The Daily Chase: Oil falls as U.S. weighs another reserve release; RBC buys U.K. wealth manager
BNN Bloomberg
Our partners at Bloomberg News are reporting the U.S. is considering releasing up to 180M barrels (in increments of ~1M barrels per day) over the coming months in an attempt to wrestle down runaway gas prices
Oil is going to take the spotlight today. Our partners at Bloomberg News are reporting the Biden administration is considering releasing up to 180 million barrels (in increments of ~1M barrels per day) over the coming months in an attempt to wrestle down runaway gas prices, with the U.S. national average sitting at US$4.225 per gallon today (and almost US$6 in California), according to AAA. The price of West Texas Intermediate crude has been down almost 6.8 per cent this morning on the back of that reporting. U.S. President Joe Biden is scheduled to speak about “actions … to lower gas prices” at 1:30pm. We’ll chase insight into the impact of a release of that magnitude, and will contrast it with the OPEC+ meeting today.
As for the outlook for gas prices in this country: fuel-price tracker Dan McTeague is predicting a jump of six cents per litre to 173.9 in much of Ontario tomorrow (though that prediction was made before WTI sank on Bloomberg’s reporting).
RBC BULKS UP WEALTH MANAGEMENT
Royal Bank of Canada has joined BMO and TD in announcing a multi-billion-dollar international deal this morning. Only this one is in the United Kingdom, it’s worth $2.6 billion, and it’s all about expanding in wealth management. The takeover target is Brewin Dolphin Holdings Plc, which had £59 billion ($96.9 billion) in assets under management at the end of December, according to a release. We’ll dig into the strategy and expected payoff from the deal.
ECONOMIC CHECK-UP
Statistics Canada will release gross domestic product figures for January this morning. In its flash estimate, the agency said output likely rose 0.2 per cent in the month after growth flat lined in December as governments attempted to curtail the Omicron variant of COVID-19. We’ll have instant analysis at 8:30am with Conference Board of Canada Chief Economist Pedro Antunes.
