Statistics Canada says lower prices at the pump and easing shelter inflation helped rein in the pressure facing consumers in January.

The agency said Tuesday that the annual rate of inflation ticked down to 2.3 per cent last month. Economists had expected inflation to hold steady at 2.4 per cent.

Statscan said gas prices were 16.7 per cent lower year-over-year in January, largely thanks to the end of the consumer carbon price in April.

That decline helped offset food inflation, which accelerated to 7.3 per cent annually in January.

Statscan said a jump of 12.3 per cent in the cost of restaurant meals year-over-year drove the increase.

That surge was mostly tied to the federal government’s “tax holiday” taking full effect a year earlier. January, 2025, marked the only full month of Ottawa’s temporary tax reprieve, which removed a portion of the sales tax on dining out and a variety of goods, and annual comparisons are somewhat distorted as a result.

Prices for alcohol, children’s clothes, toys and games also jumped year-over-year due to the “tax holiday” effect.

Costs for food from the grocery store, meanwhile, rose 4.8 per cent annually in January, slowing from a price hike of five per cent in December. Statscan said prices for fresh fruit fell 3.1 per cent in the month as stable growing seasons in producer regions eased prices for berries, oranges and melons.

Shelter inflation – long a stubborn fuel in the consumer price index – also continued its easing path to start the year.

Slower price growth for rent and mortgage interest costs meant shelter prices rose 1.7 per cent annually in January, the first time in almost five years this figure has been below two per cent.

Leslie Preston, TD senior economist, said in a note to clients Tuesday that the January inflation report is consistent with the bank’s view that price pressures will continue to moderate through the year “as past inflation problem areas, like rents, continue to cool.”

Preston said the Bank of Canada’s measures of underlying inflation cooled in January and core metrics were running below the central bank’s two per cent target on a three-month basis.

Statscan’s January price report marks the Bank of Canada’s first look at inflation data since the central bank held its benchmark interest rate steady at 2.25 per cent last month.

BMO chief economist Doug Porter said in a note to clients Tuesday that progress on the central bank’s preferred core inflation metrics in January will be encouraging.

Canadian dollar hits 11-day low as cooler inflation boosts rate cut bets

He said the bar for the bank to cut its policy rate again is high as central bank officials warn there is little more monetary policy can do to support the economy through its trade-driven structural transition.

Porter also argued an eventual cut isn’t completely off the table.

“Even so, if inflation continues to decelerate, the bank could be in position to support the economy should growth truly struggle as it undergoes a structural shift,” he said.

The Bank of Canada will get another look at inflation dynamics for February before its next decision on March 18.

Canada’s two largest insurers beat analysts’ profit expectations for the last quarter of 2025 as the industry continues to show broad resilience to U.S trade wars and market volatility.

Both Sun Life Financial Inc. SLF-T +0.32%increase and Manulife Financial Corp. MFC-T +2.81%increase ended the year with strong profit gainsacross both their asset management divisions and individual and group life insurance sales.

Sun Life reported “underlying” net income of $1.09-billion or $1.96 a share for the quarter ended Dec. 31. The company earned $965-million or $1.68 a share in the same period of 2024.

Manulife also reported a jump in its fourth-quarter “core earnings” to $2-billion or $1.12 a share, compared with $1.91-billion or $1.03 a year earlier. The insurer also announced a 10-per-cent increase to its dividend to 49 cents per common share.

Both insurers emphasize versions of earnings that strip out investment losses and make other accounting adjustments. Manulife calls its figure “core earnings,” while Sun Life describes its as “underlying net income.”

Sun Life and Manulife both beat analysts’ expectations, which were set at $1.87 a share and $1.06 a share, respectively, according to an RBC Capital Markets report.

The surge in profit came during a year that saw the U.S. trade war increase investor concerns and spark market volatility. But Sun Life chief executive officer Kevin Strain said the geopolitical risk has not yet created “big economic impacts” to the broader economy, which would affect insurers much more.

