Everything You Need to Know on Tuesday: Tourmaline Oil Continues Acquisition Push with $1.3 Billion Deal for Crew Energy

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

● S&P/TSX 60 Index Standard Futures are trading at 1,341.20, down 0.20% from previous close

● BofA survey shows optimism on Big Tech, soft landing is unbroken

● Tourmaline Oil continues acquisition push with $1.3 billion deal for Crew Energy

●‘It’s a long-term game’: Barrick Gold CEO shares outlook after Q2 earnings

● Sun Life reports net income of $646 million in second quarter

Today, the Canadian dollar is trading at 72.80 cents US, a slight increase from previous close.

S&P/TSX 60 Index Standard Futures are trading at 1,341.20, down 0.20% from previous close.

The volatility in global financial markets hasn’t derailed investor optimism around U.S. technology behemoths or expectations of a soft economic landing, according to a global survey by Bank of America Corp.

While the poll, conducted from Aug. 2 to Aug. 8 and covering the height of last week’s turmoil, showed a defensive rotation into bonds and cash and out of equities, long bets on the Magnificent Seven tech stocks remained the most crowded trade — albeit less so after the selloff.

Large-cap growth stocks — dominated by tech — were still viewed as the likely leaders of a new U.S. equity bull market, although conviction eased to 36 per cent from 47 per cent in July.

“Core optimism on soft landing and U.S. large cap growth stocks is unbowed,” strategist Michael Hartnett wrote in the note. It’s “just that investors now think the Fed needs to cut harder to guarantee no recession.”

The survey, which canvassed 189 participants with US$508 billion in assets, showed expectations of a soft landing jumped to 76 per cent from 68 per cent in July. Still, global growth expectations fell sharply, with a net 47 per cent of respondents now expecting a weaker economy in the next 12 months. A U.S. recession replaced geopolitical conflict as the biggest tail risk.

Tourmaline — headed by chief executive Mike Rose — has been undergoing a years-long aggressive exploration, development, production and acquisition program that has helped it cement its industry dominance.

The company is Canada’s largest natural gas producer by volume and the fifth-largest natural gas-focused producer in North America.

It is already the largest player in Alberta’s Deep Basin, a prominent natural gas-producing area, and its acquisition of Crew Energy will make Tourmaline the largest natural gas producer in the Montney, an important natural gas play that spans northeast British Columbia and northwest Alberta.

Tourmaline said Monday the deal — through which Crew shareholders will receive 0.114802 of a Tourmaline share in exchange for each Crew share held — will see Tourmaline acquire existing average production of 29,000 to 30,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boe/d).

“(It was a) good quarter,” Mark Bristow said in an interview with BNN Bloomberg on Monday, noting that the Toronto-based miner expanded its profit margins thanks to higher gold and copper prices and lower overall costs.

“We’ve got organic growth and we haven’t spent a lot of time paying premiums for that growth – they are projects embedded in the various companies that we combined back in 2019 and 2020.”

The company said it earned US$370 million in the quarter that ended June 30, up from $305 million a year earlier, while revenue totalled $3.16 billion, up from $2.83 billion in the same quarter last year.

Bristow added that Barrick is comparable to its peers when it comes to shareholder returns through dividends, capital distribution and share buybacks, but the company’s “foundational value” is what sets it apart.

The insurer says it had a net income of $646 million, down two per cent from the same quarter last year, as it took a $138 million restructuring charge related to efforts to improve productivity and drive earnings growth.

The company says its adjusted or underlying net income was an even $1 billion, up from $920 million last year.

It says the increased earnings reflected growth in Canada and Asia, while the U.S. division saw a small pullback in income related to Medicaid redeterminations in the dental program.

The company says its assets under management stood at $1.47 trillion at quarter end, up $98 billion or seven per cent from last year.