Inside the Market’s roundup of some of today’s key analyst actions

Ventum Financial analyst Surya Sankarasubramanian thinks Denison Mines Corp. (DML-T) has built “an enviable portfolio of Athabasca Basin-focused assets and partnerships,” emphasizing its more than 75 years of history and calling it “an early player in the uranium sector.”

“Its capabilities range from exploration through development, processing, and post-mining remediation,” he said. “Just as Odysseus returned to Ithaca after 20 years, Denison is now poised to return to large-scale mined production at its Phoenix In-Situ Recovery (ISR) mine in mid-2028 after a 20-year hiatus, during which it has also proven adept at creatively extracting value from its assets and established a peer-leading capital allocation track record.”

In a client report titled The Odysseus of the Athabasca Basin, Mr. Sankarasubramanian initiated coverage of the Toronto-based company with a “buy” rating, believing its first-mover advantage “manifests in well-located assets” with its Phoenix project in northern Saskatchewan poised to be the first new Canadian uranium mine in more than 20 years.

“Much of the portfolio is located in the infrastructure-rich eastern Athabasca Basin, which has yielded the majority of the uranium mined in the Basin, and is proximal to the prospective Wollaston-Mudjatik Transition Zone (WMTZ),” he added. “The Athabasca Basin is a well-established, globally preeminent uranium mining region.”

“Construction [on Phoenix has begun and production is guided to commence in mid-2028 as the Athabasca Basin’s first ISR mine. The stock’s performance will be driven by construction execution before a production re-rate. $630-million in pre-construction cash, shares and uranium limit future dilution. It exceeds Phoenix’s $600-million initial capex. Internally generated cash flow should fund pipeline projects like Gryphon, Midwest, and Waterbury Lake.”

Also touting Denison’s “robust pipeline of exploration projects and partners” and its “continuity of management with turnaround credentials,” Mr. Sankarasubramanian called it “an emerging publicly listed producing major in the Athabasca Basin. 

“The sustained success of uranium exploration and development in the Athabasca requires cash flow-generating majors who fund and acquire exploration and development of junior-owned projects,” he explained. “Among the operating and upcoming producers in the Athabasca Basin, Denison stands out in that regard as a non-producing company actively growing its portfolio through M&A — more should be expected with internally generated cashflows, access to SABRE, and a motivation to grow from the need to extend production, given that even its longest-life development project, Phoenix, only has an 11-year initial LOM [life of mine]. We believe that this strategy plays to Denison’s strengths in capital deployment.

“In contrast to Denison, the other upcoming producer, NexGen Energy, has focused on organic growth through the development of the Rook I deposit and exploration of its PCE discovery. Established producers’ investments in the Athabasca Basin have varied in mileage as well. Paladin (PDN-ASX) acquired the Michelin and Patterson Lake South projects in Canada. Cameco’s acquisitions in the Athabasca Basin in the last five years have been largely limited to increasing its stake in the Cigar Lake mine and contributing to a few of its exploration JVs. Orano has been active in reviving exploration and development in the Athabasca to replace its former Nigerien pipeline. However, Orano is not publicly listed.”

The analyst set a target of $5.50 per share, exceeding the average on the Street of $4.48.

Despite the ramp-up in its Cespira joint venture with Volvo Trucks gathering pace “significantly in Q2/26, as evidenced by the large jump in revenue (up 125 per cent year-over-year) and gross profit (up 298 per cent year-over-year) at the JV level,” ATB Cormark analyst MacMurray Whale downgraded Westport Fuel Systems Inc. (WPRT-Q, WPRT-T) to “speculative buy” from “outperform” previously.

“This improvement bolsters expectations of sufficient growth in unit sales at the JV to reach breakeven by the end of 2027. We have updated our forecast to account for continued cash burn until the JV is self-sufficient,” he added.

Mr. Whale said the Vancouver-based company’s improved quarterly results at the JV were “driven by a supportive spread in fuel costs between LNG and diesel, as well as supportive regulatory developments in Europe.”

“A development agreement for the hydrogen-fuelled HPDI technology on Volvo’s 13-litre engines was also a positive milestone in Q2/26,” he added.

With quarterly production levels having “increased significantly,” he now thinks Cespira is “in a position to surpass 4,000 units annually by 2027, a level Management has indicated will lead to breakeven at the JV.”

