This week on In the Money with Amber Kanwar, Canoe Financial’s David Szybunka makes a bold call: we’re only in year 5 of a 15-year bull market for energy. David explains why the last three years were just a “digestive phase,” why energy stocks are quietly outperforming even with $60 oil, and why he sees the cycle shifting from disbelief to the early stages of optimism. He breaks down the flows, the fundamentals, and the global capital piling back into Canadian energy—from private equity to pension funds to supermajors—regardless of the prevailing political narrative. The message is clear: scarcity is real, capital is returning, and the setup only gets stronger from here. Listen on Apple, Spotify or YouTube.
A few years ago there was that viral question asking men: “How often are you thinking of the Roman Empire?” It turns out the answer is constantly. I would hazard that in the last few weeks the Canadian equivalent is: “How often do you think about Game 7?” Because every time I have caught my husband staring into space and ask what’s on his mind, it’s the Jays. Always the Jays. I have no sense of how long this will go on for. I do know that this week the Leafs game was on in the basement, after he swore off all sports after the Word Series. Which is sort of like going back to your toxic ex. You know its bad for you but at least you know not to get your hopes up.
Here are five things to know:
Something in the water: Sorry about breaking that Monday streak. US markets are now on pace for the third session in a row of losses as rate cut concerns grip markets. Investors are worried the Fed won’t deliver another rate cut in the absence of a full picture of the economy. This morning futures are a mess. The S&P 500 fell for a third session in a row and is now trading below its 50-day moving average for the first time in 139 sessions (longest run since 2007). The TSX wasn’t spared either, falling nearly 1% on weakness from tech and gold stocks. Speaking of tech, it has also been a driver of the sell-off. The semiconductor index is at a 1-month low and down 8.5% from the peak. Bitcoin dropped below $90,000 overnight and is trading at 7-month low down 27% from the October peak. Can Nvidia save the day? We will find out when it reports results Wednesday after the bell. Although there are signs of nervousness about tech showing up in the bond market. This is particularly acute in Oracle. Shares are down 33% from September as investors punish the high debt load. The cost to insure against a default of its 5-year and 10-year obligations hit the highest level since 2022. As tech giants come to the bond market to fund their AI ambitions, watch how these instruments behave. Just yesterday, Amazon came to the bond market for the first time in three years raising $15 billion. Its CDS (credit default swap) for 5-year obligations has spiked to a two-year high. With the amount of cash these tech companies generate it would be insane to think they would actually default on their debt, but right now it serves as important gauge of sentiment.
Pieces of flare: AI platforms like Grok and ChatGPT are experiencing outages this morning because of a problem with Cloudflare. Shares of the web security company are down 4.5% in the pre-market as the unexplained outage is affecting everything from New Jersey transit to Twitter. This has happened before and generally the stock hasn’t been in the penalty box for long. It has become a crucial piece of the internet acting as a buffer between websites and their visitors to prevent attacks that might overload the sites with traffic. When Amazon Web Services went down, the stock actually traded up because so many things were down it gave perspective into how big they were. The major outage in CrowdStrike last year was a buying opportunity with the stock up more than 140% from the outage lows.
Home inspection: Home Depot is down 4% and poised to open at a 7-month low after sales and earnings missed expectations and they cut their forecast. Ouch, triple whammy. A weak housing market and lack of hurricane repairs meant sales were flat from last year and transaction size dropped. We might not have economic data from the last two months, but we do have Home Depot results and they paint a bleaker picture of the American consumer.
Activate: Barrick Mining is soaring 4% in the pre-market on reporting that activist investor Elliot has taken a “large” stake in the business worth at least $700 million. This comes after the abrupt departure of CEO Mark Bristow at the end of September and reports that the company is thinking about breaking itself up. Citi said its long been speculated that Elliot was involved in the stock. “We would guess that Elliott’s primary objective is getting full value for Barrick’s North America assets – and whether this is via a split, a sale or something else remains to be seen,” wrote Citi’s Alexander Hacking in a note.
For sale: Watch MTY Food Group after the company confirmed they are undergoing a strategic review that may result in the sale of the business. Reuters reported earlier that they had hired TD to lead the process and shares spiked 13%. The owner of Wetzels Pretzels and Cold Stone Creamery has struggled and was trading at the lowest level since the pandemic.
Don’t miss our next episode! Don’t worry, we will ask about Propel and Goeasy. Any other questions email questions@inthemoneypod.com
