NEW EPISODE: The final Fed decision of 2025 may set the tone for the entire 2026 market — and today on In the Money with Amber Kanwar, portfolio manager Brianne Gardner joins Amber to break down what really matters for investors right now. From earnings strength to sector rotation to how much weight you should put on Powell’s language ahead of a potential Fed chair transition, Brianne lays out her top-down roadmap for the year ahead. Listen on now Apple, Spotify, or YouTube!
This month I am partnering with Questrade—they’re building out some very cool investor tools and have a great promo on right now for our listeners. They’ve rolled out real game-changers: they’ve completely redesigned Questrade Pro, which is in beta testing now; you can trade directly from best-in-class charts with lightning-fast execution, AI tools, a full trader performance dashboard, and more—best part, it’s all free. And starting this December, you can trade assets like real physical gold right inside your account with Quest Metals, just like a stock. For listeners of the podcast, you can use promocode INTHEMONEY (all one word) when you sign up for your first self-directed account and get a $50 cash reward, or open a Questwealth Portfolios account and you’ll get your first $10,000 managed for free for one year. Visit Questrade.com, promocode INTHEMONEY.
If there is a better feeling than the moment you’ve finally untangled your eighth bundle of Christmas lights, I don’t want to know what it is.
Here are five things to know:
Sitting pretty: Futures are flat ahead of the Fed rate decision tomorrow. Stocks were weak yesterday. Canadian stocks fell under the weight of weaker gold stocks. US stocks were hampered by everything but tech. While the overall market was under pressure, the semiconductor index went on to make a record closing high. If nothing else, the AI trade is alive. Later this morning we will get a read of the US labour market when it releases job openings and labour turnover data. It’s the last piece of labour info for the Fed before they release their decision at 2pmET tomorrow.
Do you have a guy for this?: We are getting multiple reads of a soft US housing market this morning. Toll Brothers is falling 6% in the pre-market after warning home deliveries will be less than investor expectations. The US homebuilder noted soft demand across many markets and their backlog dropped for 14% from last year. No doubt this is a tough market, but Raymond James’ Buck Horne sees some bright spots. First, he notes that profit missed only because of a delayed sale of of an apartment building they owned. Second, new orders didn’t fall as much as feared and average selling price actually ticked up a little bit. Home Depot is also throwing some cold water on the housing trade with its cautious preliminary forecast for next year. Shares are down about 2.5% right now. Home Depot now sees sales between 0-2% for 2026, which was worse than analyst expectations.
Nvidia we trust: Shares of Nvidia are popping modestly after the US said it is allowed to ship high-end chips to China. Export controls to China have meant that up until now, Nvidia was not able to send their better performing semiconductors on national security grounds. It potentially also signals thawing of relations between the US and China as US President Donald Trump extends this olive branch. The chips that Nvidia is allowed to send aren’t the best of the best, but are better than what China currently has access to. It remains to be seen whether China will accept them or push for the more powerful chips. Regardless, its an interesting shift in longstanding policy especially if you believe the next cold war to be fought over AI dominance.
Pick up the phone: BCE is getting upgraded to outperform at CIBC with a price target implying 15% return from here ($37/share target). Shares have recovered about 10% since cutting its dividend in half earlier this year. I asked for the report, but don’t have it yet. I’ll post on X when I do, follow me @baystreetamber!
Dealbreaker: Watch Parex Resources after it walked away from talks to buy GeoPark for $9/share. The Colombian oil & gas producer had been trying to buy GeoPark, which has assets in all over South America, but talks fell apart over value. GeoPark is down 12% in the premarket. Parex basically said that GeoPark wanted a higher offer which Parex “determined there was no basis to increase” its offer.
Don’t miss our next episode!
