November has seen a lot choppier market action in North American markets.  The U.S. at the time of writing is slightly negative and Canadian markets are slightly positive. We continue to have no clear sign of a trade deal but the noise around this has quieted down recently. It seems we were in a sell on the news mode when Nvidia reported great results, and it is a little concerning this company now represents 7% of the index. In other words, when Nvidia sneezes, the market will catch the cold. We did see this in all AI related names with a number of people coming out and throwing cold water on this area. This to me is a good thing and keeps things in balance. I will treat this time like the others - when we get these short-term pullbacks, it’s a good time to put more funds to work.

     The AI theme and the need for power to drive this continue to be huge growth areas into the foreseeable future. Getting some selloffs and bearish comments are healthy so that it is not a straight up forever kind of scenario. We saw some of the hyperscalers come to the bond market to raise funds. We saw roughly 30 billion put out in bonds and the investment community and media suddenly jumped on the idea that the end is near when borrowing happens. The big seven companies that came to market have trillions of dollars in market cap and huge profits, so to issue that amount of bonds is not a big deal, and to be honest it is good business sense to utilize their balance sheets advantageously.  This area continues to be where growth remains set to happen into 2026.

     In Canada, we see good strength in utilities and mining, including gold, although it does appear gold may be slowing down a bit. I do feel the gold trade is overcrowded, and we can place funds in less stretched areas. Oil does appear to have some weakness coming and with the potential for cease fire in Ukraine this will put more supply on the market and more downward pressure on oil. This will be good at the pumps, and less of an inflation factor going forward. We continue to be under-weighted in oils. Our economy
continues to hang in there, but with very limited growth. The Bank of Canada still has pressure to reduce or hold rates as they are for the time being. Our Canadian financials continue to be out-performers, and we remain overweight in this area.

     In the U.S., there is a lot of opportunity underneath all the big companies that are needed to complete the data centers and power build out and we continue to add to those areas. Health care has been doing well finally and the financials remain strong contributors to performance. The growth drivers remain strong in the U.S., and we look to take advantage of that into the new year.

     Europe has been strong, but I attribute most of this to a weakened U.S. dollar and not on a growth basis as growth is fairly mute in Europe. The U.S. dollar will strengthen eventually, and this will be negative for European and Emerging markets and therefore we are not big investors in those two areas. China looks interesting; however, I do not feel comfortable with placing investment dollars here as the risk of anything negative occurring can happen at any minute so therefore, we continue to avoid this area.

     I do expect a strong close into the balance of this year and we are positioned for this. I like the prospects going into 2026 and we will use any pullbacks to add to our positions until the story changes.

     Thank you to each and every one of you that continue to put your trust in our team to look after your financial needs. We take this very seriously and all of us work hard to keep everything on track so that you can rest assured everything is in order.  Wishing you all the best into 2026.