Today’s news: Trending business stories for January 12, 2024

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Today’s headlines

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Top story

Indigo lays off staff as part of strategic plan

Indigo Books & Music Inc. has laid off an unspecified number of staff as part of the retailer’s ongoing efforts to streamline its operations.

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Indigo spokeswoman Melissa Perri said in an email to The Canadian Press that the cuts stem from the company’s strategic plan meant to return the business to profitability.

Indigo has seen several quarters of losses and a flurry of executive and board changes over the last year.

Most recently, the company reported a net loss of $22.4 million in its second quarter, a period when founder and chief executive Heather Reisman retired and turned the business over to Peter Ruis.

Ruis left the company abruptly in September, making way for Reisman to return.

Last year, the company also grappled with a February cyberattack that took down Indigo’s website and saw four of its 10 directors leave its board, with one attributing her resignation to mistreatment.

“While it is a difficult decision to part ways with valued and talented employees, it is the right decision for our company and all those we serve,” Perri said in an email confirming this week’s layoffs.

The Canadian Press

More: Indigo workers at unionized stores facing increased battles with retailer, union says

7:30 a.m.

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Stock markets before the opening bell

Moves in markets were muted at the end of a volatile week that featured unexpectedly fast inflation data and rising geopolitical tensions.

Contracts on the S&P 500 index slipped 0.1 per cent with the gauge poised to end the week up about two per cent. Treasuries and the dollar were little changed, and the Cboe Volatility Index held near a four-year low.

The standout was oil, with West Texas Intermediate crude surging four per cent following the launch of joint military strikes by the United States and its allies against Houthi rebels in Yemen.

The threat of a wider war in the Mideast and new hotspots of political turmoil in Ecuador and Poland are complicating an otherwise bullish outlook for markets in 2024.

Expectations that officials are done hiking and will ease policy in 2024 — even if that happens a little later than markets are pricing — remain in place after faster-than-expected U.S. inflation data on Thursday. The European Central Bank president Christine Lagarde said once the bank’s two per cent inflation goal comes into view she’s “very confident, then rates will start to decline.”

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The S&P/TSX composite index closed down 71.02 points at 20,918.40 on Thursday.

Bloomberg

What to watch today

A slew of big Wall Street financial firms are reporting earnings today, including JP Morgan Chase & Co., Blackrock Inc., Bank of America Corp., Citigroup Inc., Wells Fargo & Co. and Bank of New York Mellon. Also expect earnings reports from Delta Air Lines Inc. and Corus Entertainment Inc.

The U.S. producer price index for December is out this morning.

Need a refresher on yesterday’s top headlines? Get caught up here.

Additional reporting by The Canadian Press, Associated Press and Bloomberg

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