Opinions
Kim Bolton A Comment -- General Comments From an Expert A Commentary COMMENT Sep 10, 2025
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Investing 101: Make mistakes when you are young with less money to lose
If you are going to make a mistake, in almost all cases it is probably better to make them young. With investing, you have more time to bounce back from a mistake but perhaps more importantly, the dollar value with which a mistake is being made is going to be far lower. A mistake at a young age is going to be far less impactful than at a later age and be assured, mistakes will be made whether you are active or passively investing.
As a 20-something that retires 40 years later (hopefully), you are probably not going to look back at that initial $10,000 you (maybe) lost in the market and view that as the big difference maker in your retirement. However, if that experience turned out well and led to added financial security, you will probably view it as one of the most important financial decisions you ever made.
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He wouldn't expect a lot from this meeting. The tariff regime from the Trump administration has been very well telegraphed. Most heads of state have come away with a deal they wouldn't have expected. Keep in mind that the land border between Canada and the US is the longest trade conduit we have. We have some critical minerals that they use in the US, so there are some areas that we can push back on.
The bigger, thornier issue is that USMCA is up for renegotiation next year. Will the Trump administration just rip it up and say let's start again? The optics of cutting a deal on the fly are interesting. Something like the healthcare sector had follow-through that was quite disconnected from the initial announcement.
He'd expect some headlines, but what we actually get delivered may be somewhat different. We've reached the point where the president needs to recognize that Canada's a major trading partner, and the US will suffer if tariffs remain. Tariffs are a tax on US consumers, not on Canadians.
You can look at a number of different sectors. Take healthcare, for example. If companies can find a workaround, then tariffs are irrelevant. Luxury has sold off. Europe has sold off. Tariffs on the Swiss with their 6 million people and global operations don't amount to much.
While tariffs are a hot button in the US, it doesn't get to the heart of US overspending or its debt problems. Budget deficit in the US is not helpful. Compounding that with the defense budget, and the fiscal stimulus being pushed into the US economy, the result has to be inflationary in some shape or form.
Doesn't think so. JP Morgan came out with a research study -- claims that there are 41 pure AI stocks that have contributed 70% of the returns this year for the S&P 500. The other 459 stocks have contributed the other 30%. Just wait until the buildout is done by the vendors, and then you have the end users who are going to be using the built-out AI infrastructure. Still a long runway.
It can sort of feel like a shell game. Rubber's going to hit the road come 2026 after all this spending for the last 2-2.5 years. That's when we'll find out whether the vendors are going to be making money.
But he thinks that, more importantly, it's whether the end users that are going to be using this AI infrastructure are going to be making money. So far, he believes the answer is yes for both sides. For the infrastructure, there's still a heck of a lot more to be built out on the hardware, let alone the software. And the end users are the ones who are going to benefit.
Definitely hitting the healthcare side, speeding up R&D on biotech. Definitely impacting entertainment business; one of the reasons NFLX is doing so well is because they've really embraced AI. It will filter down even into manufacturing.
He and his team believe that robotics are going to be a big, big deal in 2026. But robotics only work with the AI infrastructure.
There's a lot more to come.
A lot of people compare this market to dot-com times. It's not the same. Completely different metrics. A lot of portfolio managers got wiped out then because they were trying to call the top. We're now very much in a period of momentum and sentiment. You just have to watch the price action.
Too early to say. But he's lightened up a lot on the software side, mainly because the market has told him to lighten up. The likes of NOW, CRM, and ADBE -- the kings of the hill in the software sector.
The ones that are doing the best are the ones embracing AI.