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The lowest advertised uninsured fixed rates in Canada mostly climbed this week, by four to eight basis points. Joe Raedle/Getty Images The lowest advertised uninsured fixed mortgage rates in Canada mostly climbed this week, by four to eight basis points. Popular two-year fixed rates, which attract people who want to lock in for a few years and refinance when the Bank of Canada cuts rates, jumped 22 bps. As for the lowest insured fixed rates, they mainly held steady. The exception was one-year and two-year terms, where Quest Mortgage launched new market-leading offers of 4.99 per cent. Variable rates didn’t move this week. They will remain steady until the central bank presumably increases interest rates again on Dec. 7 and pushes some borrowers closer to their trigger rate. Last, but not least, are rates for home equity lines of credit, where Tangerine finally pulled its stellar offer of prime rate minus 0.1 per cent, which it has featured since 2019. The lowest-cost widely advertise...

Oil prices settled higher on Friday but fell week-on-week after health authorities in China eased some of the country’s heavy COVID-19 curbs, raising hopes for improved economic activity and demand in the world’s top crude importer. Brent crude futures settled up $2.32 at $95.99 a barrel, extending a 1.1% rise from the previous session but falling 2.6% on the week. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures settled up $2.49, or 2.9%, at $88.96 a barrel, after climbing 0.8% in the previous session but down nearly 4% on the week. The easing curbs include shortening quarantine times for close contacts of cases and inbound travellers by two days, as well as eliminating a penalty on airlines for bringing in infected passengers. The benchmark oil contracts fell during the week due to rising U.S. oil inventories, and lingering fears over capped fuel demand in China, but late-week gains limited the losses. “China’s changing response to stubbornly high COVID-19 cases has added to the oi...

Two provincial privacy watchdogs say they have received data breach reports from Sobeys, which has been dealing with “IT system” issues for much of the past week affecting customers seeking prescriptions at some pharmacies it operates. Quebec’s access to information commission confirmed Thursday it received a declaration of a “confidentiality incident” from the grocer. It said confidentiality incidents occur when there is unauthorized access, use or loss of personal information or or any other breach of the protection of this information. Alberta’s privacy commission also confirmed that it has been notified by the company about the incident and is aware that it is being investigated. At the federal level, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada says it is in communication with the company to obtain more information and determine next steps. On Monday the parent company of Sobeys, Empire Company Ltd. EMP-A-T, released a statement on the issue, saying some pharmacies were havi...

Twitter Blue will probably “come back end of next week,” billionaire owner Elon Musk said in a tweet on Saturday. Twitter on Friday paused its recently announced $8 blue check subscription service on Friday as fake accounts mushroomed. The coveted blue check mark was previously reserved for verified accounts of politicians, famous personalities, journalists and other public figures. But a subscription option, open to anyone prepared to pay, was rolled out earlier this week to help Twitter grow revenue as Musk fights to retain advertisers. Several users reported on Friday that the new subscription option for the blue verification check mark had disappeared, while a source told Reuters the offering has been dropped. “To combat impersonation, we’ve added an ‘Official’ label to some accounts,” Twitter’s support account - which has the “official” tag - tweeted on Friday. The label was originally introduced on Wednesday - but “killed” by Musk just hours later. On Thursday, in his first com...

Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies were under pressure on Monday following last week’s spectacular collapse of crypto exchange FTX, while regulators opened probes and rival exchanges sought to reassure jittery investors of their own stability. The implosion of FTX, once a darling of the crypto industry with a US$32-billion valuation as of January, has spurred investigations by the U.S. Justice Department, the Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission, a source with knowledge of the investigations said. The SEC’s probe is also targeting FTX executives, their knowledge of the handling of customer funds and any potential breaking of securities laws, a second source with knowledge of the investigation said. While the crypto industry has touted digital assets as fundamentally different from traditional finance, the sector has proven to be susceptible to the same risks and should be subject to the same rules, Federal Reserve vice-chair Lael Brainard said o...