“Inflation is not much more despite the tariffs, equity markets have grown despite everything that’s going on, credit has been relatively benign and interest rates are almost favorable to the insurance industry,” Mr. Strain said in an interview with The Globe.

Mr. Strain – who travels frequently in his role – said he has seen a lot of interest around the world to work with Canada. In recent months, he has been able to join several trade missions with the federal government and the Business Council of Canada, including a trip in October with Prime Minister Mark Carney to Malaysia and a separate trip with the Business Council to Japan.

“We’re well received wherever we go,” he said.

Sun Life Financial reports $1.1-billion in quarterly profit, down year-over-year

Sun Life shares rose 6.3 per cent to $93.64 on Thursday as the insurer saw gains in Canada, Asia and the U.S. business segments, and are up 10.5 per cent from a year prior.

Manulife shares, meanwhile, slumped 5.2 per cent to $48.70, but are up 15.2 per cent from a year ago.

The fall in Manulife’s share price followed news that U.S. core earnings for its U.S business had dropped to US$229-million for the quarter, compared with US$294-million for the same period in 2024.

In an interview, Manulife chief financial officer Colin Simpson said the earnings shrinkage in the United States was owing to unfavourable life insurance claims for the region, specifically among high-net-worth clients.

Despite the U.S insurance segment – which he says is expected to improve in 2026, Mr. Simpson said insurers are often a place “where people have found comfort” during difficult times as the sector has been “attractively valued for a long time.”

“When we started the year with all the geopolitical noise around tariffs, it definitely felt like we were in for a world of volatility,” he said in an interview. “But we had a fantastic year from both a performance perspective and also from a share price perspective.”

Similar to its competitors, Mr. Simpson said Manulife makes the vast majority of its money from existing income streams and therefore is not linked to sales volatility that can occur in other industries, such as banking or property and casualty insurance.

However, despite record earnings for the quarter, both insurers saw U.S retail investors in their investment fund operations start to move money out of U.S. equities.

Mr. Simpson said the recent shift in market sentiment was largely owing to actively managed funds that were underweight in the Magnificent Seven – a group of high-performing technology companies such as Apple, Amazon and Microsoft.

The weaker performance, he said, moved a lot of retail investors into more passive index funds such as exchange-traded funds, while some steered their investments into safer havens such as cash.

Great-West Lifeco, the parent company of Canada’s third-largest insurer, Canada Life, also reported fourth-quarter earnings late Wednesday. Great-West reported earnings of $1.2-billion or $1.36 a share. That is up from $1.1-billion or a $1.20 a share a year earlier.

Editor’s note: An earlier version of this story incorrectly said the recent shift in market sentiment was largely owing to actively managed funds that were affected by the underperformance of the Magnificent Seven. The current version has been updated to say the shift in market sentiment was due to actively managed funds being underweight in the Magnificent Seven. An earlier version also quoted Manulife’s U.S. business core earnings as net income. That reference has been corrected.

Canadian pipeline operator TC Energy TRP-T +3.51%increase beat analysts’ estimates for fourth-quarter adjusted profit on Friday, helped by record natural gas flows across its North American network and increased demand for natural gas and power.

Major pipeline operators such as TC Energy are doubling down on expectations of surging natural gas demand as LNG export facilities expand and power-hungry AI systems, cryptocurrency miners and data centers ramp up electricity use.

TC Energy operates a 58,100 mile-long network of pipelines, supplying more than 30 per cent of the clean-burning fuel consumed daily across North America.

The company placed $8.3-billion of projects into service in 2025, and expects to place nearly $4-billion of capital into service this year.

In January, it closed a non-binding open season for 0.5 billion cubic feet per day (bcfpd) on its Columbia Gas Transmission system near Columbus, Ohio, attracting 1.5 bcfpd of total bids, three times the proposed project capacity, as power demand from data centers surged.

