BEFORE THE OPEN
Source: Thomson Reuters

• Futures for Canada's main stock index and U.S. stock indexes fell, following sharp gains in the previous sessions spurred by a less hawkish U.S. Federal Reserve, while European stocks climbed
• Shanghai shares ended higher in a holiday-shortened week, led by consumers stocks
• In currency markets, the U.S. dollar regained its footing after the Fed's move had caused its biggest drop in nearly two months
• The euro dropped against the greenback after German industrial orders fell more than expected
• Meanwhile, oil prices extended gains on supply concerns and gold rose as less aggressive Fed calmed nerves

• Warren Buffett's company has bought another 5.9 million shares of Occidental, boosting its stake in the oil company to about 15.2%
• The purchases were made on Monday and Tuesday and cost about $336 million, Berkshire said in a regulatory filing on Wednesday night
• Following the purchases, Berkshire owned about 142.3 million Occidental shares worth approximately $8.8 billion, plus $10 billion of preferred stock it acquired in 2019 to help finance Occidental's purchase of Anadarko Petroleum Corp
• Berkshire also has warrants to buy an additional $5 billion of Occidental shares at a slight discount
• Separately, Berkshire’s shareholders voted by an almost 9-to-1 margin to keep Warren Buffett as both chairman and chief executive, and his company regained compliance with New York Stock Exchange listing standards by reestablishing a majority of independent directors on its board

• Major U.S. banks have raised their prime rate to 4%, effective Thursday
• The base lending rate was hiked by 50 basis points, the banks said in different statements on Wednesday
• The decision comes after the U.S. Federal Reserve raised its overnight interest rate by half a percentage point, the biggest jump in 22 years
• Separately, proxy advisory firm Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) recommended on Wednesday that investors vote against the pay of top executives at JPMorgan, at its upcoming annual shareholder meeting

• The business jet maker reported a smaller quarterly adjusted loss, as the jet maker generated more margins from sales of its flagship plane to wealthy travelers who are increasingly flying private due to the pandemic
• Bombardier said its backlog rose by $1.3 billion to $13.5 billion since the beginning of 2022, as affluent passengers continued flying private despite a rebound in airline traffic
• The company said its adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization rose 36% in the first quarter on higher profits from sales of its best-selling Global 7500 jet and cost cutting measures
• The company's first quarter book-to-bill, which measures orders to deliveries, was 2.5 on strong sales activity
• The Montréal-based company's free cash flow from continuing operations, a metric closely watched by investors, was $173 million, compared with an outflow of $405 million a year earlier
• The company reported an adjusted loss of 3 cents per share in the reported quarter, compared with a loss of 7 cents per share, a year earlier
• Revenue fell 7% to $1.2 billion, as the timing of deliveries slipped to until later this year

• The company reported a record first-quarter profit of $9.13 billion, boosted by higher oil and gas prices, stellar refining profits and the strong performance of its trading division
• It beat its previous highest quarterly profits recorded in 2008 even after writing down $3.9 billion post-tax as a result of its decision to exit operations in Russia
• Sales of the fuel rose by 9% in the quarter to 18.3 million tonnes
• It said its dividend payments and share repurchases reached $5.4 billion in the quarter, part of its plan to buy back $8.5 billion shares in the first half of the year
• Its dividend rose to 25 cents per share as planned
• First-quarter adjusted earnings rose 43% from the previous quarter to $9.13 billion, above an average analyst forecast provided by the company for a $8.67 billion profit
• Shell's adjusted earnings from refining and marketing oil products leapt to $1.17 billion from a loss of $130 million in the previous quarter and a profit of $781 million last year despite volumes falling to around 1.6 million bpd from 1.9 million
• Shell's quarterly cashflow of $14.815 billion helped it to cut its debt burden to $48.5 billion from $52.6 billion at the end of 2021

• The company said it would buy U.S.-based logistics firm Deliverr for $2.1 billion, to help mitigate supply chain snarls that have plagued the e-commerce sector
• Separately, the company reported a 22% jump in first-quarter revenue to $1.2 billion, compared with analysts' average estimate of $1.24 billion

• The Federal Reserve raised interest rates by 50 basis points for the first time since 2000 and flagged that similar moves were on the table for June and July
• However, Chair Jerome Powell pushed back against a larger 75-basis point increase. European Central Bank Executive Board member Fabio Panetta said the euro area faces further “high costs” as policy makers battle record inflation
• U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson will meet his Japanese counterpart, Fumio Kishida, in London where they are expected to discuss a plan to support Asian nations in finding energy supplies to diversify away from Russian oil and gas