OlyaOk/iStockPhoto / Getty Images
Hello again!
I’m Jon Erlichman and it’s great to be with you for another edition of the Trade Secrets newsletter.
First, thanks for following along weekly as we’ve tracked The Globe and Mail’s inaugural Trade Off stock-picking contest. It’s been an exciting couple of months and we’re now just days away from crowning our winners!
The competition ends at 11:59:59 p.m. ET on Feb. 15, so now is the time to review your portfolio and position accordingly for the final few days.
The Leaderboard
It’s been fun to track our weekly winners throughout the contest and now we’re gearing up to announce our tournament champions! Our Grand Prize winner will be awarded $5,000, while our second- and third-place finishers will receive $3,000 and $2,000, respectively. Full details here.
As for who will win, one thing we’ve learned in these past few weeks is that in the short-term, market momentum can change quickly! What had been a scorching hot stretch for technology stocks became a bifurcated sector, with AI chip leaders crushing the broader tech landscape. We’ve seen gold and silver stock investors atop the leaderboard, only to see violent sell-offs disrupt positioning.
And, of course, energy stocks have had a notable run during the competition, partly because of geopolitical jitters. We’ll see what happens with oil prices in these final days of gameplay.
This Week in Markets
If you’ve learned a thing or two about the markets during the competition, you might now be curious about the much-talked about IPO market (initial public offerings).
Investors are gearing up for one of the biggest IPO rollouts in years. SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic are expected to go public, while buzz is building that other tech heavyweights such as Databricks and Stripe could also make their market debuts. These companies could command valuations in the hundreds of billions — or in the case of SpaceX, more than US$1-trillion – but does all that hype make them a good investment for you?
For Trade Off participants, a few lessons matter. History shows that IPO boom years can be perilous. Jay Ritter, a professor with the University of Florida who has studied U.S. IPOs for decades, finds that in years with a flood of new offerings, the average three-year return for IPOs was deeply negative. In 1999 and 2021, for instance, they came in at around minus-48 per cent and minus-49 per cent, respectively. First-day gains can look impressive – averaging 19 per cent from 1980 to 2025 – but long-term performance often disappoints.
Mr. Ritter notes that company sales can matter more than profitability at the time of an IPO, noting that firms with US$100-million or more in annual revenue are more likely to perform well over time.
Meanwhile, mega-IPOs may also have broader market consequences. Jeremy Grantham, co-founder of investment firm GMO and a legendary value investor, warns that large-scale IPO activity can pull money away from existing public equities and put pressure on overall stock prices. That’s something to be mindful of as we navigate through these later stages of the bull market.
Trade Secret Tips
The Globe has an extensive network of experts who share insights on how to assess investment opportunities and protect against unknowns. For example, here’s a guide on how to navigate the markets in 2026.
Meanwhile, how can you find good value in Canada’s tech sector? This Number Cruncher piece addresses that.
And, for those hungry for dividends, here are a range of possibilities, depending on your portfolio approach.
We’ll be back next week with an update on our winners.
Happy trading and good luck in the final stretch!
Jon
Jon Erlichman is the founder of Ticker Take on YouTube and a contributor to BNN Bloomberg.