Daneshvar Rohinton, vice-president and portfolio manager at iA Global Asset Management Inc. in Toronto. Illustration by Joel Kimmel.The Globe and Mail
Money manager Daneshvar Rohinton has been looking beyond global events rocking stock markets and seeking opportunities to buy some of his favourite stocks at lower prices.
“A lot of quality companies are on sale, something we haven’t seen for a while,” says Mr. Rohinton, vice-president and portfolio manager at iA Global Asset Management Inc. in Toronto, who oversees about $6.5-billion in assets.
His portfolio is geared toward global dividend-paying stocks across sectors such as technology, financials and industrials. The focus on dividend-payers is based on the belief that these companies are more disciplined and thoughtful in their capital allocation.
“When you have 20 or 30 per cent of your paycheque going out every single quarter to your shareholders as an ongoing commitment, it tends to stop you from doing crazy, silly things,” Mr. Rohinton says. “So, we think of it as a good behavioural tool that also gives you some income along the way.”
His IA Clarington Canadian Dividend Fund, Series F, has returned 33.5 per cent over the past year. Its three-year annualized return is 16.8 per cent and its five-year annualized return is 12.6 per cent.
His IA Clarington Global Dividend Fund, Series F, has returned 19.4 per cent over the past year and 12.9 per cent since inception in February, 2023.
The performance for both funds is based on total returns, net of fees, as of April 8.
The Globe spoke with Mr. Rohinton about three stocks he likes and one he recently sold:
Name three top picks in your portfolio right now.
Visa Inc. V-N is a stock we’ve held for about a decade and have added to in the past few weeks. [The stock pulled back earlier this year when U.S. President Donald Trump proposed bringing more competition into the payment processing market].
More recently, Visa’s valuation has been compressed as investors weigh risks from agent-to-agent transactions enabled by AI and stablecoins, which occur without using credit or debit cards. But I think investors are underpricing Visa’s ability to adapt to a changing market as a payments industry leader. The valuation is at a 10-year low, which I believe is an opportunity for investors today.
Microsoft Corp. MSFT-Q is another stock we’ve held for more than a decade and have been buying in the past few weeks. In our view, there’s no better distribution platform on the planet than Microsoft. Many people use its products, such as Word, PowerPoint, Teams and Copilot.
The stock is down for some of the same reasons as Visa, with investors worried that agentic AI [workflows that happen more autonomously] could impact Microsoft’s core business. Investors also appear concerned that Microsoft is spending significantly more to stay competitive in the AI race.
That misses the point. Microsoft is the default for so many companies worldwide and is well-positioned to win in an agentic AI world. We saw its strategy with its AI product, Copilot. It gave out the product aggressively, as it did with Teams a few years back.
Now, Zoom and Slack aren’t as popular as they used to be because Microsoft has captured so much of those markets with Teams. That’s classic Microsoft. Although there’s risk to it, the stock is trading at a huge discount for what it still 20 per cent earnings growth over the next three years based on our estimates.
Nvidia Corp. NVDA-Q is a stock we bought a couple of years ago in a major way and have been adding to in recent weeks. No company’s better positioned to drive AI adoption through its hardware than Nvidia.
We live in a world of token [units of data AI models process] and GPU [graphics processing units] shortages, and the company with the biggest production ramp and the best chips in the world is Nvidia.
The company isn’t trading as strongly as it normally would because investors believe its valuation has peaked. But given the shortages I spoke of earlier, we believe Nvidia will continue compounding its earnings growth. So, we think the valuation is still low given those expectations.
Name a stock you sold recently.
Accenture PLC ACN-N, the multinational technology consulting company, is a stock we’ve held for about three-and-a-half years and sold in recent weeks. While we think Accenture has a role to play in the AI world, its offerings are vulnerable.
The golden age for Accenture, Infosys and similar IT consulting firms, when they stitched together platforms such as Salesforce, Workday and Trello, is diminishing. We just saw better opportunities to add more to our positions in Nvidia and Microsoft.
This interview has been edited and condensed.