BUY

Hit pretty hard. Last quarter threw people off, with worries over growth. Otherwise, good drilling success. Great transition to Duvernay and Montney. Cheap valuation. Debt paid down to target, so more $$ (about 75% of cashflow) to shareholders.

Frustrating year, but that creates opportunity. Final opportunity will be M&A throughout the sector.

DON'T BUY
Buying opportunity?

Doesn't see what's going to turn it around. Losing share in desktop. No presence in data centre plays. Foray into manufacturing to take advantage of the CHIPS Act gets $$ in the door, but not sure it's a profitable move.

DON'T BUY

Flat, but has done better than rest of energy group. Valuation's higher than some mid-sized producers, but it's earned its premium valuation. Demonstrated growth. Quality and safety, but paying for it. Gets more international attention.

He'd rather look at names with much lower valuations and better potential for growth and shareholder returns. Consider names like BTE, CVE, or VRN.

SELL

Penetration into AI and data centres is not particularly strong. He'd prefer AVGO, or even AMD. A long shot might even be MU, at a much cheaper valuation.

WATCH

A long shot, at a much cheaper valuation from the group. Held back because memory tends to be a bit volatile on the chip side. Less risk on the trade side. More memory being built into data centres.

DON'T BUY

Don't buy here, even though valuation's come down. Big winner over the last 2 years. High profile, but single drug. Will start to face competition. New US administration may cause uncertainty. He'd rather pick up the laggards on cheap valuations. See his Top Picks.

BUY

Recently bought. A laggard with a low valuation. A better choice than high-flying names.

SELL

Sold, and shifted into other names. Some analysts have really warmed to it lately. Domestic presence has increased dramatically and strongly. Wants to see all the bank earnings, feels expectations are too high given what they can deliver on growth in the short term. Valuations are at higher end for all.

Paid a lot of $$ for its recent acquisition, and he wants to watch that play out. Canadian banks have a chequered history with US expansion, and he's not sure BNS will break that trend.

TOP PICK

Fixed-price contracts were an overhang. Now more into engineering services. His favourite thing is expansion on the nuclear side, and they're involved internationally. This will sustain growth going forward. Low valuation. Balance sheet's better, as is earnings generation. Yield is 0.1%.

(Analysts’ price target is $80.85)
TOP PICK

Valuation of 10x forward PE. People are missing that they took the windfall from Covid and have redeployed it into acquiring assets, mainly in oncology drugs. We should start to see the growth from that spending in the next couple of years. Could get them to start growing again. Meanwhile, vaccines are still a core position. Yield is 6.5%.

Downside support, upside potential, a bit of earnings growth, low valuation.

(Analysts’ price target is $32.74)
TOP PICK

Ultimately, you have to look at who can turn a profit on AI? This one can, same as MSFT can roll out its offerings as a service to existing customers for an extra fee. Has such a variety of platforms to be able to do this on. Along with GOOG, "owns" mobile advertising, which has proven to be one of the most productive forms of advertising. So that will be a targeted area for growth. Yield is 0.3%.

A cheaper name in the Mag 7 group with more growth potential. Better growth and ancillary assets than, say, AAPL. Will benefit from AI. Getting all this for the market multiple. 

(Analysts’ price target is $652.70)
COMMENT
December tends to be the second-best month for stocks after November.

Normally, yes. You get the Santa Clause rally and the late-year seasonals. Typically, they're magnified when you have a substantial amount of weakness in September/October, which we didn't see this year. He expects the performance to be somewhat muted. 

COMMENT
A data-heavy week, and the last major one before the holidays.

US employment numbers. He's said that the thing that will upset the market's apple cart will be the real economy starting to sputter. We saw signs of that in 2024 where initial claims went up here and there, or payroll numbers were slightly softer, slight uptick in inflation. But there really hasn't been a lot of follow-through. 

That's what it will take for equity markets to have more of a correction than just the 1-2% dip we've gotten used to and that everyone can handle.

COMMENT
Trade wars.

That's one of the things that can keep you up at night. What's Trump going to do this time? With the people named to cabinet positions, he's pretty serious this time around. Looking to break the system and change it with his America First agenda. While everybody discounts him and says it's just his style, this time around the impact is going to be more material than last time. 

COMMENT
Economy.

It's been stronger than expected. You could look at that and say "Goldilocks", because it hasn't weakened yet. That's where we are right now, so there's a balance between still getting jobs growth with inflation that's come down and is not going back up. The best of both worlds.

But it doesn't mean that we will continue to expand the market multiple. It does mean that we shouldn't correct a significant amount. And when we finally do get that economic weakness and/or significant uptick in inflation (because the economy's stronger than expected), that's where we can expect some more problems in equities.