“This is important as the cash requirements will cease to be a drag on WPRT’s balance sheet,” he noted. “As a result, we have increased our unit sales assumptions over the next two years for the JV, expecting Adj. EBITDA for the JV of $4.8-million after a break-even year in 2027. We have rolled our valuation to 2028 from 2027 to capture the first year of profitability at the JV. … This brings our value to $2.65 from $6.00 previously as the pace of the ramp had stalled significantly in late 2025 and early 2026, reducing the 2027 Adj. EBITDA. Because the ramp remains at an early stage, we have moved to Speculative Buy from Outperform previously.”

Mr. Whale’s target for Wesport’s Nasdaq-listed shares is US$2.65. The average is US$4.

“With tightening regulations for both greenhouse gases and emissions related to urban air quality, the current emissions control technology for diesel engines will reach its limit this decade, requiring engines capable of running on less-polluting fuels. Natural gas will play an important role in this transition, which will drive WPRT’s deliveries of HPDI units significantly higher by the end of this decade. We are valuing Westport’s stock on an EV-to-EBITDA basis of its portion of the Cespira JV with Volvo, supporting a $2.65 target based on a 55-per-cent value of the EV using 25 times the EBITDA at the JV. Our Speculative Buy recommendation reflects the inherent risk in the long-term upside from higher HPDI sales over time,” he concluded.

While the rise in bond yields “curbed” the rally in Canadian bank stocks last week, National Bank Financial analyst Gabriel Dechaine thinks the risks to his forecasts for the sector remained “limited.”

“The move is in reaction to the recent rise in bond yields, which raises concerns related to credit demand and the credit cycle,” he said in a note. “We note that rising interest rates played an important role in bank stock performance during 2022 and 2023, the last periods during which the Big-6 Canadian banks trailed the S&P/TSX. However, there are very important differences between what’s happened over the past week and what happened in those previous years: 1) if we focus on the 5-year part of the curve, rates are moving from a higher base than they did in 2022, which could be less disruptive; and 2) the inflationary environment is far less severe than it was back then. In other words, unless we see more dramatic moves in the 5-year and another spurt of elevated inflation, we don’t see a reason to panic just yet.”

Ian McGugan: For the first time in decades, you might want to buy government bonds

Mr. Dechaine also emphasized rates “haven’t risen enough to eliminate a 2028 NIM headwind.”

“We believe the margin implications of the recent rise in bond yields are worth a separate discussion. Although higher bond yields elevate some risk factors (e.g., credit demand, credit quality), they do offer potential upside to NIM,” he said. “That is, banks invest their core deposits in 3-5yr swaps in order to match the duration of their loan books. And as swap rates rise, bank margins can benefit as laddered securities portfolios (i.e., TRACTRs) are re-invested. This phenomenon was observed during fiscal 2022, a year during which all-bank NIM (excl. trading) rose 7 bps, contributing roughly a third to overall revenue growth. While there were other factors pushing NIM higher (e.g., mortgage growth deceleration), securities portfolio yield enhancement due to swap rate expansion was an important one. Indeed, this tailwind persists to this day … Unfortunately, it is set to fade over the course of fiscal 2027 and could potentially turn into a headwind by H2/28. While swap rates have risen over the past few months (i.e., by 35 basis points since June), current market-implied 5-year swap rates in 2027 are only 80 bps higher than 2022 (well below today’s positive spread of 220 basis points), while 2028’s are 10 bps lower than what they were in 2023.”

Mr. Dechaine reaffirmed his ratings and targets for stocks in the sector, which are:

Bank of Montreal (BMO-T) with a “sector perform” rating and $278 target. The average on the Street is $232.Bank of Nova Scotia (BNS-T) with a “sector perform” rating and $128 target. Average: $123.78.Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CM-T) with a “sector perform” rating and $180 target. Average: $169.25.Royal Bank of Canada (RY-T) with an “outperform” rating and $318 target. Average: $298.79.Toronto Dominion Bank (TD-T) with an “outperform” rating and $190 target. Average: $173.14.

Desjardins Securities analyst Jerome Dubreuil thinks recent professional sports franchise sales reinforce “upside” for Rogers Communications Inc.’s (RCI.B-T) sale of Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment Ltd., which is expected in 2027.

