(Illustration: Camille Charbonneau)
THE ESSENTIAL NEWS
• The Fed is expected to hold interest rates but will provide direction at this week’s meeting. The US Federal Reserve begins a two-day meeting in which officials are expected to hold interest rates on hold for now, while showing through new economic projections their estimates on how much rates will rise before the end of the year.
• The expansion of Canada’s Trans Mountain pipeline will disrupt the flow of oil to the United States and drive up prices. The expansion of Canada’s Trans Mountain (TMX) pipeline, which will nearly triple the flow of crude oil from Alberta to Canada’s Pacific coast starting early next year, will disrupt the supply of North America by diverting barrels currently delivered primarily to refiners and exporters in the US Midwest and Gulf Coast.
• India rejects Canada’s suspicions of its role in the assassination of a Sikh leader. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said authorities were “actively pursuing credible allegations” linking New Delhi agents to the killing of a Sikh separatist leader, a concern India called “absurd.”
• UAW prepares for more strikes in US auto industry; negotiations with Ford Canada are extended. The United Auto Workers union said it would announce new strikes at U.S. factories on Friday if no serious progress is made in negotiations with the three Detroit automakers, as a Canadian union postponed a strike start immediately in Ford’s operations in Canada.
• Google is making one last attempt to overturn the EU’s $2.6 billion antitrust fine. Alphabet’s Google has made a final push to Europe’s top court to overturn a $2.6 billion EU antitrust fine.
TRENDS BEFORE OPENING
THE futures of the main Canadian stock index were subdued as traders waited for domestic inflation data to get more clues on the Bank of Canada’s interest rate path. Futures contracts on US stock indices rose slightly ahead of a two-day Federal Reserve monetary policy meeting and as investors awaited Instacart’s debut on the Nasdaq to gauge a potential recovery in the IPO market. THE European stocks rose slightly in a choppy market, with investors remaining cautious awaiting a series of central bank decisions this week, while the DAX German stocks lagged behind regional peers as weak industrial inventories weighed on. The average of stocks Japanese Nikkei closed lower, with chip-related stocks leading the decline. THE gold price reached its highest level in two weeks, the American dollar having moved away from its six-month peak, as markets prepare to receive a new round of economic forecasts from the Fed. THE oil price rose for the fourth straight session as weak U.S. shale production reignited fears of a supply shortfall resulting from prolonged production cuts by Saudi Arabia and Russia.
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HEADLINES TO FOLLOW
• Enbridge: The expansion of Canada’s Trans Mountain (TMX) pipeline, which will almost triple the flow of crude oil from Alberta to Canada’s Pacific coast starting early next year, will disrupt the supply of North America by diverting barrels currently delivered primarily to refiners and exporters in the US Midwest and Gulf Coast. Its commissioning could add as much as $2 per barrel to prices paid by U.S. Midwest oil refineries along Canada’s main oil export route. Refineries that have benefited from lower oil prices, analysts say, include those of BP, Citgo Petroleum, Exxon Mobil and Koch Industries’ Flint Hills Resources. Pipeline operator Enbridge, which carries most of the 3.8 million bpd of crude oil exported from Canada to the United States, expects flows on its Mainline network to decline by 300,000 bpd after TMX opened.
