U.S. markets continued their upward direction while Canada was weaker. The seven big companies continued to get much bigger with Nvidia taking the lead as the largest company, growing by almost $1.5 trillion in market value just this year to date. These seven companies control almost one third of the value of the S&P500; as they move, so do the indices, distorting the true value of what markets are doing.

In Canada, we saw financials, energy, metals and minerals pull back down from highs as economic numbers weakened. We have had one rate decrease and the pressure is on to reduce further. The recent tax change on capital gains did not help markets, as we saw more foreigners reduce their Canadian exposure. I like Canada at these levels – especially in the oil and gas area – but we’re limited; better opportunities are currently elsewhere.

The U.S. market continues to be dominated by the seven mega caps which creates a concern, but also creates huge opportunity with the companies that are doing well but being overlooked. Artificial intelligence remains the hot topic and we’re seeing this development expand into other areas. The biggest development will be the building of more data centers, and this requires a large amount of power. This requires the development of more nuclear, wind, and solar plants, but this takes time. This demand, however, is immediate and therefore the quickest powerplant to construct is natural gas (of which North America has a large supply). I expect we’ll see more of these in the short term. U.S. markets remain strong, and I see this to continue based on recent events.

Europe has had a pullback amidst political uncertainty with elections in France and Britain, which does present some opportunity. China is trying to get going and this is taking a lot longer than expected. With U.S. markets at all-time highs, it does feel like we should get some kind of pullback, and this will be taken advantage of by our team.