February has brought a lot of back-and-forth action in North American markets with really no clear direction. We have seen a little growth in Canadian markets thanks to gold stocks and the financials which have just posted very strong results. A lot of turbulence south of the border with the predicting of how AI will affect businesses and of course the predictions caused some downward pressure on a lot of areas. Predictions are just that and not all predictions come true in fact it’s hard to find any so-called futurist that called it right, although Jules Verne was close on some. AI will cause disruption no doubt but not all of it will be bad. To me this is just a market trying to find new leadership and until that happens, we could see more back and forth action as it always takes time.

     We do have issues with Iran and Cuba, and this will keep markets on a cautious basis to see how this either escalates further or de-escalates. It has kept oil prices at a good level for our oil companies and I do not see this changing anytime soon. The US still has a tax reduction coming and this is a good thing for markets going forward. However, with the current events present and any other potential news items that come from south of the border, it is all ingredients for a market to go in neither direction confidently. 

     In Canada, it will really help to get a decent trade agreement so that we do get a little more stability with our neighbor’s south of us, but this does not appear to be coming any time soon. I do continue to like our pipelines, engineering firms, and financials as we go along this year and if we do get an agreement I could see adding more to our Canadian companies.

     A lot of talk has been about Europe and Emerging Markets however I think this is more of a weakened US dollar strategy and therefore we have been steering clear of this area. In regard to China again, it is a sensitive area for investing and currently there just appears to be too many risks, so again we are avoiding China for now. 

     I do like the themes of the AI buildout continuing, the growth of robotics, and need for more power as areas we will continue to add to. March has always been a volatile month, so we have some powder dry to take advantage of any of the swings based on predictions and not fact.