David Burrows
President & Chief Investment Strategist at Barometer Capital Management
Member since: Jun '01 · 5265 Opinions
Rating Card
Premium content| All | 
Rating
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| 4.59 | 224 30.07% | 191 25.64% | 109 14.63% | 111 14.90% | 110 14.77% | ||
| 1 Month | 4.41 | 7 4.19% | 57 34.13% | 65 38.92% | 31 18.56% | 7 4.19% | |
| 6 Months | 4.59 | 31 18.79% | 59 35.76% | 25 15.15% | 35 21.21% | 15 9.09% | |
| 12 Months | 4.69 | 52 33.33% | 44 28.21% | 11 7.05% | 20 12.82% | 29 18.59% | |
| 2 Years | 4.7 | 66 45.52% | 24 16.55% | 5 3.45% | 18 12.41% | 32 22.07% | |
| 5 Years | 4.57 | 68 60.71% | 7 6.25% | 3 2.68% | 7 6.25% | 27 24.11% |
Stock Opinions by David Burrows
Reality is that, off the bat, companies are working hard trying to eat some of the tariff costs. The questions are how long will tariffs be in place and how high will the costs be? Ultimately, companies will have to assess that.
Inflation is still pretty sticky, though it could moderate. For those who want rate cuts, moderating inflation in the near term is positive. That's going to be a bit tricky. Over the last few months we've seen an uptick in commodity prices, and that will start feeding through into the inflation data. Energy prices, for example, have started to tick up again.
The market's signalling that inflation is still a concern, because inflation-oriented assets are outperforming. He doesn't see any change in that.
It's interesting. For all of the people who are concerned that tariffs are going to slow things down, the signalling from the market has been quite different. Think about where leadership is. Financials continue to lead, especially the capital markets banks and investment banks. Also seeing strength in industrials in general, which sort of belies concerns about the economy.
When you look at defensive sectors (consumer staples, REITs, bond proxies), there's no sign of any relative strength or performance there. If things were slowing down, you'd expect them to pick up.
We're in the middle of bond auctions, 10-year today and 30-year tomorrow. Longer-term yields have been building in a bigger and bigger premium for the term that money will be locked up. Again, that speaks to the risk that governments continue to spend and rack up more debt.
So more inflation-oriented assets are performing well -- basic materials, gold in particular, uranium, fertilizer stocks. Those don't point to a deterioration in the economy.
When he looks at a company, the first thing to look at is the group that they're in. You can have a great company in a group that's out of favour, and have a difficult time.
Will be a big beneficiary from the move in AI. Problem is that healthcare device companies in general are under pressure. Healthcare itself is under political pressure. Nice house in a tough neighbourhood.
The more economically sensitive sectors are gathering steam. Healthcare, for example, isn't one of them; US government is trying to hold cost inflation down. Healthcare doesn't have a lot of pricing power right now to pass costs through. He's trying to focus on companies that generate tons of cash, growing cashflow, with a nicely growing dividend stream.
Financials are the strongest group globally. Period. Regional banks are having a harder time in the US, as well as some of the smaller, mortgage-oriented banks. Weakening relative strength versus the market and also against the group. Be cautious. Concern is that housing market in Canada continues to weaken.
Better places to go, move on. See his Top Picks.
Massive buildout in infrastructure. Massive pickup in adoption. As with every major technology that comes along, the newest one gets adopted faster than the last one. Adoption is very high across companies. We're still learning where it's going to be most useful. Some of the largest of the large caps (META, NFLX) are the biggest beneficiaries.
One of the things his team's looking at right now is that it seems some of the regulations surrounding the semiconductor industry will be reduced (specifically China, but other countries as well). That could mean an expanded market for the semi manufacturing equipment companies such as KLAC. AVGO has also been a strong performer, and he owns some NVDA. Those two names have strong relative price performance, are economically sensitive, cyclical, and have pricing power.
The whole nuclear energy theme has really jumped back into the spotlight. No matter what happens with tariffs and other things, we know that there will be expanded (perhaps exponential) demand for energy. Some of that will come from natural gas, and some from nuclear.
Pioneering work in small, modular reactors. US Navy, plus big partner with Ontario Power. Great run. ETFs such as URA and NLR are making new highs. Big technical bases that can support higher prices.
The whole nuclear energy theme has really jumped back into the spotlight. No matter what happens with tariffs and other things, we know that there will be expanded (perhaps exponential) demand for energy. Some of that will come from natural gas, and some from nuclear.
A new position for him. Good, and getting better. Can't ignore the breakout from a multi-year base. Westinghouse business is getting better.
Cybersecurity is the utility of technology, a necessity. Not economically sensitive, so won't get a big boost in a strong economy. But it's very consistent.
He could own this, but doesn't. Instead, he owns CRWD and a cyber ETF. Expectations in the group are high, and the multiples aren't cheap. He doesn't actually have a ton of tech exposure right now, having moved to more economically sensitive names.
Cybersecurity is the utility of technology, a necessity. Not economically sensitive, so won't get a big boost in a strong economy. But it's very consistent.
He owns this and a cyber ETF. Expectations in the group are high, and the multiples aren't cheap. He doesn't actually have a ton of tech exposure right now, having moved to more economically sensitive names.
In general, he's had almost no healthcare exposure for the last year. Relative price performance for the group has been weak. That said, he's seeing some improvement around the edges.
He always looks for what's held up better than the rest, and this name would fit. Performed better than 78% of S&P stocks over the last 52 weeks. Technically, made a series of higher lows. More of its earnings estimates have moved higher than lower, so earnings momentum revision is decent. Hasn't technically broken out, so he's not there yet. If you own it, hold.
The whole nuclear energy theme has really jumped back into the spotlight. No matter what happens with tariffs and other things, we know that there will be expanded (perhaps exponential) demand for energy. Some of that will come from natural gas, and some from nuclear.
Making new highs. Big technical bases that can support higher prices. The ETF is a great way to play the space, and you don't take on too much business risk.
The whole nuclear energy theme has really jumped back into the spotlight. No matter what happens with tariffs and other things, we know that there will be expanded (perhaps exponential) demand for energy. Some of that will come from natural gas, and some from nuclear.
Making new highs. Big technical bases that can support higher prices. The ETF is a great way to play the space, and you don't take on too much business risk.
When he looks at a universe of stocks like the S&P 500, what he cares about is whether breadth has been improving or deteriorating. No bear market ever happened while breadth was expanding. He also tracks the percentage of stocks above 50-day and 150-day moving averages. Those are all expanding.
Forget what we think about seasonality and weakness in the second two weeks of June. Market's been pretty good since April. Still news risk, and the S&P hasn't been able to make a new high yet. But breadth is still improving. Unless that started to deteriorate, picking a price and hoping you're picking a top is a risky business.
Around the world, more and more markets are performing well. This speaks to $$ flowing into equities as a whole, not just in the US. Stocks are outperforming bonds pretty steadily.
He'd wait to see some technical indication that we're going through a top before embarking on this strategy.