Amazon.com Inc AMZN-Q is planning to lay off about 10,000 people in corporate and technology jobs starting as soon as this week, the New York Times reported on Monday, citing people with knowledge of the matter. The cuts will focus on the e-commerce giant’s devices unit, which houses voice-assistant Alexa, as well as its retail division and human resources, according to the report, which also said the total number of layoffs remains fluid. The company did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. As of Dec. 31 last year, Amazon had about 1,608,000 full-time and part-time employees. Amazon joins a bandwagon of U.S. companies making deep cuts to its employee base to brace for a potential economic downturn. Last week, Facebook-parent Meta Platforms said it would cut more than 11,000 jobs, or 13 per cent of its workforce, to rein in costs. https://www.tausiinsider.com/amazon-reportedly-plans-to-lay-off-10000-people-in-corporate-technology-jobs-starting-this-week/?fee...

Canadian crypto exchange Bitvo said on Tuesday it had terminated its deal to be bought by FTX, which filed for bankruptcy last week. Bitvo also said it had no material exposure to FTX or any of its affiliates. https://www.tausiinsider.com/canadas-bitvo-ends-acquisition-deal-with-bankrupt-crypto-exchange-ftx/?feed_id=371666&_unique_id=648ecb7fefce7

Elon Musk sent a message to Twitter Inc TWTR-N staff telling them they had until Thursday to decide whether they wanted to stay on at the company to work “long hours at high intensity” or take a severance package of three months pay. Musk told Twitter employees that anyone who had not clicked on a link confirming “you want to be part of the new Twitter” by Thursday evening New York time would be considered to have quit. A copy of the message, which was reported by The Washington Post, was reviewed by Reuters. Three sources who had received the message at Twitter confirmed its content. Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Reuters. The latest move to restructure the company comes after Twitter slashed half of its workforce earlier this month as Musk took control of the social media company. Musk has criticized Twitter’s spending and work culture, and said that the company needs steep cost cuts and a reboot of its services. “Going forward, to build a breakth...

U.S. crude stocks fell by more than 5 million barrels in the most recent week, while fuel stocks rose as refiners boosted output to deal with high demand and low inventories. Crude inventories fell by 5.4 million barrels in the week ended Nov. 11 to 435.4 million barrels, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said on Wednesday, compared with expectations in a Reuters poll for a 440,000-barrel drop. “The drawdown in crude supplies is substantial. The crude supply is still very tight, heating oil supply is still below average,” said Phil Flynn, senior analyst at Price Futures Group in Chicago. “My gut feeling is it’s a very supportive report, it shows supplies are very tight.” Refinery crude runs picked up in the most recent week, rising by 63,000 barrels per day to bring refinery utilization rates to 92.9 per cent of overall capacity, up 0.8 percentage points. Fuel stocks rose across the board, a salve for end-users worried about low inventories that have persisted for several mo...

The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits fell last week, showing widespread layoffs remain low, keeping the labour market tight despite the Federal Reserve’s aggressive interest rate hikes to cool demand in the economy. Initial claims for state unemployment benefits dropped 4,000 to a seasonally adjusted 222,000 for the week ended Nov. 12, the Labor Department said on Thursday. Data for the prior week was revised to show 1,000 more applications filed than previously reported. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast 225,000 claims for the latest week. There has been an increase in layoffs in the technology sector, with Twitter, Amazon and Meta, the parent of Facebook, announcing thousands of job cuts this month. Companies in interest-rate sensitive sectors like housing and finance are also letting workers go. The layoffs have so far not been evident in official data, with claims hovering in the middle of their 166,000-261,000 range this year. Economists sa...

European refiners have found themselves oversupplied with crude as an expected shortage owing to the looming EU ban on Russian oil has yet to materialize. The front-month Brent crude futures spread narrowed sharply this week, reflecting better supply in the physical oil market as fears over the EU embargo on Russian crude begin to subside. Premiums on prompt prices to future prices – known as a backwardated market structure – usually indicate supply tightness. Traders cited Europe’s ability to replace Russian oil with grades from the Middle East, the United States and Latin America while Asia is asking for less crude because of an economic slowdown and increased use of Russian barrels. Brent futures prices have also slumped by about 7 per cent this week, weakening for a second week in a row. “There’s too much oil around,” one European crude trader said. “(European] refiners seem to have overbought in November and December, probably because of fears around Urals,” he said, adding that...

