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Canadian fashion retailer Aritzia Inc. ATZ-T +7.43%increase reported a year-over-year doubling of its profits in the first quarter, and it boosted its sales forecasts for this year, as the brand’s styles continue to prove popular with shoppers.

“It starts with product. Product is central, and it’s the heart of what we do, and we’ve gotten the product right,” chief executive officer Jennifer Wong said on a conference call on Thursday to discuss the company’s earnings.

Aritzia’s spring and summer collections have performed well, allowing the stores to sell fewer items on markdown. The company has also been investing more in marketing to win over new shoppers, and to maintain awareness among its existing customers.

The retailer has developed a healthy balance between new styles and recurring bestsellers, which is continuing to attract people to the stores, Ms. Wong said, along with an ability to keep up with trends.

“An integral part of our business model is our ability to flex our inventory in-season to meet demand,” she said.

The Vancouver-based clothing maker reported net income of $117.3-million, or 99 cents per diluted share, in the quarter ended May 31, compared to $42.4-million, or 36 cents per diluted share, in the same period last year.

Aritzia has been expanding its store footprint in the United States, and the country accounted for roughly two-thirds of its revenues in the first quarter. Sales grew faster south of the border than in Aritzia’s home market, but Canadian net revenue still increased by 25 per cent.

The company reported its total revenue grew by 43 per cent compared to the same period last year, to $951-million.

Comparable sales – a metric that tracks sales growth only in stores open for more than one year to exclude the impact of new store openings – increased by 35 per cent in the quarter.

On Thursday, the company also updated its forecast for the current fiscal year, reporting that it expects annual sales to jump by 23 per cent to 28 per cent, to a range of $4.55-billion to $4.75-billion. Its previous forecast had predicted revenue for the year in the range of $4.4-billion to $4.6-billion.

“I’ve never been more confident in the business than I am right now,” Ms. Wong said.

Some of that growth will be driven by continued store expansion, with 12 to 13 new locations planned for this year, and four to five updates to existing stores, either through renovations or relocations. Most of the new stores will be in the U.S.

In May, Aritzia opened a new distribution centre in British Columbia to support its expansion plans. New stores have been earning back their investment in under a year on average, Ms. Wong said, which has outpaced the company’s expectation of 12 to 18 months.

Aritzia locations have also been getting bigger, which helps each store to generate more sales: Roughly a decade ago, its locations averaged roughly 6,000 square feet, while new stores now average more than 10,000 square feet.

When the company opens new stores, it also sees an approximate 70-per-cent lift in e-commerce sales in the surrounding area in the first year on average, chief financial officer Todd Ingledew said during the call.

“So it continues to be very meaningful contributor to our overall growth, and we’re really pleased with the performance of the new stores,” he said.

A better start to the youth summer jobs market helped the economy record steady employment gains in June, Statistics Canada said Friday.

Employers added 18,000 jobs last month, the agency said, mostly in part-time and private sector work.

That pushed the unemployment rate down a tenth of a point to 6.5 per cent, back to where it stood in January.

Employment gains narrowly topped economists’ expectations heading into the release but mark a slowdown from the 88,000 jobs added in May.

Young workers have struggled in a tough labour market in recent years, but the group was a bright spot in the June jobs report.

Statscan said youth aged 15 to 24 added 33,000 jobs in June, mostly in part-time work. Workers aged 25 to 54 saw similar gains while older members of the labour market faced losses.

The unemployment rate for returning students – those planning to head back to school in the fall – was 15.3 per cent in June, 2.1 percentage points lower than the same month a year ago. This was still higher than the pre-pandemic average of 13 per cent.

The agency noted however that job prospects varied widely within this age group.

Returning students aged 20 to 24 saw an unemployment rate of 8.2 per cent in June, while those aged 17 to 19 faced a jobless rate of 16.5 per cent. Teens aged 15 or 16 recorded an unemployment rate of 30.6 per cent in June as they searched for work in the waning days of the school year.

The wholesale and retail trade industry and the food and accommodation sector – two areas that tend to employ a lot of youth – led job gains in June.

Numerous economists weighing in on Friday’s data release also pointed to the FIFA World Cup as driving up hospitality sector hiring in June.

Manufacturing, meanwhile, shed 17,000 positions last month. The industry is down some 61,000 jobs since a recent peak in January 2025 as U.S. tariffs continue to weigh on the sector, Statscan said.

TD Bank economist Maria Solovieva said in a note to clients Friday that manufacturing “remains a poster child of the uncertainty hanging over the Canadian economy.”

