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Good morning. There’s been a lot of talk over the past few years that Gen Z doesn’t drink anymore. This is hotly debated, but it seems that those who do drink like to flaunt it.
An emerging trend for Gen Z users on TikTok is to “romanticize” their hangovers — that is, film videos of themselves the morning after boozing, proudly displaying their haggard state as a sign that they’re living life to the fullest.
That’s sweet, but we can’t wait until they reach their late 20s and really start to feel the damage hangovers can do.
Today’s reading time is 5½ minutes.
MARKETS
| ▼ | TSX |
34,935.8 |
-0.95% |
|
| ▼ | S&P 500 |
7,482.71 |
-0.28% |
|
| ▼ | DOW JONES |
52,348.39 |
-1.09% |
|
| ▲ | NASDAQ |
25,870.65 |
+0.20% |
|
| ▼ | GOLD |
4,086.6 |
-1.70% |
|
| ▲ | OIL |
74.76 |
+6.13% |
|
| ▲ | CAD/USD |
0.706 |
+0.27% |
|
| ▼ | BTC/USD |
61,981.95 |
-2.22% |
Markets: Canada’s main stock index suffered its largest daily decline in a month yesterday after Donald Trump declared the U.S.-Iran ceasefire deal over (more on that further down).
BUSINESS
Canadian universities want to buy a stake in their students
Trinity College at the University of Toronto. Source: Unsplash.
Two of Canada’s top universities are looking to turn more classroom projects into billion-dollar businesses.
What happened: The University of Toronto and McMaster University will be the anchor investors in a new $40 million fund primarily backing life science startups spun out of the two schools. It's the first time either university has invested in a VC fund.
The focus will be on companies building medical devices and drugs for treating cancer, as well as heart and brain diseases. U of T’s president says the school may also back other VC funds investing in startups outside of the life science sector.
The new fund, which is also getting $10 million from the Ontario government, will be managed by Toronto-based VC firm Genesys Capital.
Why it matters: Canada’s life science sector excels at research, but when it comes to turning work into commercial products, the industry has struggled. Canada ranks ninth among its global peers in research and talent, but just 17th for its business outputs from that knowledge and technology.
Research universities in Canada make $10 million or less per year from licensing the inventions built on their campuses. South of the border, schools like Harvard, MIT, and Stanford make anywhere between US$60 million and US$95 million a year.
Bottom line: U of T alone is responsible for some of Canada's greatest discoveries, including insulin, the foundations of modern AI, and stem cells. The school has had some recent startup success stories (like Cohere, Xanadu, and Waabi), but with a new emphasis on commercialization, we could see a lot more campus ideas become billion-dollar businesses.—LA
BIG PICTURE
Source: Unsplash.
Meta is eyeing a $13 billion AI data centre in Alberta. The tech giant is planning to build a large data centre campus in Sturgeon County, Alberta — its first AI data centre project in Canada. The facility will consume 1 gigawatt of electricity (Calgary draws around 1.2 to 1.5 gigawatts, for reference), but Meta has committed to covering electricity costs. A consortium that includes Morgan Stanley will build a $4.6 billion natural gas plant to power the centre. (Globe and Mail)
Nvidia’s valuation falls to pre-AI boom levels. After a two-month share selloff that erased ~US$1 trillion from its market cap, Nvidia’s stock is trading at 18 times its projected earnings for the next 12 months — the cheapest it's been by that metric since early 2019. Nvidia’s stock climbed 1,100% from the end of 2022 through 2025 (not a bad run), but is up just 5.6% this year, making it the third-worst performer of the top 30 public semiconductor companies. (Bloomberg News)
Knix founder Joanna Griffiths is stepping down and selling her stake. Griffiths, who founded the popular Canadian underwear brand nearly 15 years ago, will sell her remaining 20% interest in the company and step down as president by August 1. Swedish health product giant Essity — which bought an 80% stake in Knix for $430 million four years ago — will buy out Griffiths’ remaining shares and take full control of the company. (Globe and Mail)
What else is on our radar:
Donald Trump ordered the U.S. to halt all trade with Spain over the country’s lack of NATO spending.
Air Canada named Scandinavian Airlines head Anko Van der Werff as its new CEO.
Asking rents in Canada fell by 4.3% in June compared to last year.
Jeff Bezos’ space exploration company Blue Origin is reportedly raising US$10 billion at a $130 billion valuation.
Chinese AI startup DeepSeek is developing its own AI chip.
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IN THE LAB
Canadian researchers want to stop cancer from spreading to brains
Source: Shawn Day / Unsplash.
Consider this an interesting addendum to our story up top: researchers at McMaster and Block Biosciences — a biomedical spin-out from McMaster — published a study detailing a potential way to stop cancer from spreading to the brain from other parts of the body. The treatment targets an enzyme called IMPDH2, which plays a large role in cancer metastasis.
Why it matters: When cancer reaches the brain, it’s almost incurable. A treatment that could ensure that more easily treatable forms of cancer never make their way to anyone’s noggins could drastically reduce mortality rates. One of the researchers estimates a daily pill for patients who have beaten other types of cancer could be available in eight to 10 years.
ECONOMY
Implosion of U.S.-Iran ceasefire stokes inflation fears
Source: Unsplash.
We’re writing stories about inflation again. What is this, 2023?
What happened: After the U.S. and Iran traded strikes earlier this week, President Donald Trump told reporters that their interim ceasefire deal was “over.” He also said the U.S. was preparing more attacks and could potentially reinstate the naval blockade on Iranian ports.
Last week, voyages through the contested Strait of Hormuz more than quadrupled — a sign of confidence in the ceasefire. It looks like that confidence was misplaced.
Zoom out: In an unfortunately timed release, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) dropped its updated World Economic Outlook yesterday, which warned that “Re-escalation of geopolitical tensions would hurt growth and compound inflationary pressures.” Uh-oh!
The report projected global inflation would rise to 4.7% this year; even though it was calculated before Trump reignited the war, it’s still higher than the last reading.
Why it matters: The war’s energy shocks have lifted global inflation, though it has remained manageable. But if the conflict drags on, inflation could reach a tipping point and we could return to a brutal landscape of elevated prices. As is, Canada hit its highest annual inflation since 2024 in May and inflation expectations among business owners have spiked.
“The disinflation trend that we’ve been seeing since early 2024 has stalled,” the IMF’s deputy director of research told the Financial Times. “The global economy has done better than feared . . . [but] the news on inflation is maybe less encouraging.”
Our take: One must always take Trump’s decrees with a boulder-sized grain of salt, but his calling Iranians “scum” and saying it’s a “waste of time dealing with them” does not inspire confidence in a long-term peace deal, and thus doesn’t inspire economic confidence.—QH
ONE BIG NUMBER
🏡 ~10%. Share of the housing stock in Ontario and B.C. owned by individual investors as of 2022, according to a new study. Overall, investors owned 22% of all housing in Ontario and 25% in B.C. Nova Scotia had the highest rate of home ownership by investors at nearly 30%.
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Italy's new strategy to deter tourists: banning bathing suits.
Look: New underwater images reveal the shipwreck of Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackleton.
The 100 best soccer (or football) players of all time, ranked.
Which animals choose to mate for life and why.
A new browser extension filters and hides suspicious brands on Amazon.
All of the 2026 Emmy nominations.
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Watch out! Here comes today’s mini-crossword, the daily sudoku, Codebreaker, and Who’s Who!
