Buzz on the Bullboards: The deep freeze

From coast-to-coast winter storms, the constant “sabre-rattling” between the world’s largest militaries, and the U.S. Supreme Court deciding whether it should essentially “upend the internet” as we know it, there is a lot on investors’ minds.

This week also saw stocks’ worst performance of the year, so far. It’s all either uphill from here, or downhill, depending on your perspective and a lot of the time, success can be deemed as subjective, except when it isn’t. When is that? Depends on what everyone else thinks. Trouble is, not everyone agrees, but if everyone is talking, chances are, you’re onto something. That something might be revolutionary business, or some kind of scandal. Either way, history has shown that stock values can jump even when it seems like the world is mad at you, just ask WWE shareholders.

From a poem, to an academic essay, to maybe even “Buzz on the Bullboards” one day, ChatGPT is an AI system that has been trained to mimic how people write and can create anything … and getting a lot of media attention.

Meanwhile, a technology-focused company with exposure to artificial intelligence, machine learning, and telehealth, Datametrex AI Ltd. (TSXV:DM) will present its latest innovation: Analytics GPT (Analytics Generative Pre-Trained Transformer).

Via its subsidiary, Nexalogy, the company will host a webinar on February 27, 2023, to demonstrate its AI-powered tool that has been developed and used for years at the government level.

Nexalogy’s technology, NexaSMART, reduces the time needed to interpret and integrate large sets of data by offering powerful automated analyses. NexaSMART allows an analyst to deal with hundreds of thousands of social media documents in minutes rather than hours or days.

Attendees of the webinar are required to register by February 26, 2023.

Webinar details:

• Date: Monday, February 27, 2023
• Time: 2:00 PM EST
• Zoom Registration

Canadians have been buying a lot of cannabis lately. According to the latest figures from Statistics Canada, cannabis retail sales reached a new monthly record in December 2022, totalling more than $429 million.

That’s good news for the likes of Canopy Growth Corp. (TSX:WEED), who just signed a purchase and sale agreement for up to US$150M in convertible debentures.

The debentures are senior unsecured, and the purchaser is an institutional investor. An initial US$100M purchase will be followed by a US$50M investment upon the satisfaction of certain conditions. Each debenture has a face value of US$1,000, bears interest at a rate of 5 per cent per annum and matures on February 28, 2028.

The institutional investor may convert the debentures prior to maturity at 92.5-per-cent of the three-day volume-weighted average price of the shares ending on the trading day prior to conversion.

Some interesting figures were unveiled today by Lisbon-based International Nickel Study Group (INSG), which found that the global nickel market was oversupplied by 112,200 tonnes last year after a deficit of 166,600 tonnes in 2021.

Canada Nickel Company (TSXV:CNC) signed an option agreement to earn a 100-per-cent interest in 170 single-cell mining claims and 23 boundary-cell mining claims in Timmins, Ontario.

Consideration includes annual expenditure commitments, the issuance of up to a total of 100,000 common shares, and $90,000 in payments over the option term.

The vendors will retain a 2-per-cent NSR with a 1-per-cent buyback provision for $1 million.

The firm also filed a preliminary short-form prospectus for its $18 million bought-deal offering.

The offering consists of the following:

• 7,462,500 common shares priced at $1.77 each
• 1,748,300 common shares – issued as flow-through shares within the meaning of the Income Tax Act (Canada) – priced at $2.86 each
• Total gross proceeds amount to $18,208,763 

The offering is expected to close on or around March 2, 2023.

Scotia Capital is acting as lead underwriter and sole bookrunner, together with a syndicate of underwriters, including Red Cloud Securities, Cormark Securities, Echelon Wealth Partners, Haywood Securities and Research Capital Corp.

Canada Nickel Company is advancing nickel-cobalt sulphide projects to feed the electric vehicle and stainless-steel markets. It is also developing processes to produce net-zero carbon nickel, cobalt, and iron products.

Following a shortened week on account of the long weekend, next week should allow the market time to simmer as traders digest the latest minutes from the Federal Reserve and sift through all the clues on future interest rate hikes. It has been a while since anyone has evoked President Warren Hardy’s “return to normalcy,” but from war to pandemic recovery, we have a fair bit in common with the world a century years ago.

The markets are always susceptible to twists and turns that jolt the plot more than a “Last of Us” episode (unless, much like investing, you’ve played the game first). The best place to make sense of it, to see who’s making money (and who’s losing money), is diving into the Bullboards.