Here are five things you need to know this morning:
Loonie rallies on Trudeau report: Ottawa is all atwitter about media reports that the Prime Minister is making a decision about his future in the coming days, likely ahead of a caucus meeting on Wednesday. We’ll leave the politics to the experts, but one of the initial market reactions was a rallying in the Canadian dollar, which gained a half a cent on Sunday evening. A lot of that is broad weakness in the U.S. dollar, which is weaker against a basket of its global peers. But whatever the reason, if it holds through the day, it would be the biggest one-day jump for the loonie’s value since May 2023.
Nippon Steel sues Biden admin for blocked deal: Nippon Steel and US Steel, who had their US$14 billion merger kiboshed by the Joe Biden administration last week, are now suing the U.S. government over that decision, and the government’s failure to consider the deal on national security grounds. In a separate lawsuit, they are also suing rival steel company Cleveland Cliffs and the United Steelworkers for allegedly working to scupper the proposed merger.
Trump team floats reduced tariff plan: The Washington Post is reporting that aides close to incoming U.S. President Donald Trump are exploring a revised tariff plan that would see levies expanded to more countries, but only on certain critical goods. The move is a rollback of previously announced plans on tariffs of up to 25 per cent on goods from certain countries, but also opens the door to expanding tariffs to target individual products instead of countries.
Major winter storm batters U.S.: A major winter storm this weekend dumped record amounts of snow on the U.S. Midwest and is now moving east, disrupting travel plans everywhere it goes. More than 10,000 flights were impacted on Sunday according to FlightAware, and more than 2,000 have already been delayed or cancelled on Monday. Prices for oil and natural gas are mildly positive as the prospect of below-average temperature is pushing up demand.
Biden bans new offshore oil and gas drilling permits: In what is presumably one of his last acts as U.S. President, Joe Biden has signed an order to block new offshore oil drilling permits in 625 million acres of U.S. coastal waters. The order would not impact places where drilling is already happening, notably in large swaths of the Gulf of Mexico, but it would protect so far mostly untouched coastlines in California, Florida and elsewhere.