April’s retail sales came in just below expectations, rising 0.5% sequentially despite no change in volumes…

… led by a 5% pickup in sales at gas stations, most of which was price-driven. On a core basis, retail sales fell 0.7% M/M…

… which is showing up in consumer wallet share, as discretionary spend ticks down…

… and the composition of non-discretionary spend shifts towards gas at the expense of groceries.

The Big-6 banks were up small after OSFI lowered the domestic stability buffer to 3%, which translates to a new CET 1 requirement of 11% - implying a capital cushion of more than $70B…

… or ~$670B of risk-weighted assets. That could stimulate lending activity…

… at a time when growth in household credit is already outpacing income. Should economic conditions improve, deploying excess capital now could make for a smoother recovery…

… but if conditions worsen, any leverage added to the system could magnify the problem. I’m banking on the former, but let’s see what happens.

MDA Space (MDA) added over 6% on the back of its $874M acquisition of Blue Canyon Technologies, a Raytheon subsidiary that should add 12% to revenue post-close…

… skewed heavily towards spacecraft and components for the US defence industry.

Given BCT and MDA operate with similar margin profiles, the price tag represents ~20x EBITDA - so the deal rationale isn’t multiple arbitrage…

… it’s expansion, with BCT adding nearly $5B of new opportunities and the ability to compete for classified work in the US as a prime contractor.

Alamos Gold (AGI) fell 18% on Friday after two seismic events and a loss of power at its Young-Davidson operations, which pushed management’s expected mining rates in the district down to 5K tpd for the rest of 2026…

… resulting in a 12% cut to Q2 production guidance. While numbers weren’t given, the company now expects to miss the low end of its full-year production target…

… and exceed the top end on costs, driving multiple compression as investors wait for more clarity to come with Q2 results.

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