Good mornin’.

What a weekend… where to begin.

Before we get to tariffs, markets, or overtime heartbreak, a practical reminder that may not be as exciting as a gold medal game but far more consequential over time: RRSP season is here.

Yes, I know. You’d rather talk about hockey.

But the calendar does not care about headlines, scoreboards, or political theatre. It keeps moving. It moves whether markets are calm or volatile, whether the puck goes in or out. Participation compounds quietly over years. Prediction rarely does. If you haven’t topped up, now is the time — not because it feels urgent, but because discipline is rarely urgent. It is simply consistent.

Form Matters

Now let’s rewind to Friday.

The U.S. Supreme Court upheld lower-court rulings limiting the President’s ability to impose tariffs unilaterally under emergency powers. In plain language, tariffs cannot simply be declared at will under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. That doesn’t eliminate trade friction — but it changes its form.

Section 232 — the national security pathway — remains available, but it is slower, narrower, procedural. That means review. Process. Time.

And in our world of investing, markets, and business, form matters.

A fixed tariff can be modeled. A shifting threat is harder to allocate around. Capital does not fear friction. It fears unpredictability. Investors can price in cost; they struggle to price in whim.

Institutional constraint is not weakness. It is durability.

Markets function best when power has boundaries and when policy tools move through process rather than impulse. That is not ideology — it is infrastructure. And infrastructure, like compounding, works quietly until one day you realize how much strength has accumulated beneath the surface.

Overtime

We eased into the weekend. Our little Henderson family enjoyed some snow, skiing, some campfires, some s’mores.

Then came Sunday morning.

8:00 a.m. Coffee in hand. Canada versus the United States for gold.

Overtime.

We lost.

Which, if you’re Canadian, means the coffee tasted slightly different.

But what struck me most wasn’t the result. It was the proximity. It was how thin the margins felt. It didn’t feel like fracture or hostility. It felt like friction — the kind that sharpens.

And friction, when respected, produces strength.

1972: An Inherited Memory

Let’s rewind again…..to 1972.

I wasn’t born yet. But sometimes I feel like I was.

I grew up watching Summit on Ice on repeat with my best buddies, the McCormick boys, in a basement that smelled like popcorn and minor-league ambition. We knew every shift. Every replay. Every Esposito glare. Every Henderson rebound. We watched it so many times it stopped being a documentary and started feeling like family history.

As kids, we cheered the comeback.

As adults, you notice the pivot.

After Game 4 of the Summit Series, Canada wasn’t dominant. We were stunned. Outskated. Booed at home in Montreal. The myth of inevitability cracked. The camera found Phil Esposito in the hallway afterward — sweating, frustrated, exhausted. He wasn’t performing. He was honest.

“We’re trying our best… and they’re booing us.”

It wasn’t a speech. It was a reckoning. And in hindsight, that moment mattered more than the winning goal weeks later. Because that was the pivot. That was when Canada realized we were not entitled to win anymore. The Soviets were faster. Structured differently. Systemic. They trained year-round. They prepared with discipline.

And so Canada changed.

Conditioning evolved. Systems modernized. Preparation intensified. Respect deepened.

Humility became strategy.

The championship wasn’t born from pride.

It was born from adaptation.

Refinement, Not Rivalry

Overtime means the margins are thin, and so are the margins in markets.

Canada and the United States are not simply neighbours. We are deeply integrated economies — energy corridors, agricultural systems, manufacturing supply chains, defense frameworks, capital markets. The largest bilateral trade relationship in the world does not pivot on a single headline or a single game. It adjusts. It recalibrates. It absorbs friction.

We compete in talent. We partner in security. We integrate in trade.

In macro terms, this looks less like rivalry and more like refinement. The lesson is not about who wins. It is about how both sides respond.

What the Markets Are Doing in 2026

So far in 2026, markets are reflecting that same theme of refinement.

Leadership is broadening. Capital is rotating. What was once narrowly concentrated is dispersing across sectors and geographies. That’s healthy.

The TSX has been supported by energy and industrial strength. U.S. markets have been more measured, with performance uneven beneath the surface. International markets are contributing again. Valuations outside the narrow leadership cohort remain more reasonable.

Diversification rarely feels dramatic when it’s working. It feels steady. Sometimes even boring. Which, in investing, is usually a compliment.

Bond yields remain meaningful. Structural themes — energy security, infrastructure investment, productivity-enhancing technology — continue to matter.

This is not chaos.

It’s adjustment.

Much like 1972, the lesson isn’t dominance.

It’s adaptation.

As We Head Into the Week

As we head into the week, perhaps the more important reflections are personal.

• Where in your own life are you reacting to noise instead of strengthening foundations?
• Where have you mistaken friction for failure, when it might actually be refinement?
• Are you diversifying your time and energy, or concentrating too narrowly on what feels urgent?
• Are you investing consistently in the things that compound — your health, your relationships, your craft?
• Are you participating… or waiting for perfect clarity?

History does not reward nostalgia….it rewards adaptation.

Overtime is not failure. It is evidence that the contest is worthy, and whether in markets, in trade, or in our own lives, progress rarely arrives by chance.

It arrives by change.

The work is never finished….only refined.

Have a wonderful week. Be well and enjoy the moments,

Derek Henderson