Could you become a millionaire by investing the minimum wage hike? + MORE Jan 23rd

Silicon Valley billionaire Elon Musk will get no salary or cash bonuses from Tesla Inc. and all his compensation as chief executive of the electric car maker will be tied to stock and operational milestones, the company said on Tuesday.

TORONTO _ Canada’s main stock index rose modestly today, helped in part by strength in the energy sector as the price of oil surged nearly US$1.
The S&P/TSX composite index was up 9.57 points to 16,357.55, as the March crude contract advanced 90 cents to US$64.47 per barrel.
In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average edged back 3.79 points to 26,210.81. The S&P 500 index added 6.16 points to 2,839.13 and the Nasdaq composite index was up 52.26 points to 7,460.29.
The Canadian dollar closed at an average trading value of 80.30 cents US, up 0.03 of a U.S. cent.
Elsewhere in commodities, the February natural gas contract climbed 22 cents to US$3.44 per mmBTU.
The February gold contract was up US$4.80 to US$1,336.70 an ounce and the March copper contract was down nine cents to US$3.11 a pound.
The post Surging oil prices help lift Toronto stock index, Canadian dollar flat appeared first on Canadian Business – Your Source For Business News.

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Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne increased the minimum wage from $11.60 per hour to $14.00 per hour on January 1, 2018. The rate will rise to $15.00 on January 1, 2019, meaning a 29% total increase. Besides Alberta and the territories, the other Canadian provinces have minimum wages of $11.35 or less.
The increase has been controversial, to say the least. Some business owners have raised prices or decreased staffing, hours or benefits to protect their bottom line. Critics have argued that the increase isn’t a windfall and just ensures all Ontario residents are paid a decent living wage. Despite your take, what would happen if a minimum wage employee could take their whole pay increase to the bank – literally?
READ: Canada’s youth are the clear losers from a higher minimum wage
Assuming someone worked 20 hours per week and 50 weeks per year, that’s 1,000 hours per year of work. A pay hike from $11.60 per hour to $15.00 per hour would bring annualized earnings from $12,064 per year to $15,600 per year including 4% vacation pay…

Medical marijuana plants in a climate-controlled growing room in Smith Falls, Ont.  (James MacDonald/Bloomberg/Getty Images)
Depending on your point of view, the burgeoning marijuana industry in Canada is either an unprecedented opportunity to rake in huge profits as recreational use becomes legal, or a speculative bubble that will eventually pop. When forensic accountant Al Rosen looks at the sector, he sees something else: “It’s a bloody mess,” he says.
Rosen is referring to the financial statements of the country’s publicly traded licensed producers. Accountability Research Corp., which Rosen runs with his son, Mark, is warning those statements are misleading and allow companies to overstate profitability. “Canadian reporting of marijuana growers sets a new low for integrity,” the Rosens wrote in a recent report. It’s not that companies are intentionally duping investors—though there is ample opportunity for that, the Rosens argue. Instead, companies are trying to apply already-vague accounting rules to a new industry…

MONTREAL _ Moody’s Investors Service says global automakers, aside from Tesla, will generate low returns on battery electric vehicles even though sales will surge by 2030.
The rating’s service estimates that electric vehicles will account for about seven to eight per cent of global auto sales by 2025, rising to 17 to 19 per cent by the end of the decade.
However, producing zero or low emission vehicles requires lots of capital investment, which pushes returns below the low profit margins on traditional internal combustion engine vehicles.
At the same time, the industry is investing in other technologies, including autonomous driving, connectivity and ride sharing.
Moody’s estimates that manufacturers lose between US$7,000 to more than US$10,000 per electric vehicle sold in the United States.
It expects these cars will remain unprofitable into the early 2020s.
Profitability will depend on reduction in battery costs, technical improvements that lead to longer driving ranges and increased scale of production…