Reza Samahin, P. Eng, CFA

We've had a lot of uncertainty, and a big drawdown (US in particular). He doesn't see a Canadian election having much bearing on the US, which is where his main focus lies.

The new US administration is very unpredictable. There's a lot of uncertainty. Latest consumer and business data show that confidence is waning, people are a bit anxious. Capital spending may be slowing a bit. 

Having said that, these are all short-term reactions. The question really is how long will this uncertainty last? If it lasts a long time, it could feed back into the economy. If it doesn't, then this is a really big buying opportunity.

He doesn't try to predict the future, so advice to individual clients is really based on their circumstances. He tries to prepare their portfolios for different eventualities.

He is seeing some opportunities out there for portfolios. For example, the Mag 7 are down between 15-20%. Some of the smaller, growthier names are down almost 40%. That creates opportunity.

Many of his clients have seen all this before. You don't get deals in the market unless there is uncertainty. Other clients may feel some anxiousness, so it varies by client.

He's very focused on US growth names and his timeframe is multi-year, so 3-5 years. He's not going to go to all cash or pull out of the market simply because there's some uncertainty. That said, he did raise a little bit of cash in anticipation of this uncertainty. He's looking to deploy that as names pull back. Because his timeframe is longer, he's not changing what he does on a fundamental basis.

He's cautious. Fast-growing software name in the fast-growing business intelligence space. Probably one of the most expensive names out there in its universe, as it's seeing huge inroads with government and industry. 

Half its business is government, and that's slowing outside the US due to moves by the US administration. Europe, for example, has been highly reliant on the US for defense. That's changing, as they try to repatriate a lot of those services.

Has grown cashflows, very encouraging. Taking share from LYFT. Over several years stock's been volatile, but hasn't done that much due to looming robotaxis and autonomous vehicles. If that picks up steam, competitive dynamics change; UBER would move from handling both supply and demand, to being just one of many suppliers chasing demand.

Multiple's come down, showing good fundamentals. Watch the space. Waymo has no experience in the space, whereas Uber's really well positioned. That partnership will work well at first, but it's the future he's concerned about.

Doing well. Good brand with younger investors -- a coveted segment. Highly volatile. Crypto market is opening up for them. Very well positioned.

Copper is certainly a derivative of technology growth. For example, when EVs are growing, that should help copper demand. Electrification of everything is helping copper demand. If the USD weakens (which it's more than likely to in the long term), that will help commodities as well. 

He's bullish on copper, though he can't provide a junior name. But, generally, the drivers are in place for copper outperformance.

Likes the acquisition of Wiz, the leader in cloud security. There are synergies between the two. Not clear whether Wiz now favours GOOG, or is still cloud-agnostic. Overall, more benefits than negatives.

Well positioned for the long term. GOOG invented a lot of the fundamental building blocks of AI, yet they get no credit for all that technology. The reason is that they're not good at creating commercial products. Outside of Search, all of their successful products are through acquisition -- YouTube, Android, Google Maps. So the market's wondering if it can make the transition to a generative AI future.

This helps explain why the multiple's where it's at. They could turn all this around and it would be an opportunity, but it'll probably take a change in leadership. Take a look at the history of MSFT since 2012.

Really well run. Dominates Latin America. Branching out into payments, infrastructure is good. Somewhat susceptible to movements in the USD. Not sure if he sees growth overseas, as there are already big competitors in place.

Undisputed leader in leading-edge foundries, and it's been that way for several years. Has anything changed? Now branching out to the US, which gives geographic diversification. This may be costly, but it has pricing power. 

Another reason it's done well is because competitors have done poorly. But INTC is getting its act together, and Samsung will at some point. Down the road (and it may be a long road), there will be some additional competition. But TSM will still be the leader. A staple in most growth portfolios.

Cyclical component and secular component. 

On the cyclical side, thinks we're bottoming on analog, automotive, and so on.

Secular has been dominated the last 3 years by generative AI. Think NVDA, AVGO, and others. He foresees growth here for several years, but the nature of that growth may change. By the law of large numbers, growth will slow down. We're shifting from a purely GPU-led demand environment to a big ramp up in A6 from various hyperscalers as well, as hyperscalers move A6 functionality from low-demand areas to their core workload.

The thesis around space is very simple, far-reaching, and very durable. It's all about launch costs. In the 1980s, the cost to put 1 kg of material in space was $50k. The next generation is forecast to bring the cost down to just 100s of dollars. 

The implication of that is profound, and we should see an explosion of commercial activity in space. For example, there's a company that wants to manufacture pharmaceuticals in space because of the zero-gravity environment. Down the road we may even see asteroid mining, as they're very rich in precious metals.

It's a $3T company now, so you're not going to get the same returns as the last few years. Fundamentals are sound. Sold out for this year. There is a threat with A6 custom chips, which will have to be looked at for 2026 and beyond.

It's fine, but there are other ways to play the AI trend. You should diversify and have a basket of names. Early winners are typically infrastructure names like NVDA, but as the sector makes progress, other names will build on what the early movers provided.

You could look at AVGO, the clear leader in networking and provider of GPU chips for GOOG. There should also be a huge growth driver in memory, DRAM.

Highly controversial and polarizing name. Big hit recently, but that's after a big run last year. Overvalued as an automotive company. Massive brand destruction by Musk. 

But if you're looking at it for robotaxis, deserves a different valuation; essentially a call option on that future. How confident are you? You have every right to be skeptical, as they haven't delivered. Underlying architecture has changed, and they have a shot at getting there. Wait to see what happens at the demo in a few months. If they fail to deliver (again), stock will go lower; if they make progress, stock will rerate and you should consider buying for the long term.