Building permit values for March fell 4.1% M/M, below analyst estimates for a 1.2% drop on the back of ~15% lower institutional and commercial permitting, which more than offset 2% gains in residential activity.

The residential improvement was driven by a 6% jump in multi-unit permitting, with a huge rebound in activity in Vancouver. Encouraging to see given the recent challenges in BC, though Ontario continues to struggle to add new supply.

The rebound in multi-unit permitting carried through to housing starts, which came in at 279K for April, blowing by estimates of 228K and up 30% M/M thanks to a jump in multi-unit starts.

While Vancouver bucked the negative YTD trend with a 6% Y/Y increase, the provincial divergence largely continued, with strength in Quebec and Alberta offsetting weakness in Ontario.

Despite some signs of a turnaround we’re staying cautious here, as continued builds in unabsorbed multi-unit inventory should tame developer appetite.

All this housing market data came at the perfect time, given the residential REITs just wrapped up Q1 earnings. We’re back with a follow up to our first recap, where we highlighted regional players as the way to play, given immigration headwinds.

We dive into the trading and fundamental performance since then, before giving an update on how we’d play the sector from here. Check it out!

If the above link doesn’t work, try this: https://www.bullpen.finance/content/121

HBC has agreed to sell IP including its name, iconic stripes, and coat of arms to Canadian Tire for $30M, after some intense negotiations…

While there’s still a few i’s to dot and t’s to cross, this one is all but over. The way it happened still rubs us the wrong way, with all of the capital raising done in Canada before orphaning the business to get in bed with U.S. private equity… money talks!

Strathcona (SCR) finished the day up 14% on the back of the $2.8B divestiture of its Montney business in three separate transactions. The divested assets represented 12% of SCR’s 2024 earnings but fetched a price tag of ~33% of its enterprise value. That reads like one hell of a trade to us.

AtkinsRealis (ATRL) was up big on its Q1 results, beating earnings estimates by nearly 20% and showing huge backlog gains in its nuclear segment. The backlog growth prompted a $300M bump to ATRL’s nuclear revenue guidance of $1.7-2.0B. The nuclear theme isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

No big earnings releases today… enjoy your long weekend!

Worth flagging the below from BofA’s fund manager survey… let’s see if gold can keep the rally going.