Author: Consultant

Cameco CCO-T +0.21%increase raised its dividend and reported a small net loss in its most recent quarter.

The uranium miner says it will pay an annual dividend of 24 cents per share, up from 16 cents.

The increased payment to shareholders came as Cameco posted a net loss of $158,000 or zero cents per diluted share for the quarter ended Sept. 30 compared with a profit of $7.4-million or two cents per diluted share a year earlier.

Revenue from products and services totalled $614.6-million, down from $720.6-million in the same quarter last year.

On an adjusted basis, Cameco says it earned seven cents per diluted share in its latest quarter, up from an adjusted profit of six cents per diluted share a year earlier.

Cameco and Brookfield Asset Management Ltd. announced a partnership agreement with the U.S. government last month to help build nuclear reactors in the United States.

Air Canada AC-T -1.12%decrease narrowed its 2025 core profit forecast after reporting lower third-quarter profit on Tuesday, as the airline grapples with waning demand for travel to the U.S. amid trade tensions.

Canada’s largest carrier expects full-year adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization to be between $2.95-billion and $3.05-billion, compared with its prior forecast of $2.9-billion to $3.1-billion.

Cross-border travel between Canada and the U.S. has slowed significantly this year after President Donald Trump’s steep tariffs on Canadian imports sparked a widespread backlash, including cancellations of planned visits south of the border.

In the third quarter, the Canadian carrier also struggled with a major shutdown after nearly 10,000 flight attendants walked off the job in a high-profile strike demanding better wages and compensation for unpaid “ground work.”

Air Canada adds four U.S. routes from Toronto’s Billy Bishop

The four-day walkout, which defied a government back-to-work order, led to the cancellation of thousands of flights and grounded most of Air Canada’s fleet, severely disrupting operations and denting revenue.

Last month, the airline trimmed its financial expectations for the quarter and the full year to account for a hit from the strike.

Air Canada said it recorded a one-time pension past service cost and other labor-related charges of $173-million in the quarter, including ones related to the tentative agreement reached with Canadian Union of Public Employees.

The company reported an adjusted profit of $223 million, or 75 Canadian cents per share, for the quarter, compared with $969 million, or $2.57 per share, a year earlier.

Total operating revenue was $5.77-billion, compared with $6.11-billion in the year-ago period.

Integrated oil and gas firm Suncor Energy SU-T +5.01%increase beat third-quarter profit estimates on Tuesday, as higher production and strong refining margins helped offset lower prices.

Demand and margins for refiners are recovering after last year’s slump, when profits eased from post-pandemic highs and supply disruptions from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The company’s refining and marketing segment reported operating adjusted earnings of $894-million, up about 85 per cent from a year earlier.

Its refined product sales were up 5.6 per cent to its record high of 646,800 barrels per day from a year earlier, while refinery utilization was at 106 per cent, compared with 105 per cent last year.

The company also benefited from higher upstream production, which was at 870,000 bpd in the quarter, up 5 per cent from a year earlier.

Suncor Energy tops profit estimates with higher production, as Canada’s oil sands sector remains resilient

Canadian oil producers are gaining from the expanded Trans Mountain pipeline, which opens access to global markets and lessens their dependence on the U.S. pipeline system.

The production helped offset lower oil prices, which were down about 14 per cent to $97.45 per barrel, after OPEC+ accelerated output hikes and raised concerns about oversupply.

The company also raised its current-year production forecast by about 3 per cent, its refinery throughput by about 7 per cent and its refined product sales by about 8 per cent, at the midpoint.

The company reported an adjusted profit of $1.48 per share for the quarter ended Sept. 30, compared with the analysts’ average estimate of $1.08 per share, according to data compiled by LSEG.

Ovintiv OVV-T +2.23%increase said on Tuesday it would buy the rest of NuVista Energy NVA-T +6.09%increase in a cash-and-stock deal valued at $3.8-billion, including debt, strengthening the shale producer’s presence in Canada’s Montney basin.

Last year, the North American company had acquired oil assets from Canadian firm Paramount Resources in the Montney shale for $3.22-billion in cash.

“This acquisition, combined with the inventory additions from our bolt-on acquisition work in the Permian is putting our investors into top tier resource at very attractive full-cycle returns,” said CEO Brendan McCracken.

The company also said it planned to launch a divestiture process for its Anadarko asset, which it expects to complete by the end of 2026. The proceeds are expected to reduce debt.

Ovintiv, which already owns 9.6 per cent of NuVista, said it would pay $18.00 per share and the total consideration will be made up of 50 per cent cash and 50 per cent Ovintiv common stock. The offer represents a 5.6 per cent premium to NuVista’s closing price on Tuesday.

