The Daily Chase: Jobs numbers in Canada and U.S.
BNN Bloomberg
Here are five things you need to know this morning.
Canada adds jobs but jobless rate ticks up: Canada’s economy added 27,000 jobs last month, but the labour force increased too, so the jobless rate inched higher. Statistics Canada reported this morning that the jobless rate ticked up to 6.2 per cent from 6.1 previously. Although the jobs number came in barely ahead of the low bar that economists were forecasting, the relatively weak showing keeps rate cuts very much on the table for the rest of the year. We also got jobs numbers from the U.S. this morning, with non-farm payrolls increasing by 272,000 last month. That’s ahead of the expectations for 180,000.
More twists in GameStop saga: It’s rare to find an uneventful 24 hours for GameStop of late, but the company is even more volatile than normal right now. On Thursday, Keith Gill, the Redditor known as “Roaring Kitty” who started the craze around the company in the first place back in 2021, announced he plans to do his first YouTube livestream at noon today. That sent the shares up after the bell yesterday on speculation he might have something cooking either with his unverified 5 million shares in the company – or his 120,000 call options to buy more. Where he would find the capital to do it remains unclear, but there’s a path for Gill to own a stake worth hundreds of millions of dollars. That’s whipped his fans up into a frenzy, sending the shares up as they pile in along for the ride. But the company is seemingly trying to take advantage as well, as a regulatory filing Friday suggests they may issue 75 million new shares in the company. That would dilute existing shareholders, and the shares have tumbled about 20 per cent in premarket trading this morning. Stay tuned on this one today.
CPP-backed Waystar set to go public today: Shares in health-care payments software company Waystar are set to start trading in New York today, after the company priced an IPO at the midpoint of its range, raising roughly US$968 million. Bloomberg reports the company had telegraphed a share price of between $20 and $23 for the 45 million shares in the IPO, and final pricing settled at $21.50. At that price, Waystar is worth about $3.6 billion. It had a net loss of $51.3 million on revenue of $791 million last year. The Canada Pension Plan is one of Waystar’s biggest owners.
