Qu’est-ce que peut bien voir la Bourse pour regagner si rapidement le terrain perdu, alors que l’économie réelle se contracte comme jamais dans une profonde récession ?
Comme se plaisait à répéter mon ancien collègue de La Presse Alain Dubuc, « la Bourse, ce n’est pas l’économie ! ». Elle est plutôt le reflet d’opinions variées quant à l’évolution future des bénéfices des seules entreprises cotées en Bourse. Ici, le mot clé est futur.
La Bourse est un marché qui met un prix sur le futur, diablement difficile à prévoir, surtout au beau milieu d’une crise sans précédent. Ce prix est rajusté au fur et mesure que le marché digère de nouvelles informations, parfois contradictoires, d’où la…
One of the tragedies of the COVID-19 crisis is its devastation of arts and culture organizations in this country. Even with emergency support by the federal government, the future for many of these groups is uncertain. As the economy slowly opens up, crowd restrictions and social distancing will mean galleries, museums and the performing arts generally (theatre, music, dance), will face tremendous challenges. Many see a dim and uncertain horizon ahead as revenues shrink or disappear.
Financial struggles were a long-standing a fact of life for the arts community well before the pandemic crisis. Notwithstanding pre-pandemic increases in public funding, including the injection of new money for the Canada Council, public financing…
May was a bad month for Canada’s beleaguered oil producers. First, the Norges Bank, which manages Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, announced its divestment from four oil sands producers, citing their “unacceptable greenhouse gas emissions.” Then, presumptive Democrat nominee Joe Biden announced that, if elected U.S. president, he would cancel the permits for the Keystone XL pipeline. And there was the little matter of an unprecedented plunge in global oil demand thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Norges Bank’s decision is predicated on a misrepresentation of carbon pricing in Canada. Mr. Biden’s announcement represents a diplomatic failure, and a potentially fatal setback for a vital project. But those two developments…
