of his administration that this is exactly the sort of thing he wants to see companies doing business in the U.S. do. The company notes that a majority of its shareholders are domiciled, so the move might make sense on paper, but it isn’t sitting well with Quebec’s pension plan, the Caisse de Depot et Placement du Quebec, which is the biggest single owner of the company with about four per cent of the float. “Quebec’s interests are always at the heart of our priorities as a shareholder,” the Caisse said in a statement. A four per cent stake isn’t enough in and of itself to block the deal, but it could potentially bring others out of the woodwork. Desjardins analyst Benoit Poirer said in a note to clients that there are no obvious tax implications to be had from the move that would be enough to please the company’s investor base. The shares have lost about seven per cent this year but are up almost fourfold since the pandemic.
You want CEO interviews? We’ve got CEO interviews: If there’s one thing we hear time and again from our loyal viewers it’s how much they want to see two things: stock picks, and interviews with top corporate decision makers. We’ll have our usual slate of the former throughout the day today, but on the second front we have a bumper crop of chief executive officers from public Canadian companies on offer. On The Open today we will hear from Tim Gitzel, CEO of uranium giant Cameco on the company’s latest quarterly results. On Trading Day we will hear from Grant Fagerheim, CEO of oil company Whitecap Resources. On Commodities, we will hear from a pair of Canadian resource firms – Marna Cloete, CEO of Ivanhoe Mines, and John McCLuskey, CEO of Alamos Gold. And on The Close, we will hear from Clive Johnson, CEO of B2Gold.
Ontario Liberal leader sits down with BNN Bloomberg: She’s not a CEO, but she’s in the running to be the top decision maker for Canada’s biggest province, so I’ll be listening intently to hear what Bonnie Crombie has to say this afternoon, when she sits down with BNN Bloomberg in the 3 o’clock eastern hour. The Ontario Liberal leader has laid out much of her policy planks, but given the trade outlook, we’ll want to hear about how she’d handle the current trade dispute with the province’s biggest trading partner.
Corporate earnings on deck: It’s also a busy day on the earnings front, where we will digest the latest numbers from grocery giant Loblaw, the aforementioned Cameco, energy giant Cenovus, Boardwalk and Dream Office REITS, along with utility Hydro One. Expect plenty of coverage on each one through the day.
