Opinions Paul Harris, CFAA Comment -- General Comments From an ExpertA CommentaryCOMMENTDec 24, 2025
Paul Harris, CFAYou might be interested:
Nobody knows when the Iran conflict is going to end, but the market tends to overlook these geopolitical events if not the price of oil. Generally speaking, markets have been trending higher and doing very well in light of this geopolitical uncertainty.
The less stabilizing part of the market is the discussion around AI and how long that trend will persist. When oil moves $30 a barrel seemingly every week, this sector tends to get overlooked.
It'll take a long time to figure out whether companies are overspending or not, and whether they'll be able to monetize those investments. These companies will continue to plow money in, and they don't really have a choice at this time. Time is a big competitor, and North American companies really have to stay ahead of the curve.
The spending is a sustainable factor in the market, and has been lifting a lot of the market recently. There have been a lot of investment flows in a lot of different sectors, and that's been very helpful to capital markets.
Yes, that's what his team sees. One pushback they get is that the bull market's lasted for 3.7-3.8 years now, when is it going to run out? Bull markets tend to last a lot longer than people think (average is ~5.5 years).
There's a very good backdrop right now. The economy's doing quite well, and so are companies. We're getting through Q2 earnings, and the earnings have been very strong. Despite oil prices being all over the map, and being high right now, companies are still performing very well. In that environment, markets can continue to do well for a while.
It can happen, and GOOG is a good example of that. It had a very good quarter on topline and bottom, but it's increasing the capex spend. Investors see some uncertainty around that. Generally speaking, the volatility will come out of the stock and it'll start to move higher again.
Right now with all the uncertainty around interest rates, his firm is short-duration fixed income. Doesn't look as though Canada will raise rates.
Note that income from fixed income is fully taxable. If you really need to be in fixed income, he advocates corporate bonds at the short end, and probably investment grade. If you're comfortable, some high-quality companies may not be investment grade but give you a slightly higher yield.
Preferred shares are a good way to get income through dividends. Stable, though not as stable as fixed income. Yields of ~5-6% are roughly double what you're getting on fixed income right now, and those yields are tax-advantaged.
Yes, US bonds offer higher interest rates today, as the Fed funds rate is higher than the BOC overnight lending rate. But you're running two risks.
One is that you have currency exposure. The CAD is trading at the low end of the range, and that dynamic might turn. The other thing is that the Fed may be in a better position to raise interest rates, and so the price of your bonds will come down.
He uses fixed income as a way to manage risk. He's sticking to the short end of the curve (4.5-5 years max). He doesn't want to buy a long-duration bond and get into a volatility situation, where the component of the portfolio that's supposed to be the stabilizer gets too volatile.
Likes the ladder approach. He buys actual bonds; when that bond matures in 3 years, you know you're going to get your par investment back. The issue you get into with the short-term ETFs is that you never actually get to the maturity date, as the duration is maintained at the 3 year (for example) timeframe. If things go awry, he likes the thought of just holding his bond and getting his $$ back in 3 years.
He doesn't own any of the pure-play oil producers right now (though he does own TOU). The reason is the volatility we're seeing. His team plays energy these days by owning ENB, and some of the smaller midstream companies like PPL and GEI. He likes their stability.
ETFs are a decent way to play the sector. You get both liquidity and diversification. Look at the MER and make sure you're not paying too much. Good providers are iShares, Global X, and BMO -- go to their websites and look at the suite of offerings. Many of them just passively buy the index.
He owns a little bit, high-quality names plus 1 aspiration company, only 3-5% total. More than 50% of returns for the TSX last year was driven by gold (and, to a certain extent, base metals). He'd put on a small position, and an ETF is the way to do it. Doesn't think central banks are finished buying.
If the Fed raises rates, there might be better options (such as yield) than buying gold. So gold's checked back.
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This is typically the time of year markets get really soft, usually first week of August and through September. Up to now, breadth has been improving and markets have been pretty buoyant as they've been driven by incredible earnings. All in spite of trade uncertainty, inflation, and geopolitical tensions.
However, when you have oil going up $6 in a day as it is today, that's a wrecking ball that's going to upset a lot of things. The yields on the US 10-year were already pretty high, and we've seen them spike again today. It'll be a tough tape for stocks on a day like today.
He's bullish on markets till the end of the year. Amongst the earnings cycle right now, the market's having second thoughts. We're going into the typical August/September swoon. You'll want to buy this dip, and he thinks markets will be higher at the end of the year.
The impact on stocks is key, because bonds are competing assets for stocks. If, all of a sudden, someone can get a reasonable return on a 10-year treasury (right now it's 4.7%), why bother taking the risk on stocks? That's point #1.
Point #2 is that everyone has a balance sheet and everyone borrows to grow earnings. Higher rates can really cramp margins and make everything more expensive. If we have higher oil for longer, it's going to have an effect.
Great question. If we're going into an ultimate bear market, then you want to be cautious. But if it's just another pullback, with earnings growth that continues really robust, you don't want to miss that -- you want to add when there's fear. Typically you have this weakness anyway heading into August and September. There's also uncertainty about the Fed decision next week.
We have all these uncertainties, valuations that aren't cheap, and a lot of expectations going into these earnings. Earnings have been really good, with tons of capex spending. There's a lot of punishment if a stock is perceived to miss.
Thinks it'll be just as volatile. The problem with this administration is that it's very chaotic. There's no presentation of a cohesive economic, foreign, or domestic policy. It all seems very ad hoc, and one thing changes after another.
One of the things that it's very important to look at is that China has way more leverage against the US than vice versa. So they were able to put a lot of pressure on the US. The mechanics of that relationship have to be looked at from a foreign policy perspective. In his view, they've done a terrible job of it. We saw China continue to manufacture like crazy, and manufacturing numbers were off the scale.
The leverage that they have in critical minerals is very important. We're never going to be able to get to the level that China's at because of the cost and the environmental perspective. Those kinds of minerals are all over the place, but China really focused on that area. They focused on it because they also built out an EV business that uses a lot of those minerals.
He feels that we'll see a lot of the tariff issues and chaotic policies come to fruition in 2026, so we could have a much more difficult year. That's what we'll have to keep an eye on from the perspective of the stock market and the economy. Even the GDP numbers, if you went through them in detail, weren't really all that great.
The last thing is the Fed. To come out and say "If they don't agree with me, I'm not going to be happy" is a terrible thing to say to the economy, the bond market, and the stock market. Lower rates might be good for the stock market, but he thinks the bond market would overreact in a very different way if the Fed is politicized that way.