• U.S. government stops NVIDIA from selling GPUs to China

• Inflation comes in below expectations thanks to fuel costs

• Housing starts continue to get worse

• Which TSX 60 insiders are selling stock?

• OpenAI wants to make its own social network

• One chart to understand how much banks are making on trade

The confusion around tariff exemptions for technology has taken a turn for the worse, with NVIDIA releasing a material change report indicating the U.S. is blocking them from selling H20 GPUs in China, costing them $5.5B.

The move follows China’s critical minerals export ban and while both sides have stated openness to negotiate, there’s no two ways about it: this is another negative blow to investor confidence in U.S. markets.

On a positive note, Canada’s large rare earths deposits mean we should be able to grow into the supply gap left by China.

Our U.S. trade relationship seems to be improving too, with Trump suggesting the auto tariffs could be paused as supply chain shifts take place.

Inflation comes in below expectations

We got CPI for March yesterday, which came in at 2.3% versus estimates of 2.6%. The softer print was driven by the transportation category, which offset inflation in food.

Restaurants were the big story in food inflation, reversing course from deflation over the prior 2 months on the back of the tax holiday roll-off…

… while fuel costs were the main driver of lower transportation inflation. Airfares saw a notable decline too, likely owing to the weak demand we wrote about previously.

With crude oil prices dropping ~15% so far in April, fuel cost deflation should remain an opposing force to food inflation in next month’s reading.

Housing starts miss by a mile

Housing starts were released yesterday too and they were ugly, coming in at 214K versus expectations for 243K.

It was the usual suspects at fault here, with core multi-unit markets like Toronto and Vancouver down over 50% Y/Y.

With unabsorbed multi-unit inventory rising despite less new unit completions, the market isn’t giving developers an incentive to ramp up supply.

Bottom line: We’ll take the under on Carney’s plan to build 500K homes per year.

Insider selling activity adds helpful context

On Monday we published a bite covering which companies in the TSX 60 had insiders buying in the public market this year, with the idea that there’s plenty of reasons to sell and only one reason to buy.

While that’s true, insider selling still provides helpful context, so we’ve included it in a sector and company level chart dump below, check it out!

If the above link doesn’t work, try this: https://www.bullpen.finance/content/94

As if social media wasn’t bad enough already, rumours are swirling that OpenAI is internally testing its own social network…

Flagging the Mark Leonard sale… that’s over $90M of stock sold YTD.

• Ontario to remove interprovincial barriers, speed up ring of fire mine approvals

• Canadian Consumers Pull Back on Spending in April

• Polymarket pays $200K penalty, permanently bans Ontario residents

NEO Performance Materials (NEO) is up on the back of China’s rare earth export suspension, which benefits its rare metals capacity in Estonia.

Groupe Dynamite (GRGD) reported better than expected earnings, driving the stock up 6% after a terrible start to 2025:

• Top-line: Revenue hit $272M in Q4, up 13% Y/Y on nearly 10% same-store sales growth and strategic new store rollouts.

• Bottom-line: Profit reached $31M in Q4, up from $29M last year, with adjusted EPS climbing 18% to $0.33.

The company just launched a share buyback program for up to 8.5% of outstanding shares, announced plans to expand into the UK by 2026, and is projecting 5-6.5% comparable store sales growth for 2025.

YESTERDAY’S EARNINGS

The U.S. banks continue to report strong trading activity as we’ve been talking about, and the chart below makes it clear to see why… look at these spreads!

When volatility rises, spreads widen, and traders profit.

TODAY’S EARNINGS

YESTERDAY’S ECONOMIC RELEASES

TODAY’S ECONOMIC RELEASES