The June jobs report will be the Bank of Canada’s last major look at the state of the economy before making its next interest rate decision on Wednesday.

Solovieva said weakness in trade-exposed sectors of the labour market will help to offset inflationary pressures elsewhere in the economy, allowing the Bank of Canada to remain on hold next week.

As of Friday morning, financial market odds were more than 90 per cent in favour of an interest rate hold from the central bank next week, according to LSEG Data & Analytics.

All told, overall employment was up by 99,000 positions year-over-year in June with growth concentrated in the private sector.

Average hourly wages rose 3.3 per cent annually in June, up from three per cent in May.

“The labour market is still not strong – the unemployment rate is still higher than normal. But economic growth data has also shown signs of picking up in Q2 after stalling over the winter,” said RBC assistant chief economist Nathan Janzen in a note to clients.

Janzen noted that with population growth slowing, Canadians should get used to seeing smaller employment gains on a monthly basis.

But with the unemployment rate ticking lower, he said June’s labour force data support RBC’s view that the jobs market is improving on a per-worker basis. He said he expects the unemployment rate will continue to decline through 2026.

The commodity-linked Canadian dollar strengthened ⁠against ​its U.S. counterpart on Wednesday as oil prices jumped and investors raised bets on a Bank of Canada interest rate hike this year.

The loonie was trading 0.2% higher at ​1.4170 per U.S. dollar, or 70.57 U.S. ‌cents, after moving in a range of 1.4156 to 1.4210.

“The CAD has performed relatively well through the overnight volatility,” Shaun Osborne and Eric Theoret, strategists at Scotiabank, said in a note. “Negative CAD sentiment ‌is moderating but ​spot remains quite ‌elevated.”

The price of oil, one of Canada’s major exports, ​rose 5.2% to US$74.10 a barrel after U.S. ⁠President Donald Trump said an interim agreement to end ⁠the war with Iran was “over” and that the United States was likely ​to launch new strikes on Wednesday night. Stock markets globally fell as the jump in oil prices stoked worries about the inflation outlook and the prospect of tighter monetary policy.

Investors see a roughly 60% chance the BoC ⁠will raise interest rates this year, up from 40% on Tuesday, swap market data showed.

In the options market, three-month USD-CAD risk reversals were trading at an implied volatility of 0.14 percentage points in favor of calls over puts, marking the lowest ⁠premium for the greenback since June ​3.

“The declining premium for USD calls suggests markets have taken ⁠the early July USMCA developments in their stride and might point to some modest ‌upside potential in the CAD,” the strategists said. Last week, the U.S. declined ​to extend the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, seeking changes to the trade deal.

Canadian bond yields moved higher across the curve. The 10-year was up as much as 9.5 basis ​points at 3.590%, its highest level since May 21.

Meta Platforms Inc. META-Q -2.11%decreaseplans to spend more than $13-billion to build a massive artificial intelligence data centre in Sturgeon County, Alta., north of Edmonton, marking the technology company’s first such facility in Canada.

Meta described the data centre in a news release as a 1-gigawatt facility, referring to the amount of electricity it will consume. For comparison, the city of Edmonton draws about 1.4 gigawatts. The data centre campus will be built on 1,750 acres of land, according to a company spokesperson, well over the size of Stanley Park in Vancouver.

To meet the electricity needs of the data centre, Pembina Pipeline Corp., Morgan Stanley Infrastructure Partners and Kineticor Asset Management are constructing a $4.6-billion natural gas plant in Sturgeon County. Dubbed the Greenlight Electricity Centre, the project was first announced last year, with Pembina and its partners saying the plant would serve an unnamed data centre customer.

Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, did not publicly confirm its involvement until Wednesday.

The company the data centre will employ more than 3,000 workers at the peak of construction and more than 300 jobs once operational in two to three years. Meta is promising to cover the full electricity costs of the data centre, including for new and upgraded infrastructure. It will use an efficient cooling system to reduce water use, the company said, adding that water consumption will be limited to fire safety and equipment maintenance.

Meta, which got its start in social media, is now among the largest developers of AI, and spending big on the infrastructure to power it. The company said earlier this year that its capital expenditures in 2026 will total between US$125-billion and US$145-billion, while chief executive officer Mark Zuckerberg has spent lavishly to recruit AI researchers to its Meta Superintelligence Labs division.

