Daily roundup of research and analysis from The Globe and Mail’s market strategist Scott Barlow
Scotiabank analyst Himanshu Gupta went in-depth on the hottest REIT sector: senior housing,
“In the last three weeks, we reached out to 20+ retirement homes owned by CSH [Chartwell Retirement Residences] and SIA [Sienna Senior Living Inc], and posed as someone requiring a suite for their elderly grandmother! … Based on our conversations with marketing teams of various homes, we gathered 4 to 5% renewal rental spreads in 2025 (mostly similar to last year & in some cases slightly better), and very limited/targeted incentives on offer … Market rent growth is key to keep the Seniors Housing story going: We looked at previous cycle peaks of Industrial REITs, U.S. Sunbelt multi-family and CDN self storage - the three darlings during/post COVID. We observed that unit prices/AFFO [adjusted funds from operations] multiples peaked, in and around the same time when market rent growth peaked ... Based on supply-demand backdrop in Seniors Housing, we believe, market rent growth story is likely to sustain for the next few years, and as such Seniors Housing remains our most preferred sector ... CSH (CSH-UN-T) remains our top pick.”
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A nuclear power-focused podcast from BofA Securities emphasized thorium and a more enriched form of uranium,
“While adding capacity to existing plants isn’t a major challenge, adding new US plants is more difficult. Jess Gehin from the Idaho National Lab and BofA Global Research’s US Utility analyst Ross Fowler join to discuss what may lie ahead. Jess covers how the recent Executive Orders could accelerate the deployment of nuclear and how they’ve already stimulated activity. Jess also discusses HALEU [High-Assay Low-Enriched Uranium], a more enriched variety of uranium used in some of the small modular nuclear reactors as well as Thorium, a reactor fuel that was studied in the 1960s and which has seen a resurgence of interest. While Thorium could eventually provide the US a domestically sourced nuclear fuel that enables longer term growth in nuclear generation, Jess believes uranium will be the fuel that continues to dominate for the foreseeable future.”
“Dig it - nuclear renaissance looks to the ‘60s for inspiration” – BofA Securities
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Bloomberg’s Edward Harrison sees trouble brewing under the surface of the U.S. economy,
“Ponzi financing has increased dramatically. Investors are chasing the next Amazon.com … Translation: investors have become increasingly comfortable buying shares of companies that can’t fund themselves out of their own cash flow. Why is that, you might ask? I believe a lot of it has to do with the proven Silicon Valley model. It’s Apple. It’s Microsoft. It’s Amazon… people are willing to overlook Ponzi financing of smaller public companies, regardless of sector, as they wait for profits to gush out when the companies reach scale. By the numbers, * 74.8% - Percent of small firms with negative sources of cash … If that constant uncertainty and whipsawing of prices finally brings the US economy to a standstill, there’s a non- zero risk — I’d call it substantial — that investors’ willingness to fund firms with operating budgets that exceed cash flow would diminish swiftly and substantially … What does that mean for big firms and the economy? My view is that it’s akin to what we saw when the Internet bubble popped. Many a small internet companies and upstart telecom businesses went bust”
“The Financial Fragility Risks Are Not in the S&P 500” – Bloomberg
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Bluesky post of the day:
https://bsky.app/profile/pkrugman.bsky.social/post/3lttrgdqe7k26
Diversion: “ Midlife Mood Shift? Study Says Anger Drops After 50” – SciTechDaily