Good morning and happy new year! Today, we’re looking at the year ahead by seeing what we can learn from the stocks that defined 2024 – and the stories behind them that continue to capture our attention.
In the news
The Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan is doubling down with more focused ventures after tech valuation stumbles.
Armed with Canadian taxpayer support, AtkinsRéalis and Westinghouse are competing to export nuclear reactors.
Rogers Sugar is spending big on a Montreal expansion to meet insatiable demand from food makers.
On our radar
- Canadian manufacturing data for December is released today. In November, lowering interest rates and a stronger U.S. dollar pushed activity to its fastest pace in 21 months.
- The same data is released in the United States, where manufacturers are optimistic that 2025 will bring better days after a prolonged period of contraction.
- Today is World Introvert Day. See you at the party?
Dogs explore the stars.Illustration by Stella Zheng
In focus
Heavy hits and low blows
It was a year of extremes in politics and weather. Interest rates fell. So did the dollar. We’re still worried about artificial intelligence, but we’re maybe more worried about the bubble. And this year, despite the curveballs, the market still surprised us as well.
This is just a snippet from our annual roundup of stocks that took your returns out of this world and the doozies that pulled them down to Earth. Tim Shufelt and John Heinzl have the full story, and many more examples of what might be in your portfolio.
Stars
Gildan Activewear Inc.
Gildan is a global leader in blank T-shirts. While the company’s mission statements may serve as a sedative, that doesn’t stop this dullard of the TSX from kicking up the odd fuss. The battle over Gildan was the Canadian boardroom story of the year. After co-founding chief executive officer Glenn Chamandy was shown the door, a very public feud erupted between Gildan’s board and the ousted leader. Backed by powerful shareholders, Chamandy was eventually reinstated. Was this triumphant return to the C-suite commemorated with a “Keep Calm and Win Back Gildan” T-shirt? –Tim Shufelt
Bitcoin
In the cryptocurrency bloodbath of 2022, the industry seemed to be on the brink of a mass-extinction event. With inflation and interest rates surging, bitcoin and other speculative digital assets cratered. An estimated US$2-trillion of value was vaporized. But even as FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried landed in prison, the unexpected happened: Bitcoin rose from the ashes. Propelled by falling interest rates and Donald Trump’s vow to turn the U.S. into the “crypto capital of the planet,” the FOMO crypto trade was back and bigger. In December, bitcoin’s price blasted past US$100,000 for the first time. Clearly, crypto had entered a new era of legitimacy and limitless wealth creation, or so the crypto bros claimed. –John Heinzl
GFL Environmental Inc.
Tony Soprano famously turned the phrase “I’m in waste management” into mobster shorthand (queue the reminder about the gunshots fired at the homes of two executives tied to the waste-management giant). The always-lucrative trash business has become even more attractive over the past few years. Recession-proof and practically immune to inflation, waste management is generating juicy margins after a period of industry consolidation. In GFL’s third fiscal quarter, it posted an adjusted EBITDA margin of 31 per cent. While some investors may have shied away from the company’s heavy debt load in the past, GFL is in the process of selling its environmental-services segment for around $8-billion, which will go a long way to improving its balance sheet. –TS
Dollarama Inc.
How often have you thought to yourself, “Canada is a nice place, but we could use more Dollarama stores”? The retailer recently announced its intention to open about 600 new stores over the next 10 years, on top of the roughly 1,600 it already operates. Thanks to new store openings, growing customer traffic and rising prices, Dollarama’s shares have produced a compound annual return of more than 22 per cent over the past decade. The gains in 2024 were even more impressive, as the stock soared nearly 50 per cent through mid-December, demonstrating Dollarama’s resilience in the face of growing economic uncertainty. –JH
Dogs
Toronto-Dominion Bank
Maybe those big green chairs were just too cozy. But then a bunch of U.S. drug dealers sat in them. And the bank never thought to say, “I’m sorry, those chairs are for our non-money-laundering clients only.” In chasing an ambitious U.S. expansion, TD lost its way, forgetting the basic principles of transaction monitoring, risk management and not letting crime syndicates launder hundreds of millions in cash through your branches. In October, the bank pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit money laundering – the first bank in U.S. history to do so. TD was slapped with fines totalling US$3.1-billion, as well as a cap on the bank’s U.S. retail assets – a worst-case scenario that deprives TD of its growth engine indefinitely. –TS
Intel Corp.
Three historically terrible decisions lie at the heart of Intel’s downfall. Figuring it had built up an insurmountable lead as the world’s largest chip maker, Intel cut deeply into its research and development budget over more than a decade of underinvestment. The company also took a pass on the iPhone and pretty much missed out on the whole mobile revolution. And then it neglected the graphics space and is now badly behind the curve in AI technology, having ceded that ground to the likes of Nvidia Corp. –TS
Canadian dollar
Years before COVID-19, the scourge of “cross-border shopping” erupted into an epidemic whenever the Canadian dollar traded near par with its U.S. counterpart. This sad chapter in our nation’s history has largely faded, but it took a massive drop in our dollar to stem the southward flow of bargain shoppers. The most remarkable part? The loonie is still falling. In 2024, the currency was kneecapped by interest-rate cuts, a strong U.S. economy, tariff threats and political turmoil in Ottawa. With the Canadian dollar sinking below 70 US cents in December, who can afford to visit Walt Disney World when everything costs nearly 50 per cent more in Canadian money? –JH
Boeing Co.
You had one job, Boeing: make good planes. Planes that don’t plummet from the sky. Boeing, whose once-venerable safety record went a long way to popularizing jet travel, started doing its utmost to shatter our faith in flying. In its last fiscal quarter, it posted a loss of US$6.2-billion. Its credit rating is on the verge of junk status. Boeing has now become a turnaround case of epic proportions. If it can pull it off, at least part of the agenda should be learning how to make airplanes great again – MAGA, for short. –TS
Uncharted
Canada needs pilots – and a new way to train them
Dr. Suzanne Kearns is founding director of the Waterloo Institute for Sustainable Aeronautics (WISA)Alicia Wynter/The Globe and Mail
Experts in Canada’s aviation sector say outdated systems and barriers to entry for new talent are plaguing work-force expansion while the industry continues to grow. That’s why some are turning to tools such as AI and eye-tracking technology to make pilot training more efficient, affordable and sustainable. At the Waterloo Institute for Sustainable Aeronautics, researchers are working to help prepare student pilots by changing the way they’re trained and evaluated.
Bookmarked
On our reading list
A lasting legacy: Jimmy Carter fought inflation by deregulation and appointing Paul Volcker to head the Federal Reserve.
“I was just an object”: Why one temporary foreign worker decided to call it quits on Canada.
Poor connection: Canadian telecom companies had a very bad year. Will 2025 be any better?
Taste test: Changing demographics and tastes are reshaping Canada’s grocery stores.
Morning update
Global markets were mixed as trading resumed following the New Year’s Day holiday and investors cautiously eyed the return of U.S. president-elect Donald Trump to the White House. Wall Street futures pointed higher after the main indexes closed down on Tuesday, while TSX futures rose as commodity prices climbed.
Overseas, the pan-European STOXX 600 was little changed in morning trading. Britain’s FTSE 100 gained 0.33 per cent, Germany’s DAX edged up 0.03 per cent and France’s CAC 40 gave back 0.67 per cent.
In Asia, Japan’s Nikkei closed 0.96 per cent lower, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng fell 2.18 per cent.
The Canadian dollar traded at 69.32 U.S. cents.