Growing AI adoption and development is leading to unprecedented demand for new data centres, which are large facilities filled with sophisticated computer chips to build and run AI models. Much of the construction is occurring in the United States. Around 70 data centre proposals have been announced in Canada since 2024, but only a handful have started construction, according to data from Aterio, a Vancouver-based company that tracks the industry.

Bell Canada is building a 300-megawatt data centre campus in Saskatchewan, while Telus Corp. is constructing two in Vancouver, including a 100-megawatt facility.

The Alberta government, meanwhile, has been courting tech companies the past couple of years and pitching the province’s abundant natural gas resources as a way to power energy-hungry data centres. Rather than rely exclusively on electricity from the provincial grid, which could compromise reliability and raise prices for consumers, developers are encouraged to build their own power generation capacity.

Pembina has said that the Greenlight power facility will be operational in the second half of 2030, while Meta aims to have its data centre online sooner. To bridge the gap, the Alberta Electric System Operator, which manages the grid, last year allocated more than 900 megawatts of electricity to the Greenlight proponents, allowing the data centre to get online beforehand.

AESO is proposing to allot a further 1.6 gigawatts of electricity to developers building their own power generation facilities so that data centres can become operational beforehand.

Some data centre proposals have run into trouble. The Alberta Utilities Commission rejected an application for a massive development in the town of Olds earlier this year filed by Synapse Real Estate Corp. for containing “significant deficiencies.” The company reapplied, but the commission is still seeking more information from Synapse. Some residents have been vocal in opposing the project, too.

Indeed, data centre proposals have been met with community resistance in other parts of the country, as some Canadians are concerned about the environmental impact of these facilities, as well as the noise they can generate. In June, Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew shot down a large-scale data centre planned for an area southeast of Winnipeg. “There’s a big threat to the environment and not much benefit to the economy,” he said at the time.

Toyota is investing $3.6 billion to expand its San Antonio, Texas, assembly plant, a move expected to create about 2,000 new jobs and bring Toyota Tacoma pickup production from Mexico to the Lone Star State.

The automaker announced Monday that it will build a second vehicle assembly line at its San Antonio campus, allowing the facility to assemble the Tacoma alongside the Tundra and Sequoia. 

As part of the expansion, Tacoma production will gradually transition from Toyota’s Baja California plant in Mexico over the next four years, according to the company. Toyota will continue producing Tacoma pickups at its Guanajuato, Mexico, plant.

BMW NORTH AMERICA CEO TOUTS ‘LONG GAME’ IN US

The project will add about 2.5 million square feet to the manufacturing campus, effectively doubling the site’s size by 2030 and bringing Toyota’s total investment in the San Antonio operation to $8.3 billion since construction began in 2003. Toyota previously moved Tacoma production from San Antonio to its Guanajuato plant in 2020.

Workers stand by the assembly line at the new rear axle plant at Toyota Texas in San Antonio on March 2, 2026. (Katina Zentz/San Antonio Express-News via Getty Images)

Toyota said the investment reflects its confidence in North America’s workforce, innovation and long-term growth potential. The expanded facility will also incorporate advanced manufacturing technologies designed to increase production flexibility.

The announcement is another major manufacturing win for Texas, which has attracted billions of dollars in industrial investment in recent years as companies cite the state’s business-friendly policies, workforce and available land. Gov. Greg Abbott said the expansion, supported by the Texas Enterprise Fund and JETI program, will qualify for a $20 million state grant and other incentives and reinforces Texas’ position as a leading destination for advanced manufacturing.

• President Donald Trump said the U.S. ceasefire with Iran was over after a blow-up in hostilities this week, with both sides accusing each other of violating the temporary truce.
• Later, Trump said the U.S. will “very probably” attack Iran “hard again tonight.”
• Trump also signaled the U.S. would reimpose its naval blockade in the Strait of Hormuz.
• He later seemed to downplay the nuclear threat posed by Iran, while ruling out the need for any U.S. troops on the ground in the country. Trump had justified starting the war with Iran by citing concerns about it being poised to develop a nuclear weapon.

https://www.cnbc.com/2026/07/08/trump-says-iran-ceasefire-is-over-after-latest-round-of-strikes.html

The U.S. trade deficit widened sharply in May as an artificial intelligence investment boom helped to drive imports of capital goods to a record high, suggesting that trade remained a drag on gross domestic product in the second quarter.

The trade gap jumped 42.2 per cent to US$77.6-billion, the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis and Census Bureau said on Tuesday. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast the deficit at US$78.5-billion.

Imports increased 3.3 per cent to US$395.3-billion, with imports of capital goods soaring to a record high US$128.0-billion.