The Canadian dollar CADUSD weakened against its U.S. counterpart on Friday, with the currency adding to this week’s decline as oil prices fell and data showed the largest divestment of Canadian securities by foreign investors in nearly four years. The price of oil, one of Canada’s major exports, was on track for a second weekly decline, pressured by concern about weakening demand in China and further interest rate rises by the U.S. Federal Reserve. U.S. crude prices fell 3.7 per cent to $78.62 a barrel, while the Canadian dollar was trading 0.3 per cent lower at 1.3360 to the greenback, or 74.85 U.S. cents. It traded in a range of 1.3301 to 1.3368. For the week, it was on track to decline 0.8 per cent, after four straight weeks of gains. Foreign investors sold a net C$22.3-billion ($16.7-billion) in Canadian securities in September, led by federal government bonds, following a revised C$26.2-billion total purchase in August, Statistics Canada said. This was the largest divestment sin...

The cost of commuting is forcing some Ontario residents who moved outside the GTA during the pandemic to reconsider their place of residence as employers call workers back to the office. LARS HAGBERG/THE CANADIAN PRESS The Canadian Press Getting caught up on a week that got away? Here’s your weekly digest of The Globe’s most essential business and investing stories, with insights and analysis from the pros, stock tips, portfolio strategies and more. Is the cost of long work commutes worth it? When remote work took off during the pandemic, housing markets surrounding the Greater Toronto Area became increasingly popular for homebuyers priced out of the region. But as workers are being called back to the office – even just for a few days a week – those who moved out of town are learning that their commutes are increasingly long and expensive. As Salmaan Farooqui reports, one woman who bought a home in Belleville now spends $600 a month to travel to her Toronto-based finance job three ti...

Oil prices dropped to trade near two-month lows on Monday, having earlier slid by around $1 a barrel, as supply fears receded while concerns over fuel demand from China and U.S. dollar strength weighed on prices. Brent crude futures for January had slipped 65 cents, or 0.7 per cent, to $86.97 a barrel by 1000 GMT. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures for December were at $79.71 a barrel, down 37 cents or 0.5 per cent, ahead of the contract’s expiry later on Monday. The more active January contract was down 50 cents or 0.6 per cent to $79.61 a barrel. Both benchmarks closed Friday at their lowest since Sept. 27, extending losses for a second week, with Brent down 9 per cent and WTI 10 per cent lower. “Apart from the weakened demand outlook due to China’s COVID curbs, a rebound in the U.S. dollar today is also a bearish factor for oil prices,” said CMC Markets analyst Tina Teng. “Risk sentiment becomes fragile as all the recent major countries’ economic data point to a rece...

A coalition of civil rights activists on Monday were urging Twitter’s advertisers to issue statements about pulling their ads off the social media platform after its owner Elon Musk lifted the ban on tweets by former U.S. President Donald Trump. Trump’s account, which Twitter had suspended after the U.S. Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021 citing the risk of further incitement of violence, was reinstated over the weekend. Some 90% of Twitter’s revenue comes from selling digital ads. The groups in the Stop Toxic Twitter coalition complained that Musk had vowed to advertisers that Twitter would take a considered approach to reinstating banned accounts and convene a new content moderation council. No such council has been created as of Monday. “It was a real breach,” Angelo Carusone, president of Media Matters, a left-leaning media watchdog that is part of the coalition, said on Monday. He said Musk “was lying from the beginning.” “In less than three weeks Musk has gone back on every promise h...

