Shopify overtakes RBC to become Canada’s most valuable public company
Thanks to an impressive quarter that sent Shopify shares soaring on Wednesday, the e-commerce platform has become Canada’s most valuable company, beating the Royal Bank of Canada to the top spot.
After its earnings call, Shopify surged on an optimistic outlook for the next quarter, as it expects revenue to grow at a mid- to high 20s percentage rate on a year-over-year basis. “The numbers were astonishing — an absolute blowout quarter,” said Mike Archibald, a portfolio manager at AGF Investments, via Reuters.
The platform’s climb also sent the entire Toronto stock market briefly to a new record high, bringing the S&P/TSX composite index up 1.3% on Wednesday from the day before.
Shopify previously edged past RBC in 2020, when e-commerce enthusiasm exploded during the pandemic. Unfortunately, that excitement soon evaporated, with Shopify losing the crown after two years. As noted by Bloomberg, that’s given further fuel to the idea of the Canadian market curse, in which rocket-like companies such as Blackberry and Nortel Networks Corp. have ended up dramatically collapsing in value after beating the nation's biggest bank. Maybe this time it’s different with SHOP?