Everything You Need to Know on Wednesday: Trans Mountain Expected to Enhance Canadian Oil Pricing for the Long Term

Good morning mooers! Here are things you need to know about today's market:

● S&P/TSX 60 Index Standard Futures are trading at 1,330.10, down 0.75%

● Trans Mountain seen delivering better prices for Canadian oil 'for years'

● Suncor earns $1.6B in first quarter, breaks all-time oilsands production record

● Shopify's stock slides 18% after company swings to quarterly loss

● Regulator response to TD drug money laundering allegations could lead to a cap on growth: analyst

Today, the Canadian dollar is trading at 73.12 cents US, a slight decrease from Tuesday.

The S&P/TSX 60 Index Standard Futures (SXF) are currently trading at 1,330.10, which is down 0.75% from the previous close.

The Calgary-headquartered Meg Energy Corp. anticipates that Canadian oil producers will benefit from improved pricing over an extended period as they begin utilizing the recently inaugurated Trans Mountain pipeline expansion, which commenced operations on May 1. However, the corporation forecasts that this pipeline will reach its maximum capacity within the next five years and is skeptical about the construction of additional pipelines in the near future.

The energy company headquartered in Calgary announces that its earnings for the first quarter amounted to $1.25 per share, a decline from $1.54 per share in the first quarter of 2023.

Suncor states that on an adjusted basis, its first-quarter operating earnings for 2024 stood at $1.82 billion, which is nearly on par with the $1.81 billion from the same quarter the year before.

The company cites the primary drivers of its financial performance as increased sales volumes from its oilsands operations and higher refinery production. These factors were somewhat negated by lower realized prices and higher royalties from its oilsands.

During the quarter, Suncor achieved a record production of 835,000 barrels of oil per day, with oilsands operations contributing an unprecedented 785,000 barrels per day.

Furthermore, Suncor boasts record sales of refined products, reaching 581,000 barrels per day, and reports the highest first-quarter refining throughput in its history at 455,000 barrels per day, maintaining 98 per cent refinery utilization.

The company posted a net loss of $273 million, or 21 cents a share, for the quarter, after income of $68 million, or 5 cents a share, in the year-earlier period. Excluding one-time items, the company had adjusted EPS of 20 cents, ahead of the FactSet consensus of 17 cents.

Revenue rose to $1.861 billion from $1.508 billion a year ago, just ahead of the $1.843 billion FactSet consensus. The loss came as the cost of revenue rose to $904 million from $791 million a year ago.

Gross merchandise volume rose 23% to $60.9 billion, ahead of the $59.3 billion FactSet consensus.

The investigation, as reported by the Journal, concentrates on accusations that Chinese narcotics dealers laundered over US$653 million through TD Bank and allegedly bribed bank employees to facilitate their operations. Gabriel Dechaine of National Bank Financial, an analyst specializing in Canadian banks, suggests that the fallout from this investigation could significantly disrupt TD's future earnings.

"Those are some things that could still come into play," he said during an interview with BNN Bloomberg on Monday." That could be a persistent push to keep investing into compliance costs or compliance personnel and systems. So the next two years they're going to spend around $500 million a year after tax. That could go on or the numbers could get bigger. Or it could last several more years beyond that."