Vehicles drive past the El Palito refinery in Puerto Cabello, Venezuela, on Dec. 21, 2025. Venezuela has the world’s largest oil reserves and its heavy oil is the most like Canada’s.Matias Delacroix/The Associated Press
The holidays were a magical time with the kids. There is no better feeling than seeing Christmas through their eyes. I spent less time on devices and marvelled at how much they are growing. That was Week 1.
By Week 2, I started playing a game called “Can we go 30 minutes without whining?” By the end of the week, it morphed into “Can we make it 30 minutes without crying?” There were very few winners.
Here are five things to know this week:
The sun rises for everyone: The United States shocked the world over the weekend by attacking Venezuela, deposing President Nicolás Maduro, and capturing him and his wife. U.S. President Donald Trump is drawing both ire and praise as the military operation is being called illegal by some and liberating by others. It is too early to see how this shakes out from a political perspective, but from a market perspective, one of the first tremors could be felt in the energy sector. Venezuela has the world’s largest oil reserves and its heavy oil is the most like Canada’s. “Short term, I think this presents headline risk to oil, and especially for Canadian large-cap oil producers, as Venezuela may now be our number one competitor over the medium term for incremental heavy production,” wrote energy investor Eric Nuttall of Ninepoint Partners. However, that is unlikely to happen in these early days, and so we may see more muted investor reaction.
Each encroachment into sovereign territory adds another reason to buy gold, according to TD Asset Management head of commodities Hussein Allidina. “In 2021, when the Taliban took Afghanistan back over, president Joe Biden confiscated Afghan reserves. He gave half of it to 9/11 victims and he kept the other half for when there’s an Afghan government that the U.S. likes. I’m being a bit facetious, but that was the story,” Mr. Allidina said on my podcast in December. “But when they confiscated Russian reserves, all these emerging-market central banks woke up to that.”
He says emerging-market central bank buying will continue to fuel gold. Central banks transitioning from holding 80 per cent to 90 per cent of their reserves in paper will drive demand for the resource, but “that could be taken away at the whim of the U.S.”
Oh, Canada: Canada is expected to report it lost 2,500 jobs in December, according to economists’ estimates.
But the range of guesses spans from a loss of 29,000 jobs to a gain of 34,000 jobs. So let’s skip the guesswork and talk implications. If December job growth is soft, it would undo the surprisingly strong numbers we got in November. In December, economists are looking for the unemployment rate to rise. The Bank of Canada is unlikely to react to any number, with the market betting the central bank won’t change rates all year. “From a policy perspective, December’s labour market report is unlikely to materially alter the Bank of Canada’s near-term outlook,” Royal Bank of Canada’s Nathan Janzen and Abbey Xu wrote. “We continue to expect the next change in interest rates from the BoC will be a hike, but not (as a base-case) until 2027.”
Clear as mud: The U.S. is expected to add 59,000 jobs in December, which would continue the trajectory of weak growth over the past six months. The unemployment rate, which has been rising, is expected to come down slightly to 4.5 per cent. This might make sense against a backdrop of strong economic growth, with a delayed release of third-quarter GDP showing a whopping 4.3-per-cent annualized growth rate. Not everyone is convinced. “The curious divergence of growth and labour market data continued,” Veronica Clark at Citi wrote in a note to clients. She believes unemployment could actually spike to 4.7 per cent: “This would be consistent with data like more consumers saying jobs are hard to get in the Conference Board report.” The data will feed into the outlook for interest rates at the Federal Reserve’s January meeting. Right now, the odds are that the Fed is unlikely to change rates after the contentious December rate cut. All of this could be overshadowed by an announcement by Mr. Trump, who signalled he would name Fed chair Jerome Powell’s successor this month.
Best in show: Shares of Aritzia Inc. ATZ-T doubled in 2025, so when the retailer reports results Thursday, investors will be expecting another lights-out quarter. Bank of Montreal’s channel checks indicate that is exactly what the retailer could deliver for the holiday quarter. “Robust total traffic growth continued (+44 per cent); both Canada (+20 per cent) and U.S. (+69 per cent) remained strong in the seasonally strongest month of the year,” BMO’s Stephen MacLeod wrote. According to analyst consensus estimates, the Canadian retailer is expected to post 16-per-cent comparable sales growth, but the past three quarters have been higher than that, which could leave room for upside surprise. Aritzia now trades at 43 times future earnings, so even a slight disappointment could be punishing.
Sobering up: Constellation Brands Inc. STZ-N is set to report Wednesday morning and will likely serve as a reminder that North America is going sober. A July, 2025, Gallup poll showed a record low 54 per cent of U.S. adults drink alcohol. This is down from 58 per cent in 2024 and well below the historic 65- to 70-per-cent average. This has shown up in Constellation, which owns Corona and Kim Crawford, as the stock plunged 35 per cent over the past year. Peers such as Diageo PLC DEO-N haven’t fared any better, with its stock down 32 per cent over the same time. In addition to the structural downturn in alcohol consumption, Constellation has also been hurt by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids looking for undocumented immigrants, according to a preview note from Citi director of equity research Filippo Falorni. Constellation’s purchase of the Mexican beer portfolio in 2014 means it has exposure to Hispanic consumers. Mr. Falorni argues that increased funding for deportations in 2026 and “Hispanic consumer malaise” are likely to weigh on the stock going forward.
In the Money with Amber Kanwar is Canada’s top investing podcast. New episodes out Tuesday and Thursday. Subscribe now at www.inthemoneypod.com