“We highlight that some of the sports deals reported in the past few weeks, including a controlling stake of the Los Angeles Lakers, a minority stake of the Atlanta Falcons and a controlling stake of the Minnesota Timberwolves, occurred at premiums to Forbes valuation of 20 per cent, 57 per cent and 25 per cent, respectively,” he said. “We believe this shows investor appetite for scarce sports assets remains exceptionally strong. Moreover, this is consistent with our findings (presented here in more detail) that minority transactions are typically made at larger premiums than majority deals, which bodes well for RCI and management’s valuation of $25-billion-plus. Importantly, the Los Angeles Lakers transaction established a new record valuation for a professional sports franchise at US$12-billion, representing the highest amount for a sports franchise. We also note that Madison Square Garden Sports (MSGS, NYSE, not rated) is up 107 per cent in the past 12 months (vs the S&P 500’s 21-per-cent gain) and has significantly narrowed its discount to private market valuation to 27 per cent (from a peak of 60 per cent a little over a year ago, around 35–40 per cent for RCI currently), although a part of this could be due to the expected spinoff of the Rangers, a strategy we do not expect RCI will adopt.”

“Overall, these deals suggest that sports valuations, to which RCI has significant exposure, continue to climb at a rapid pace. This should help RCI get attractive offers for its upcoming monetization of MLSE, Jays, and related media assets.”

Andrew Willis: Rogers has the luxury of time as it reviews bidders on its sports assets

In a client note released before the bell, Mr. Dubreuil said he continues to expect a $5–8-billion monetization of sports and media assets in 2027 for Rogers.

“Relative to the $4.35-billion price tag to buy out Kilmer Sports’ 25-per-cent stake in MLSE, the higher value range primarily stems from the addition of the Blue Jays and media assets in the structure, plus the passage of time,” he added.

“We would prefer seeing RCI monetize a higher percentage of its total sports and media portfolio (within the expected 20–30-per-cent range) as it would reduce the proportion of assets subject to the typical public market discount. Meanwhile, we estimate that RCI’s net leverage will increase to 4.3 times (or 5.0 times including the Blackstone financing) at the closing of the Kilmer deal, which is expected in 4Q26. Sports asset monetization is a clear catalyst for RCI in 2027.”

The analyst kept a “hold” rating and $58 target for Rogers shares. The average on the Street is $59,

TD Cowen analyst Wayne Lam expects a positive reaction from shares of Endeavour Silver Corp. (EDR-T) to the expected resumption of operations at its flagship Terronera underground silver‐gold operation in Mexico.

“EDR announced that the illegal blockade initiated on August 12 by the nearby Ejido community has been lifted, with operations expected to restart on August 24,” he said.

“We do not anticipate any change to full-year guidance of 2.4-2.6 million ounces of silver given our view of conservatism baked into guided expectations with increased grades expected in H2 following development through a lower grade phase in H1. Overall, we continue to view focus on operational execution and ramp-up of grades/recoveries at Terronera, which represents Endeavour’s flagship asset and 56% of our operating NAV.”

Mr. Lam thinks the Vancouver-based company will now “focus on longer-term relationship with the Ejido community.”

He kept a “buy” rating and $15 target for Endeavour Silver shares. The average is $21.37.

In other analyst actions:

* Seeing a difficult macroeconomic backdrop and a range of structural concerns about the brand’s near-term prospects, Wells Fargo’s Ike Boruchow downgraded Canada Goose Holdings Inc. (GOOS-T) to “underweight” from “equal weight” with a $10 target. The average is $15.03.

* UBS’ David Vogt upgraded Celestica Inc. (CLS-N, CLS-T) to “buy” from “neutral” with a US$430 target, up from US$410. The average is US$473.15.

* Despite a second-quarter beat, Raymond James’ Steve Hansen lowered his Itafos Inc. (IFOS-X) target to $3.75 from $4.50 with an “outperform” rating. The average is $4.25.

“We are trimming our target on Itafos … to reflect still elevated raw material costs driven by the ongoing Middle East conflict, and commensurate downward revisions to our estimates. While our near-term enthusiasm has tempered, we continue to recommend shares of IFOS based upon: 1) our constructive view on global phosphate fundamentals; 2) the company’s unique competitive position; & 3) potential for future shareholder return initiatives (buybacks, dividends),” he said.

* ATB Cormark’s Stefan Ioannou trimmed his Lundin Mining Corp. (LUN-T) target to $41.50 from $42.50 with an “outperform” rating. The average is $42.

“A second severe winter storm and related power outage (re-damaged transmission tower) have impacted Lundin’s ‘No.2’ Caserones mine in Chile—prompting a 2026E guidance revision. Although arguably already ‘water under the bridge’, we have updated our model accordingly, which in turn has modestly impacted our 2026E-based target price,” he said.

* Baird’s Chris O’Cull assumed coverage of Restaurant Brands International Inc. (QSR-N, QSR-T) with a “neutral” rating and US$85 target, up from US$80 previously. The average is US$85.65.