The deal is expected to add 140,000 net acres and 100,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day, located directly adjacent to Ovintiv’s current operations in the core of Canada’s key shale play.

The company has paused its share buyback program for two quarters to help fund a portion of the deal, expected to close by the end of 2026.

Ovintiv shares rose 1.2 per cent to $53.25 after the bell.

Fortis Inc. FTS-T +0.84%increase raised its dividend as it reported a third-quarter profit of $409-million.

The power utility says it will now pay a quarterly dividend of 64 cents a share, up from 61.5 cents a share.

The increased payment to shareholders came as Fortis says its third-quarter profit amounted to 81 cents a share, down from $420-million or 85 cents a share in the same quarter last year.

On an adjusted basis, the company says it earned 87 cents a share in its latest quarter, up from 85 cents a share a year ago.

Revenue for the quarter totalled $2.94-billion, up from $2.77-billion in the same quarter last year.

In its outlook, Fortis announced a new five-year capital plan for 2026-2030 that totals $28.8-billion, an increase of $2.8-billion compared with its previous five-year plan.

Thomson Reuters TRI-T -4.96%decrease reported higher higher third-quarter revenue on Tuesday, boosted by investments in artificial intelligence products in its legal and tax and accounting divisions.

The Toronto-based content and technology company also reaffirmed its full year 2025 guidance of a 7-per-cent to 7.5-per-cent rise in organic revenue, which tracks income from existing businesses on a constant currency basis.

“Our third-quarter results reflect continued momentum and the ongoing execution of our AI-driven innovation strategy,” Thomson Reuters chief executive Steve Hasker said in a statement.

The owner of Westlaw legal database, Reuters news agency and the Checkpoint tax and accounting service reported third-quarter adjusted earnings per share of 85 US cents, slightly exceeding Wall Street expectations, according to LSEG data.

Thomson Reuters evenue rose 3 per cent to US$1.78-billion, meeting expectations for the third quarter, during which it launched new AI features in products in its legal and tax and accounting businesses. It also purchased Additive AI, an artificial intelligence-powered tax document processing specialist.

Revenue at its “Big 3” businesses – legal, tax and accounting and corporates – rose 9 per cent on an organic basis, while Reuters News revenue rose 3 per cent and global print revenue fell 4 per cent.

The generative AI spending frenzy kicked off by the launch of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in late 2022 has led some global corporations to question the financial returns, with some studies showing most struggling to integrate the new technology.

Hasker said in an interview with Reuters after the release of the results that investments in AI in the Thomson Reuters legal division directly contributed to its 9 per cent rise in organic revenue for the third quarter.

In August, Thomson Reuters launched CoCounsel Legal, a legal research tool that features AI-powered agents that perform tasks autonomously to accomplish pre-defined goals.

It also launched deep research features in Westlaw that it says think like a lawyer and can conduct in-depth research by autonomously analyzing data to generate reports.

Chief financial officer Michael Eastwood told Reuters the contribution of generative AI-enhanced products has continued to rise since Thomson Reuters began tracking it late last year.

Generative AI is now responsible for up to 24 per cent of the group’s underlying contract value, which breaks down a contract’s total value, compared with 22 per cent in the last quarter.

Eastwood said it is expected to rise further.

AI investments are also expected to help operating profitability forecasts at Thomson Reuters, which said it now expects an adjusted EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) margin expansion of about 100 basis points, up from a prior expectation of 50 basis points.

Thomson Reuters said it has about US$9-billion to spend on potential acquisitions, after completing a previously announced US$1-billion share repurchase plan.

Thomson Reuters shares have fallen about 5.4 per cent this year up to Monday’s market close, underperforming the 16.5 per cent rise in the S&P 500 index, which has been boosted by increases in AI-heavy big tech stocks.

Woodbridge Co. Ltd., the Thomson family holding company and controlling shareholder of Thomson Reuters, also owns The Globe and Mail.

Shopify Inc. SHOP-T -3.65%decrease reported higher revenue, income and profit for its third quarter, and projected fourth-quarter earnings that exceed analyst expectations for the busy holiday season.

In earnings Tuesday, the Canadian e-commerce giant posted revenue of US$2.8-billion for the quarter ended Sept. 30, a 32-per-cent increase from the year before and above analyst consensus; gross profit of US$1.3-billion, up 24 per cent; and operating income of US$343-million, up 21 per cent.

Gross merchandise value (GMV) – the value of the products sold over its platforms – was up 32 per cent, higher than consensus, though analysts had reduced their expectations on concerns about effects from tariffs.