The company anticipates full-year capital expenditure to be between $6.0-billion and $6.5-billion.

Canadian natural gas pipeline deliveries averaged 27.2 bcfpd during the quarter, up 5 per cent from a year earlier, while U.S. pipeline flows rose 9.5 per cent to 29.6 bcfpd.

Deliveries to LNG facilities jumped 21 per cent to 3.9 bcfpd.

TC Energy’s adjusted core profit at U.S. natural gas pipelines, its largest segment, rose to $1.39-billion, from $1.2-billion a year ago.

Adjusted core earnings from Canadian natural gas pipelines rose nearly 13 per cent to $961-million during the quarter.

On an adjusted basis, the Calgary-based company earned 98 Canadian cents per share, compared with analysts’ average expectations of 92 Canadian cents, according to data compiled by LSEG.

It raised the quarterly dividend by 3.2 per cent to $0.8775 per share, marking its twenty-sixth straight year of dividend growth. 

Magna International Inc.’s MG-T +18.94%increase share price rose by 18 per cent on Friday after the Aurora, Ont., auto parts maker forecast steady sales for 2026, buoyed by new assembly work for Chinese electric carmakers.

Magna finance chief Phil Fracassa said global auto production is expected to be flat this year, but new contracts to make electric cars in Europe for China’s Xpeng and GAC will help lift the company’s sales.

Magna began assembling the EVs for Xpeng and GAC late last year at its Magna Steyr plant in Graz, Austria, which has produced more than four million vehicles for Mercedes, BMW and other brands. The Chinese companies are increasingly selling EVs in Europe and turned to Magna to produce domestic supplies.

“Looking ahead, this should continue to represent a growth opportunity for our complete vehicles business,” Mr. Fracassa said.

In a conference call with analysts on Friday, Mr. Fracassa said Magna is forecasting sales this year of between US$41.9-billion and US$43.5-billion, or nearly flat to a 3.5-per-cent increase over 2025.

Magna, which has plants around the world, will also benefit from increased vehicle production in Europe and a weaker U.S. dollar, Mr. Fracassa said on the call, held before markets opened to discuss fourth-quarter and full-year results for 2025. Those factors should outweigh an expected slip in production in China and North America, he said, as Magna ends production of the Toyota Supra and BMW Z4 in Graz.

For 2026, Magna forecasts adjusted profit per share will be between US$6.25 and US$7.25. This is higher than analysts’ estimates of US$5.99, according to LSEG, a financial data company.

Stock analyst Michael Ward of Citigroup said the guidance points to an earnings before interest, taxes and depreciation margin with a midpoint of 10 per cent, Magna’s best since 2021.

For 2025, Magna said its profit fell by 20 per cent to US$829-million or US$2.93 a share, compared with US$1-billion (US$3.52) in 2024. Revenue fell by 2 per cent to US$42-billion, compared with 2024.

For the fourth quarter of 2025, Magna lost US$1-million, down from a profit of US$203-million in the same period a year earlier. Revenue rose by 2 per cent to $10.8-bilion, from the year-ago quarter.

Magna and other automotive companies have been hit by U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs in the past year, causing manufacturers to absorb billions in costs. At the same time, carmakers in North America have taken billions in writeoffs for EV investments as demand has slowed amid U.S. rollbacks of purchase incentives and other regulations.

Swamy Kotagiri, Magna’s chief executive officer, said the company has offset the impact of almost all the tariffs, recovering them from customers.

In the European Union, battery-electric and hybrid-electric cars captured 17 per cent and 14 per cent of the market, respectively, according to the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association.

Enbridge ENB-T beat ​expectations for fourth-quarter profit on ‌Friday, and said it had sanctioned several projects to help meet surging demand for power across North America.

Pipeline operators are benefiting from a ⁠surge in ​demand for natural gas, driven by liquefied natural gas exports, and soaring power generation tied to increased use of artificial intelligence and data centers.

