Barry Schwartz

They're driven to buy Cumberland Farms. on top of a deal in Poland of more convenience store, also for $8 billion. ATD won't get onto a bidding war, but make an offer. They can walk away and bide their time. They can make many tuck-in acquisitions. They're more likely to issue debt than shares to pay for them. Their same-store sales growth the past 3 quarters has improved dramatically. Loves the company, and it's poised to break out after closing one of these deals. 

Absolutely. Shares have fallen with software companies, but the price has stabilized. The narrative has to be disproved that AI won't eliminate some of their services in software and engineering. This will take time. WSP is an indispensable company. WSP is attractive, but he prefers software to engineering now. Is WSP as good a capital allocator as some of the companies he owns? However, there's no evidence that AI will impact the software and engineering companies. In fact, there are improvements because of AI. He's not in engineering now, but he's quite bullish the space because of the overall economy.

They do credit scoring and they've held a monopoly for decades. However, the regulatory environment has been very hostile to FICO; allegations of being an abusive monopoly are exaggerated. Once Trump leaves office, FICO will be in a position of tremendous growth and will still growth earnings, but now it's tough to own this stock. He's owning this long term. FICO will not raise its rates to appease Washington.

The private credit market, when interest rates rise and the economy is tougher, is risky. Better to own alternative assets through Brookfield and BAM.

He can't believe the market pushed this down to $400. The story then was that MSFT had too much tied to OpenAI, and that AI would disrupt their software business, Narratives change. MSFT is growing top and bottom line at a huge rate. He's own this since 2012. They will continue to see big earnings growth and deliver enormous free cash flow. Once the data centres are built, the hyperscalers will be the big winners.

Fundamentals are incredible. There is no challenge here. It's growing at double digits and trading at a lower PE than before. It boasts 95% recurring revenues. Hedge funds and ETF depend on their services.

The fundamentals are as good or better as people have hoped. But there are worries that people are watching YouTube and no longer Netflix, but this is not in the numbers. These things reverse very quickly. Look at Google's stock. He thinks Netflix will grow at double digits for many years.

He loves its Starlink business, and wishes he could buy just that. The problem is, he doesn't know enough of its space business. He can't model its earnings yet. He will watch and research it. It's a cult stock and doesn't trade at a normal valuation. It's too speculative and if he owed it, it would be a small holding.

He hasn't paid attention to the telcos recently, because growth was slowing. Unless he sees topline growth that matches or beats GDP, he will stay away. It's good that BCE is selling non-core assets, but it needs a new growth phase. Starlink isn't a risk to Canada yet. Data centres will be big enough to pivot BCE.

It's the best bank of Canada. Historic returns are top. It trades at a higher PE than historically, which is deserved, because they diversified their business to more recurring revenues. Wealth management is growing by gangbusters. 

His favourite Canadian bank, because it's also traded at a lower valuation to peers, like Royal, always had more torque to the wealth management business, and there's more upside by acquisition, whereas Royal is already so big.

Fast food faces higher labour and food costs, while the poor consumer isn't spending $20 on a Big Mac meal. There needs to be a new narrative, like investors needing to own more defensive assets. MCD results remain strong. It will grow around 6-7%, but he's looking for double-digit growth. The valuation is attractive enough that you can hold this as a core position.

He's owned this for 25 years and held on even after the BAM spin-off, because the fundamentals are incredible. As it grows, it gains economies and scale and a strong reputation. BN can easily raise fundraise. Has a fine track record. The stock is undervalued. They will collect all these performance fees in coming years. Wealth management is a great fee business, and BN is one of the top investors. The market doesn't care now that BN is investing is data centres. He continues to buy this.

He's rather focus on fundamentals and pick and choose quality companies if you need income. It's cheaper to sell stocks and pay a capital gain than collect dividends. And he'd rather see a company reinvest cash than pay it out.