Daily roundup of research and analysis from The Globe and Mail’s market strategist Scott Barlow
BMO chief strategist Brian Belski updated his North American Dividend income Guided Portfolio,
“Our North American Dividend Income Guided Portfolio was up 3.8 per cent in August, outperforming its blended dividend aristocrats benchmark by 94 basis points. 19 of our 30 names posted positive returns in August. UnitedHealth, Royal Bank and Apple were top performers. These gains were slightly offset by weakness from Canadian Tire, QSR and Microsoft. Performance: August = up 0.9 per cent; Year-to-date = 3.3 per cent; Changes = Add: Wells Fargo (WFC) in place of LyondellBasel (LYB)”
The list is now Telus Corp., Verizon Communications Inc., Canadian Tire Corp. Ltd., Restaurant Brands International Inc., Altria Group Inc., Enbridge Inc., Suncor Energy Inc., Bank of America Corp, Brookfield Asset Management Ltd., BlackRock Inc., Goldman Sachs Group Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co., Morgan Stanley, National Bank of Canada, Power Corporation of Canada, Royal Bank of Canada, Toronto-Dominion Bank, Wells Fargo & Company, Gilead Sciences Inc., UnitedHealth Group Incorporated, Canadian National Railway Company, General Dynamics Corporation, Lockheed Martin Corporation, Waste Management Inc., Apple Inc., Cisco Systems Inc., Microsoft Corporation, Eastman Chemical Co., Brookfield Infrastructure Corp. Class A and Emera Inc..
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RBC Capital Markets head of global energy research Greg Pardy didn’t make any changes to his Global Energy Best Ideas List,
“In August, the RBC Global Energy Best Ideas List was up 3.1 per cent compared to the iShares S&P Global Energy Sector ETF (IXC) which was up 4.4 per cent and a hybrid benchmark (75-per-cent IXC, 25-per-cent JXI – iShares Global Utilities ETF) that was up 3.2 per cent on a sequential basis”.
The list is still Suncor Energy, TotalEnergies, California Resources, Chord Energy Corporation, ConocoPhillips, ARC Resources, PrairieSky Royalty, Canadian Natural Resources, Woodside Energy, Enerflex Ltd., SLB, AltaGas Ltd., Pembina Pipeline Corporation, Cheniere Energy Inc., Energy Transfer LP, EDP Renovåveis S.A., Northland Power and Superior Plus.
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CIBC economist Benjamin Tal argued that declining immigration levels won’t have as big a negative effect on growth as expected,
“Using published and unpublished data obtained from Statistics Canada and IRCC, we suggest that the economic contribution of the 395,000 new permanent residents (PRs) (the target for 2025), is notably higher than it was in the past. In other words, due to the rapid change in the mix of new arrivals, the recent cuts to immigration targets alone will not lead to a significant slowing in potential GDP growth. In fact, the opposite might be the case … Of the 483,640 PR visas approved in 2024, 252,478 or 50.7 per cent already resided in Canada. Year-to-April, that share is 54.6 per cent — up from 39 per cent in 2019. That trend is significant. Canadian resident PR approvals do not add to the strain on housing, health, social services, and infrastructure demands, as do PR arrivals from elsewhere. Furthermore, the changing composition of new immigrants works to significantly amplify the economic contribution of PRs”
“IN FOCUS: Fewer immigrants, but more bang for the buck” – CIBC Economics
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Bluesky post of the day:
“the English corpus shows a steady rise in reason-related words and fall in intuition-related words from 1850 to 1975, when this trend suddenly and sharply reversed” (h/t MR)
arctotherium.substack.com/p/progress-s…
— Scott Barlow (@jsbarlow.bsky.social) September 2, 2025 at 11:36 AM
Diversion: “Canada Is at Risk: Scientists Uncover Hidden Megathrust That Could Trigger Massive Earthquakes” – SciTechDaily