HEADLINES
Carney Tries to Resolve Trump's Demands Over New Bridge
Prime Minister Mark Carney said he is seeking to defuse a new row with the U.S. over President Trump's threat to block the opening of a new bridge connecting Michigan and Ontario.
Carney said he spoke on Tuesday to Trump after the president's Truth Social post suggesting the U.S. should take an ownership stake of at least 50% in the new Gordie Howe International Bridge, and complained that U.S. products, like steel, weren't used in the construction of the 1.5-mile corridor.
"I explained that Canada, of course, paid for the construction of the bridge," Carney told reporters ahead of a cabinet meeting. He added that the state of Michigan already has an ownership stake, and that U.S. steel and U.S. labor were used in the bridge's construction.
Carney said he and Trump agreed to follow up on certain issues, in parallel with trade talks, although he declined to elaborate. "This is going to be resolved," he said, in reference to the bridge.
What Is the Gordie Howe Bridge? And Why Is Trump Threatening to Keep It Shut?
Shopify Seen Benefiting from Capital-Light AI Model
Shopify is uniquely positioned to benefit from AI without the heavy spending that is pressuring the rest of the software sector. Martin Toner of ATB Cormark Capital said "structural operating leverage" is a key driver, noting that while others face margin compression, "we see upside to SHOP's high teens free cash flow margins."
Toner upgraded the stock to outperform from sector perform and reiterated his C$250 price target, calling Shopify "the de facto winner in ecommerce" with more than 25% growth and a strengthening free-cash-flow trajectory. Toner said Shopify's capital-light model and early lead in agentic commerce create a cleaner, more attractive setup than peers weighed down by AI-related capex.
Shares rose 7.4% to C$172.54.
Open Text Shares Rise on $200 Million Increase to Buyback Program
Open Text shares rose after it increased its share repurchase program by two-thirds.
Shares in Toronto settled 2.6% higher at C$35.27.
The Canadian enterprise software company said that it has raised its fiscal 2026 share repurchase program by $200 million for a maximum aggregate value of $500 million.
The number of shares that can be acquired under the share repurchase program, set to expire in mid-August, is still 24.9 million. Chief Financial Officer Steve Rai said the upgrade is backed by the company's confidence in its robust cash flow engine.
Housing Starts Set to Lose Momentum as Builders Face Headwinds
New home construction in Canada is set to decline over the next three years as developers struggle with high construction costs, weaker demand and a rising inventory of unsold units, the national housing agency projects.
Housing starts are set to decline well below the historical decade average, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. said in its annual outlook released Tuesday.
Condominium construction is expected to be particularly weak, especially in Toronto where pre-construction sales fell to multi-decade lows in 2025, as projects are delayed or cancelled with financing thresholds harder to meet, it said.
WestJet, Air Transat Join Air Canada in Suspending Cuba Services Due to Fuel Shortage
Two Canadian airlines have joined the country's flag carrier Air Canada in suspending flights to Cuba due to a shortage of aviation fuel on the island.
Air Transat said it would temporarily halt all flights to Cuba until the end of April following rapid developments and an announcement from Cuban authorities of an anticipated fuel shortage at destination airports.
WestJet Airlines said that based on the situation in the country, and the latest travel advisory from Ottawa, it began an orderly wind down of its winter operations to Cuba. Sunwing Vacations, WestJet's vacation division, said it would stop flying customers to the island and would return vacationers due to return home on or before next Monday on the scheduled departure date and contact any customer with a later return date to confirm a new schedule.
TALKING POINT
Some Canadian Investors Hold Tight to Bitcoin Despite Price Plunge
By Andrew Galbraith of The Globe and Mail
For a product frequently touted as "digital gold" and a hedge against a weakening U.S. dollar, bitcoin's performance has stood in stark contrast to the real thing. While gold has lost some of its lustre after hitting a record high above US$5,600 per ounce in late January, it is still up 70% over its price a year ago.
The world's largest cryptocurrency, which hit its own record above US$126,000 in early October, has shed more than 40% of its U.S. dollar value since last February. Last week, bitcoin suffered its biggest daily fall since November, 2022, erasing all of its gains since the election of U.S. President Donald Trump.
Flows into Canadian-listed cryptocurrency exchange-traded funds indicate that, for some Canadians, the chance of a return to outsized gains remains a major draw. But experts say investors should remain wary of significant risks, and they warn that cryptocurrencies are not appropriate for everyone.
