Business Report: Loblaw boycott picking up momentum

Well, long time no see. We welcome back business editor Ari Rabinovich from his well deserved vacation. Hey Ari, we missed you. I missed you guys too. Good to be back though. Alright. Well, we were speaking earlier this week with your replacement about the campaign to boycott Loblaw stores and Ari at movement appears to appears to be picking up steam and absolutely. So just to backtrack a little bit, we did get that earnings report from Loblaws earlier this week which did show that profits were up 10% compared to the first quarter of last year. The company also announced a share buyback program and an increase to the dividend, and it prompted 2 at least two analyst upgrades. The stock also closed today at a second straight record high. And that boycott group on Reddit, known as Loblaws, is out of control. Well, it started just after that earnings report had just over 60,000 users and now nearly 70,000, up more than 5000 in just 24 hours. Now demands by the group include Loblaws, join a grocer’s code of conduct and lower food prices by 15%. The head of Loblaws has expressed concerns about misinformation spreading online and affirmed that the company is not responsible for rising food prices. Sell. You know, Aria, it will be interesting to see down the road if this actually had any impact on their sales. And absolutely we are seeing a push from these kind of grassroots movements that seem to be swaying some companies to change their ways. If enough people seem to be catching on, definitely OK. Apple released its quarterly earnings today and many and analysts were bracing for the worst. Absolutely. And it looks like it may have been actually some good news. So on the side of the earnings report from Apple, well, it looks like what was expected to be a drop in sales wasn’t as much as originally thought. Now the revenue and earnings per share in the first quarter did beat analyst estimates. Revenue up $91 billion, still down 4% compared to last year, but better than analysts were forecasting. The biggest revenue boost came from services, including for cloud and App Store transactions. Strong sales as well for Mac computers, while devices like iPhones, iPads and Apple Watches fell short of last year’s number. But again, still better. Better than predicted. And now stock at one point today was up 8% in after hours trading with Apple announcing a $110 billion share buyback program that is the largest of its kind for Apple or any company in history. OK, and Canadians, this is what has been on many people’s minds. They’re anxiously awaiting for interest rate cuts and we got a rare peek behind the curtain of that decision making process today. And it looks like the clear path forward is going to be potentially for the Bank of Canada to be cutting interest rates ahead of the United States central bank, the US Federal Reserve. Today we heard from the head of the Bank of Canada, Tiff Macklin, who spoke to a House of Commons Finance Committee and signaled that the central bank is seeing what it needs to see in his words, and this highly increases the chance that interest rates will begin to cut Starting next month on June 5th should be good news for so many Canadians, especially with variable rate mortgages. But it’s worth noting that if the Bank of Canada cuts ahead of the US Federal Reserve, that could put pressure on the loonies. So we’ll see how things shape up.