Canada posts $4.24-billion trade surplus in May, led by bump in U.S. exports

Businesses are spending heavily on AI, whose buildup is heavily reliant on imports. Exports dropped 3.2 per cent to US$317.7-billion, though shipments of petroleum were the highest on record amid the Middle East conflict. The U.S. is a net oil exporter.

Trade has subtracted from GDP for two straight quarters. The Atlanta Federal Reserve’s model is currently forecasting GDP increasing at a 1.2-per-cent annualized rate in the second quarter. The economy grew at a 2.1-per-cent pace in the January-March quarter.

Canada’s trade surplus hit a four-year high in May as the conflict in the Middle East buoyed oil and other global commodity prices and aluminum exporters found new markets.

Merchandise exports rose 0.9 per cent, the fourth consecutive monthly increase, to a record $77.1-billion, Statistics Canada reported Tuesday. Imports declined 0.2 per cent.

That pushed Canada’s trade surplus with the rest of the world to $4.2-billion, from an upwardly revised $3.4-billion in April. That’s the largest trade surplus since May, 2022, and the second largest surplus since the summer of 2008, just before the global financial crisis.

Meanwhile, Canada’s trade surplus with the United States widened to $11.6-billion from $10.3-billion in April, the largest surplus since January, 2025, when Canadian companies tried to front-run President Donald Trump’s incoming tariffs.

The run of strong export data in recent months has been driven by the spike in global oil prices, caused by the U.S.-Iran war and the closing of the Strait of Hormuz to oil tanker traffic. After posting a towering $5.3-billion trade deficit in February, Canadian exports have jumped 22-per-cent over four months, leading to a string of trade surpluses.

Most of the increase has been driven by higher prices, not greater shipment volumes. In real (price-adjusted) terms, exports in May were essentially flat.

“Canadian trade surpluses can come and go quickly with swings in oil prices, and this is probably the high watermark for now,” Bank of Montreal senior economist Robert Kavcic wrote in a note to clients. “Still, net exports look to add firmly to growth in Q2, another data point that suggests the Canadian economy has snapped out of its two-quarter funk.”

Since Washington and Tehran announced a peace agreement in mid-June, the price of a barrel of West Texas Intermediate crude has fallen to around US$70 – well below the US$90 to US$110 range in May.

Canadian energy exports actually declined 2 per cent in May compared to April. However, this was more than offset by a 16-per-cent increase in metal ores and non-metallic mineral exports, led by a jump in sulphur exports.

“This increase occurred in a context of constrained global supply, as sulphur shipments transiting through the Strait of Hormuz have slowed since the conflict in the Middle East began,” Statistics Canada said.

Aluminum exports rose 50.7 per cent to reach $1.2-billion, the highest export value since May, 2022. This increase was led by shipments to the Netherlands, Italy and Greece.

The aluminum market has been upended by U.S. tariffs on the metal as well as the closing of the Strait of Hormuz. Around 10 per cent of global aluminum production comes from countries in the Persian Gulf and aluminum prices rose sharply this spring.

Beyond increased aluminum shipments to Europe, there were few signs of the federal government’s trade diversification agenda in the May numbers. Exports to the U.S. rose 1.5 per cent, the fourth consecutive monthly increase.

Exports to the rest of the world declined 0.3 per cent, after a sharp 4-per-cent drop in April. Most of the trade diversification story over the past year has been about higher gold prices and greater gold shipments to the United Kingdom. This has slowed in recent months.

Canadian economy snaps back from winter lull

Overall, exports rose in seven out of 11 categories, including consumer goods, chemical, plastic and rubber products, and food products.

Imports declined 0.2 per cent in May, driven by a large drop in the value of metal imports, including gold, iron and steel and scrap metal. Looking beyond metals, imports actually increased in nine out of 11 sectors.

“Trade flows continue to be shaped by uncertainty surrounding U.S. trade policy, although our broader expectation remains that trade will become less of a drag on Canadian growth than it was in 2025 as the international environment gradually stabilizes,” Royal Bank of Canada economists Abbey Xu and Nathan Janzen wrote in a note to clients.

“The recent CUSMA joint review did little to change our base-case outlook that North American trade rules will remain broadly intact, though negotiations are likely to remain an important source of uncertainty,” they wrote, referring to trade pact between Canada, Mexico and the United States.

Last week, the Trump administration opted not to extend the trade agreement for another 16 years. The deal remains in place but moves into a period of annual reviews until 2036. Trade negotiations among the three countries are expected to continue over the summer.

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