The Daily Chase: Shopify plunges on surprise loss, warns of thinner margins

Here are five things you need to know this morning.

Shopify shares plunge on earnings: Shares in Shopify Inc. are poised for a rough day after the e-commerce company posted quarterly results before markets opened, numbers that showed the company swung to an unexpected loss during the period. Shopify lost $273 million last quarter, after a profit of $68 million a year earlier. The company said its revenue rose by 23 per cent to $1.86 billion and its gross merchandise volume — the total value of all the goods and services sold on its platform — rose by the same amount. But the market reaction is focused squarely on the loss, as the shares were down 19 per cent at one point in premarket trading in New York.

Profit slips at BAM for 1st time since spinoff: Brookfield Asset Management reported its first quarterly profit decline since it was spun out of the parent company more than a year ago. Earnings at BAM came in at $547 million during the quarter, in line with estimates but down from $563 million a year earlier. Fees declined in three of the company’s five business units. The company did manage to raise $20 billion in cash during the quarter, capital it plans to deploy in the coming months. “With more than $100 billion of dry powder to invest … we remain very well-positioned to capture investment opportunities,” company president Connor Teskey said in a release.

Oil price slips to lowest point since March: The price of the North American crude oil benchmark known as West Texas Intermediate fell to US$77 a barrel this morning after inventories data showed oil in storage is inching up. Crude stockpiles at the hub of Cushing Oklahoma rose by 1 million barrels last week, Bloomberg reports, and holdings of distillates like gasoline and jet fuel are also creeping higher. That’s a sign of less demand at a time when the opposite is normally happening as the summer driving and travel season begins to heat up. Weaker demand is coming while global geopolitical tensions are starting to unwind, pushing prices lower. “Oil market indicators have turned softer in recent week, and prices have declined from recent peaks,” Morgan Stanley analysts said in a note to clients. “The oil market is not tight right now but we see seasonal strength ahead in coming months.”