"The allocation really needs to be tempered by the investor's tolerance and capacity for risk," said Geraldo Ferreira, head of investment products and manager oversight at CI Global Asset Management.
As a "nascent" asset class, cryptocurrencies have return potential, but there is a "tremendous amount" of volatility, he said. CI Global provides a number of cryptocurrency ETFs, as well as asset allocation ETFs that offer exposure to cryptocurrencies.
Volatility hasn't kept investors away. In a note to clients, TD Securities strategists Andres Rincon and Casey Yang said that Canadian dollar-listed crypto ETFs overcame the poor performance of digital assets to record inflows of $700 million last year. And even as the price of cryptocurrencies such as ether and bitcoin dropped, Canadian crypto ETFs recorded modest inflows of $17 million in January, while their U.S. counterparts saw outflows of US$1.4 billion.
But the sharp slump in the price of bitcoin on Feb. 5 prompted doubts even among long-time investors in alternative assets. "You have to ask yourself, 'Is it over for bitcoin?'," Anthony Scaramucci, founder of U.S. alternative investment firm SkyBridge Capital, told CNBC.
In a note to clients last week, Alex Saunders, head of quantitative global macro and asset allocation at Citi Research, highlighted waning flows into U.S. crypto ETFs and referred to previous research that warned of a deeper market freeze as bitcoin traded below the "important" US$70,000 level.
"The current decline of 40% from its all-time high is approaching a level beyond which crypto bear markets have historically been multiyear affairs with significant drawdowns," he said.
Leo Weese, technical content lead at Lightning Labs, which has developed a bitcoin-based payment protocol, admitted that use of bitcoin has lagged behind the cryptocurrency community's expectations. Weese said he knows long-time holders who sold bitcoin over the past year based on a judgment that its price had "topped out" given current levels of adoption.
Worries about its continued viability because of developments such as quantum computing, which some analysts fear could undermine the security of bitcoin wallets, also weighed on sentiment, he said, though he added that he believes those concerns are overblown.
For Matt Lotocky, a financial planner at the Dixon Davis Group in Victoria, a more immediate concern about cryptocurrencies is their unpredictability.
"It's very hard to understand the role that bitcoin or crypto has in a financial plan," said Lotocky. "You can't predict it. And as a financial planner first, I like that predictability."
"I'm going to say you need $2.5 million by the time you retire at 65 to spend $150,000 a year. And I know that you can do that by saving $3,000 a month and investing in an 80/20 portfolio," he said. "Why would we introduce the element of risk and uncertainty of cryptocurrency ... [when] we can get there with the tools that we understand?"
Ferreira of CI Global acknowledged that not all investors want exposure to digital assets. But he said that for those with the appetite and ability to take risk, the firm's modelling showed even a small exposure to cryptocurrency had the potential to improve a portfolio's risk-adjusted returns over time.
Other investors may find they already have all the exposure they need.
"In a balanced and diversified broad market portfolio, there are existing companies ... that are exposing themselves at the company level to crypto," said Matthew Learning, lead planner at Mountainview Financial Planning in Vancouver.
"So, you do have a certain amount of exposure sprinkled in through your existing portfolio."
Expected Major Events for Wednesday
00:01/UK: Jan UK Nations and Regions Growth Tracker
09:00/ITA: Dec Industrial Production
12:00/US: 02/06 MBA Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey
13:30/US: Jan U.S. Employment Report
13:30/CAN: Dec Building permits
15:30/US: 02/06 EIA Weekly Petroleum Status Report
19:00/US: Jan Monthly Treasury Statement of Receipts and Outlays of the U.S. Government
23:50/JPN: Jan Corporate Goods Price Index
All times in GMT. Powered by Onclusive and Dow Jones.
Expected Earnings for Wednesday
Avantor Inc $(AVTR)$ is expected to report $0.12 for 4Q.
Blackstone Mortgage Trust Inc - Class A $(BXMT)$ is expected to report $0.30 for 4Q.
Blue Foundry Bancorp (BLFY) is expected to report $-0.10 for 4Q.
BorgWarner Inc $(BWA)$ is expected to report $1.17 for 4Q.
Chefs' Warehouse Inc $(CHEF)$ is expected to report $0.59 for 4Q.
Chimera Investment Corp $(CIM)$ is expected to report for 4Q.
Cineplex Inc (CGX.T,CPXGF) is expected to report $0.09 for 4Q.
(MORE TO FOLLOW) Dow Jones Newswires
February 10, 2026 16:30 ET (21:30 GMT)
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