International GMV was up 41 per cent in the quarter, as the company continues to focus on growing market share outside of North America.

Monthly recurring revenue from subscriptions was up 10 per cent.

For the current quarter, which includes Black Friday and the typically busy December shopping period, Shopify’s executives expect growth in the mid to high twenties, higher than analyst consensus of 23.4 per cent, and gross profit growth in the low to mid twenties, also above expectations.

The company is continuing to focus on scaling its artificial intelligence offerings for merchants, growing its payment processing businesses and expanding its large business segment.

Citi analyst Tyler Radke called the results and revenue growth “impressive” and said in a note to investors Tuesday morning that while shares were down slightly pre-market on broader risk concerns, he expects the company’s shares will outperform peers “on the back of accelerating growth and continued resilience.”

The company recently launched its checkout integration with OpenAI’s GhatGPT, which the firm says will create new opportunities for merchants to reach customers online.

Shopify chief operating officer is leaving the company to join Opendoor Technologies

Shopify had several leadership changes in the quarter. In early Oct., chief revenue officer Bobby Morrison announced his departure on LinkedIn. That followed chief operating officer Kaz Nejatian’s exit in mid-September. The company appointed general counsel Jess Hertz to fill the COO role.

In a report following the departures, Oppenheimer & Co Inc. analyst Ken Wong said he does not view the executive changes as a signal of internal disarray, but rather as a sign of the organization’s recent success.

“We have seen additional VP-level departures since the Morrison exit that suggests a broader internal repositioning could be taking place,” he said.

Canada and the Philippines, both staunch critics of China’s increasingly coercive actions in the disputed South China Sea, signed a key defence agreement on Sunday to boost combat drills and expand security alliances to deter aggression, officials said.

Canada and other Western nations have been bolstering their military presence in the Indo-Pacific to help promote the rule of law and expand trade and investment in the region. The strategy dovetails with President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. ’s efforts to build defence ties with other countries to help the Philippines’ underfunded military face a militarily superior China in the disputed waters.

There was no immediate comment from China, which has accused the Philippines of being a “troublemaker” and a “saboteur of regional stability” following joint patrols and combat drills with the United States and other countries in the South China Sea.

Beijing claims the waterway, a major trade route, virtually in its entirety, despite a 2016 arbitration ruling that invalidated those claims based on a 1982 U.N. convention.

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China has dismissed the ruling and has employed powerful water cannons and dangerous blocking maneuvers against Philippine coast guard and other vessels, resulting in collisions and injuries to crew. Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan also have been involved in the long-simmering territorial disputes.

Philippines says China wants to expand its territory

Philippine Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr. signed the Status of Visiting Forces Agreement with his Canadian counterpart, David McGuinty, after a closed-door meeting in Manila on Sunday.

McGuinty said the agreement will boost joint military training, information-sharing and cooperation in addressing emergencies, including responding to natural disasters.

Teodoro told reporters the agreement will be key to fostering a rules-based international order in a region threatened by China’s aggression. “Who is hegemonic? Who wants to expand their territory in the world? China,” Teodoro said.

The Philippines signed the first such defence pact with the U.S. in 1998, followed by a similar accord with Australia nine years later. The agreement with Canada was the third signed under Marcos, after similar ones with Japan and New Zealand.

Talks are ongoing with France and Singapore for similar agreements. Efforts are also underway to launch negotiations with Britain and possibly with Germany and India, Teodoro and other officials said.

Oil and gas giant Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. CNQ-T +0.09%increase has boosted its production forecast for the year after it gained full ownership of a major oil sands mine through an asset-swap deal with Shell Canada Ltd. SHEL-N -0.44%decrease

The deal announced in January saw Canadian Natural trade 10 per cent of its working interest in the Scotford Upgrader and Quest Carbon Capture project for Shell’s remaining 10 per cent interest in the Albian mine north of Fort McMurray, Alta. 

Canadian Natural says the deal, which has now closed, adds about 31,000 barrels per day of bitumen to its portfolio.

That brings its 2025 production guidance to between 1.56 million and 1.58 million barrels of oil equivalent per day. 

The added output represents production growth of about 15 per cent over 2024 production levels. 

Canadian Natural says its operating budget for the year remains unchanged at about $5.9-billion. 

“As a result of our strong execution and capital discipline, we have been able to maintain targeted capital levels in 2025 on a larger asset base following opportunistic acquisitions in the year, excellent results by our teams,” said Canadian Natural president Scott Stauth. 

The company reports its third-quarter results on Thursday.