Greg Newman
Director & Portfolio Manager at Scotia Wealth Management
Member since: Sep '11 · 2863 Opinions
Rating Card
| All | 
Rating
| 
Big Win
| 
Win
| 
Neutral
| 
Loss
| 
Big Loss
|  |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4.8 | 235 24.33% | 258 26.71% | 168 17.39% | 204 21.12% | 101 10.46% | ||
| 1 Month | 4.71 | 3 1.28% | 80 34.19% | 92 39.32% | 57 24.36% | 2 0.85% | |
| 6 Months | 4.91 | 38 17.04% | 76 34.08% | 36 16.14% | 50 22.42% | 23 10.31% | |
| 12 Months | 5 | 73 34.60% | 45 21.33% | 20 9.48% | 45 21.33% | 28 13.27% | |
| 2 Years | 4.97 | 73 39.67% | 36 19.57% | 14 7.61% | 38 20.65% | 23 12.50% | |
| 5 Years | 4.42 | 48 42.11% | 21 18.42% | 6 5.26% | 14 12.28% | 25 21.93% |
Stock Opinions by Greg Newman
There's a lot going on, and Mark Carney has to win first. We'll see what happens next week.
Carney is showing his hand a little bit and it's a good move. The Trump administration has put themselves in a bit of a pickle here, and they need to see deals. For this market to keep going higher, it needs clarity and a framework of agreement (without, necessarily, all the details). Both the bond and equity markets need to see that.
Time is ticking against the Americans. Trump likes to be popular. And he wants to win mid-terms that aren't all that far away, especially if they've made this one goof move to put the economy into a recession. The #1 rule of governance is to not put your economy into a recession.
The medicine delivered on April 2 was really too hard for economies to deal with. The reasons we've had rallies since April 9 is because the US has kicked the can down the road by 90 days and has done carveouts for electronics. That 90 days can go by quickly, time is ticking.
Markets are clinging to hope that something will come out of weekend meetings between Trump and other dignitaries attending the pope's funeral. CEO's won't like it if there's no architecture on deals for months and months. People will sit on their hands, economic activity will slow, and the odds of recession will tick higher.
Most people want to diversify. Temptation is there -- fat dividend, company will be around for years and years. He expects a dividend cut of 50-55%, DRIP may be stopped, more asset sales. Balance sheet and population growth have not been in its favour. Buy only a little bit down here ~$29.
His view is that if BCE starts aggressive measures to right the ship, the stock will actually rally.
You want to diversify, don't bank on just one stock carrying the load. Look at a mix of fixed income, preferred shares, good dividend stocks with visible dividend growth, robust dividends. Places to look: energy infrastructure, utilities, industrials, financials. These sectors are all in Canada, as well as being in the US and globally.
Especially in markets like these, you want to inch in incrementally and slowly. Same approach with falling knives.
Nice beat on recent earnings announcement. $600M in free cashflow. 3% higher production. Importantly, 3-6% lower costs than market expected. Very important that they maintained guidance for projects. Not cheap at 23x 2026 earnings.
Gold will keep working if clarity doesn't come from the US administration. Risk is that you get something that's necessary and sufficient from them; clarity and good policy would cause gold to fall off a lot, and the rest of the market will rally. Don't add here.
Everybody's been crowding into what's been working. Bond proxy, not too challenged by Trump tariffs. Great long-term compounder. Raises dividend every year, by ~5%. Good long-term growth. Q4 beat. Steady player, without all the ups and downs.
One knock is that it's only growing 5%, but trading at 17x. So, no, don't buy at this level. In the space it's time to look at AQN again (believe it or not), GEI, or ALA.
When DeepSeek came out, he started selling out of this position. People are selling the Mag 7, and there might be some anti-US sentiment globally. Recent charges on China, tariff concerns. At some level it becomes cheap; at 15x 2027 earnings, with 28% growth, it's gotten oversold. Blackwell chips are the catalyst.
Will only work if we're still in a bull market. US administration could tip us into a recession. Risk to this name, especially with no dividend. Start picking away ~$100-104. Be an incremental purchaser of growth names for when we do come out of this darker economic time.
All telcos are challenged: balance sheet, capital intensive, higher interest rates, competition, less immigration, need to pursue asset sales.
Great dividend name. Best of the bunch. Is this the very best stock to buy right now? No; there are others with more visibility and less hair on them. But this is a good one for the Canadian dividend tax credit. You never know what you don't know, and things can change for the better quickly.
90% of business is in the US, so it's insulated from tariffs. He understands that they've been hiring, even in this tough environment. Growth name, which can get really smashed when there's concern about darker economic times. Holding up pretty well. Trades at a very reasonable 6.6x 2026 PE, growing at 41%. AI-powered lender. UK acquisition is accretive.
Incremental buy.
A month ago, he reduced his tech holdings a lot. Thirst for AI continues pretty strong. Economic environment would have to be pretty tough for this name to go down too much more, but that could happen.
Both names are great. MSFT is a bit more expensive. META can suffer more on advertising if we go into a tougher economic environment. If you're confident that Trump wants to win the midterms and wants to be popular, and that we're going to avoid the worst-case outcome, you can buy both at these levels. Between the two, META gets the nod.
