Today, The Weekly Buzzing Stocks by Billy Kawasaki and Stan Wong commented about whether XLF-N, DECK-N, AAPL-Q, SLF-T, MFC-T, XDIV-T, CCO-T, UBER-N, VFV-T, XEI-T, VDY-T, JPM-N, GS-N, BAC-N, DOL-T, CAH-N, ASML-Q, NVDA-Q, LLY-N, NVO-N, COST-Q, WMT-N, SBUX-Q, BCE-T, RCI.B-T, CNQ-T, TSLA-Q, BYD-N, BBAI-N are stocks to buy or sell.
When you look at the S&P 500, it has estimated earnings growth of 11% for this year, and ~12% for next year. Looking at mid-caps, it's 11% this year but 16% next year. He likes mid-caps, given their (rare) discount to large caps and their higher growth prospects.
He does think about it, and we can certainly expect more chaos coming out of different US policies. Yet, historically, we know that these types of events are short-lived.
Tariffs on China are a bigger deal, because it's 19% of global GDP, compared to Canada and Mexico which are less than 4%. In 2018 when Trump first placed tariffs on China, the market dropped about 19.7%. But within less than 3 months, it rebounded. So these risks are opportunities, not obstacles.
Last 10 cycles have seen an 18.1% average return in the first year post-election, with a 90% win ratio. So, 9/10 times in the last 10 cycles, the market was higher in the year right after a US election.
There's also the January barometer: how goes January, so goes the rest of the year. Since 1950, a positive January has led to the S&P being up 12.2% on average, with an 87% win ratio. January 2025 was great, with the Dow being up ~5% and the S&P up ~3% (as of a few minutes ago).
Usually, he's 70% invested in the US (with some of that being international exposure), and 30% Canada. Right now, he's 73% US (and a smidgen of global) and 27% Canada. A lot of that is due to stock-picking and to US equities performing just a bit better than Canadian.
At this point, he doesn't think he'll be pushing his US exposure higher, as it's already above the normal weight that most Canadians would have in portfolios. Though it could fluctuate by 3-4%. At the end of the day, the US is a much bigger sandbox to play in, with more choice than in Canada in terms of scale and scope.
There will be years when Canada will perform very well, given its weighting in financials and resources, but right now he likes the US quite a bit.
Recently weakened, trading below 200-day MA, which itself is starting to move sideways and slightly lower. That raises some concerns for him. US energy sector is showing better (up 3.5%) performance than Canada (up 1%).
We don't yet know when, if, or how much for tariffs. If you want energy exposure, look to weight more heavily in US names. He's looking at this pretty closely.
No exposure to telcos at this stage. Pretty decent, high-quality name, yet stock continues to suffer. 200-day MA is falling, and stock price is below that. Stock hit 52-week low today. Technically, not a name to be involved in.
May seem cheap on PE, but not a name he likes. As well, he's more a growth manager than a value manager. Nice dividend of 5.2%, but you'll have to keep an eye on that over time.
Doesn't own any names in the space at the moment. Yields will have to start coming down pretty dramatically for dividend players, such as the telcos, to start getting a good lift. And he's not seeing that yet. Longer term, he'd argue that a lot of these names don't have the growth he's looking for.