U.S. crude stockpiles fell, but gasoline and distillate inventories both rose substantially, alleviating a bit of concern about market tightness, the Energy Information Administration said on Wednesday. Crude inventories fell by 3.7 million barrels in the week to Nov. 18 to 431.7 million barrels, compared with analysts’ expectations in a Reuters poll for a 1.1 million-barrel drop. The decline in inventories was tempered by another release of barrels from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve. The White House decided earlier this year to release 180 million SPR crude barrels after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine caused global prices to surge. Those sales are now largely finished, leaving the SPR at its lowest levels since 1984, and raising concerns about more market tightness in coming months. Refinery crude runs rose by 258,000 barrels per day in the last week, the statistical arm of the U.S. Department of Energy said. Refinery utilization rates rose by 1 percentage point to 93.9 of tota...

Oil prices seesawed on Friday in thin market liquidity, closing a week marked by worries about Chinese demand and haggling over a Western price cap on Russian oil. Brent crude futures dropped 17 cents to trade at $85.17 a barrel by 11:25 a.m. EST (1625 GMT), having retraced some earlier gains. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures were down 3 cents at $77.91 a barrel. There was no WTI settlement on Thursday due to the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday and trading volumes remained low. “Because there’s light volume after the holiday, we’re giving up some of the gains here a bit,” said Phil Flynn, an analyst at Price Futures group. Both contracts were headed for their third consecutive weekly declines after hitting 10-month lows this week. Brent was set to end the week down 2.6 per cent, while WTI was on track to fall 2.5 per cent. Brent and WTI’s market structure implies current demand is softening, with backwardation, defined by front-month prices trading above contracts for later...

The Canadian dollar CADUSD weakened against its U.S. counterpart on Friday, giving back its weekly gain, as oil prices fell and the greenback gained ground against a basket of major currencies. The loonie was trading 0.3% lower at 1.3380 to the greenback, or 74.74 U.S. cents, in a quiet session for North American financial markets after the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday. The currency moved in a range of 1.3318 to 1.3398. For the week, it was nearly unchanged. The U.S. dollar rose but remained near multi-month lows as investors weighed prospects of the Federal Reserve moderating the pace of its policy tightening. The Bank of Canada has also been raising interest rates. Canadian third-quarter GDP data and the November employment report, due next week, could guide expectations for the pace of additional tightening. The price of oil, one of Canada’s major exports, settled 2.1% lower at $76.28 a barrel, closing a week marked by worries about Chinese demand and haggling over a Western price ca...

Oil tanks at the Volodarskaya LPDS production facility, in the Russian village of Konstantinovo, on June 8. MAXIM SHEMETOV/Reuters The global oil market is signaling a potential shift, as traders and analysts worry about reduced crude demand and an oversupplied market in the coming months. After months of strength, crude futures are flirting with lows not seen all year as top oil consumer China enters additional COVID-19 lockdowns while central banks hike interest rates to combat inflation. Front-month global oil prices in the last week have traded weaker than future-dated contracts, while prices for physical crude grades throughout the world have declined, market participants said. “Differentials are confirming what outright prices have been implying – there is a demand deficit and/or supply surplus,” said Tamas Varga of oil broker PVM. The murkier environment comes at a fraught time for the market. On Dec. 5, a European Union ban on Russian crude imports is set to start, along with...

European Commissioner for Energy Kadri Simson speaks to reporters at the EU headquarters, in Brussels, on Nov. 24. KENZO TRIBOUILLARD/AFP/Getty Images The European Union’s energy chief on Wednesday defended the bloc’s proposal to cap gas prices and said countries will negotiate possible changes to the proposal, after a backlash from EU member states. After months of infighting among EU countries who disagree on whether to cap energy costs, the European Commission last week proposed a price cap that would kick in if the front-month Title Transfer Facility gas price exceeded 275 euros per megawatt-hour for two weeks and was 58 euros higher than a liquefied natural gas reference price for 10 days. The EU proposal came under fire from countries in favour of a gas price cap to reduce citizens’ high energy bills – with Poland’s energy minister calling the proposal “a joke” and analysts suggesting it was designed with such strict criteria that it would never be used. “This was not our aim, ...