Earlier in the day, peer TC Energy ​also beat market expectations for quarterly profit ‌on the back of rising natural gas demand.

Enbridge said it had C$39 billion (US$28.63 billion) in project backlog, C$8 billion of which is expected to come into service this year.

The company sanctioned two renewable energy projects ‌in the fourth ​quarter – a $1.2 billion ‌project in Wyoming for a large tech company, and an ​onshore wind project in Texas worth US$400 million ⁠to support Meta Platforms’ data center operations.

“We continue to ⁠advance over 50 data center opportunities across North America, requiring up to ​10 billion cubic feet per day new takeaway capacity,” CEO Greg Ebel said, adding that the company expects to sanction additional projects in 2026 and beyond.

Shares of the company rose nearly 3% to an all-time high of C$72.57.

Enbridge posted an adjusted profit of 88 Canadian cents per share for the fourth-quarter, compared with estimates of 77 Canadian cents, according to data compiled by LSEG.

UBS analyst Manav Gupta said Enbridge “continues to prioritize balance sheet strength… while still ⁠looking into low-multiple brownfield opportunities and utility-like ​growth.”

The results come as the North American energy industry braces for ⁠an increase in Venezuelan oil production, which could further pressure Canadian oil prices as ‌the country’s companies sell a similar heavy oil, analysts have said.

However, Ebel ​said the company does not expect any material impact from the recent geopolitical events involving Venezuela, adding that increased output from the country would be a supplement to Canadian ​heavy crudes, not a replacement.

U.S. consumer prices increased less than expected in January, but underlying inflation firmed as businesses raised prices at the start of the year, which together with a stabilizing labor market could allow the Federal Reserve to keep interest rates unchanged for a while.

The Consumer Price Index rose 0.2 per cent last month after an unrevised 0.3-per-cent gain in December, the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics said on Friday. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast the CPI increasing 0.3 per cent.

With January’s CPI report, the BLS published recalculated seasonal adjustment factors to reflect 2025 price movements.

The report was slightly delayed by last week’s three-day shutdown of the federal government. A longer shutdown last year prevented the collection of prices for October, causing volatility in the CPI data. Economists expected the volatility faded in January’s report.

In the 12 months through January, the CPI increased 2.4 per cent. The slowdown in the year-on-year inflation rate from 2.7 per cent in December mostly reflected last year’s higher readings dropping out of the calculation.

The U.S. central bank tracks the Personal Consumption Expenditures Price Indexes for its 2-per-cent inflation target. Both measures are running well above target. The government reported this week that job growth accelerated in January and the unemployment rate fell to 4.3 per cent from 4.4 per cent in December.

The Fed last month left its benchmark overnight interest rate in the 3.50 per cent to 3.75 per cent range.

Excluding the volatile food and energy components, the CPI increased 0.3 per cent after rising by an unrevised 0.2 per cent in December.

Core CPI numbers have overshot expectations every January, with economists saying the seasonal adjustment factors, the model used by the BLS to strip out seasonal fluctuations from the data, were not fully accounting for the one-off turn-of-the-year price increases.

Last month’s increase likely reflected the one-off turn-of-the-year price hikes as well as the tariff pass-through from President Donald Trump’s broad tariffs. In the 12 months through January, the so-called core CPI increased 2.5 per cent after advancing 2.6 per cent in December. That also reflected last year’s higher readings dropping out of the calculation.

Economists expect inflation to pick up for a while this year, citing the pass through from import duties as well as the dollar’s depreciation last year against the currencies of the United States’ main trade partners. The trade-weighted U.S. dollar fell about 7.4 per cent last year.

• Shopify posted strong fourth-quarter revenue, helped by the key holiday shopping period.
• The company missed analysts’ expectations for earnings, and it forecast free-cash-flow margins in the first quarter that could be lower than last year.
• It also announced a $2 billion share repurchase program.

Shopify on Wednesday reported fourth-quarter results that beat on the top line and gave strong guidance to start the year. The stock slid more than 10%.

Here’s how the company did, compared with estimates from analysts polled by LSEG:

• Earnings per share: 48 cents adjusted vs. 51 cents
• Revenue: $3.67 billion vs. $3.59 billion

The Canadian e-commerce company said it expects first-quarter revenue to expand at a “low-thirties percentage rate” year over year, which is higher than the 25.1% growth forecast by analysts, according to FactSet.

Shopify projected its free-cash-flow margin to be in the “low-to-mid teens” in the first quarter, which is slightly lower than a year ago. CFO Jeff Hoffmeister told analysts that it reflects the company’s continued investment in AI tools.

The company’s board of directors also approved $2 billion in share buybacks.

Shares of software companies have sold off heavily in recent weeks as investors grew increasingly concerned about the potential threat of artificial intelligence tools.

Shopify, which sells software to help businesses launch and run their online storefronts, has tried to position itself at the forefront of emerging AI shopping tools. The company was an early partner of OpenAI when it launched its Instant Checkout feature, and it helped Google develop a protocol for AI shopping bots to facilitate transactions across the web.

Shopify President Harley Finkelstein said in an interview with CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” on Wednesday that the company has “laid the rails” for AI shopping and is poised to benefit from how it disrupts e-commerce.

Some fears of an AI-driven software wipeout are overblown, Finkelstein said.

“I think there’s an incredible opportunity coming with AI, but I think you have to look at the companies that are acting as infrastructure, as platforms, vs. ones that are just features,” Finkelstein said. “Shopify is internet infrastructure.”

The company’s revenues were lifted by the key holiday shopping period, which saw “record” spending in 2025, according to Adobe Analytics. Online spending from Nov. 1 through Dec. 31 increased 6.8% to $257.8 billion, Adobe said, beating its forecast of $253.4 billion.

Shoppers remained resilient during the holiday shopping season despite a dour economic backdrop dominated by weakening consumer confidence, President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariff policies and a slowing job market.

The Commerce Department reported Tuesday that retail sales in December were flat after increasing 0.6% in November, capping off the year on a downbeat note after a period of otherwise solid shopping activity.

Shopify’s gross merchandise volume, or the total volume of merchandise sold on the platform, came in higher than expected. GMV surged 29% year over year to $123.8 billion, surpassing analysts’ estimated $121.3 billion, according to FactSet.

• Nonfarm payrolls increased by 130,000 for January, above the Dow Jones consensus estimate for 55,000.
• The unemployment rate edged lower to 4.3%. A more encompassing measure slipped to 8%, down 0.4 percentage point from December.
• As has often been the case for the U.S. labor market, health care led job gains in December, adding 82,000 positions. Social assistance also rose, up 42,000, while construction added 33,000.
• The BLS also released final benchmark revisions for the year prior to March 2025. Those numbers saw the initial counts revised lower by a total 898,000, about in line with expectations.

https://www.cnbc.com/2026/02/11/jobs-report-january-2026-.html

 Shopify Inc. reported a fourth-quarter profit of US$743 million as its revenue rose 31 per cent compared with a year earlier.

The e-commerce company, which keeps its books in U.S. dollars, says the profit amounted to 57 cents US per diluted share for quarter ended Dec. 31.

The result compared with a profit of US$1.29 billion or 99 cents US per diluted share in the last three months of 2024.

Revenue for the quarter totalled US$3.67 billion, up from US$2.81 billion a year earlier.

Merchant solutions revenue totalled US$2.90 billion, up from US$2.15 billion a year earlier, while subscription solutions revenue totalled US$777 million, up from US$666 million.

In its outlook, Shopify says it expects revenue for the first quarter of 2026 to grow at a low-thirties percentage rate on a year-over-year basis, similar to the fourth quarter of 2025.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 11, 2026.