Barlow’s Research Roundup: These stocks are biggest winners from oil price volatility

Daily roundup of research and analysis from The Globe and Mail’s market strategist Scott Barlow

Oil sands crude is a winner

TD analyst Menno Hulshof identifies the biggest winners from the volatility in oil prices,

“(April 16) SCO prices settled near US $102.20/bbl, marking a significant premium to WTI (US$94.69/bbl), bringing the diff to the highest level since July 2022. Looking ahead, SCO [synthetic crude oil, produced by oil sands] diffs in May are currently trading at a massive US$16.40/bbl premium which would mark the highest diff going back to 06′. Lofty premiums have been driven by the crude’s utility as a high-diesel yield feedstock in the face of a global supply crunch, coinciding with recent upgrader maintenance (planned and unplanned) which is expected to accelerate into Q2/26. From an equity perspective, we note this represents a tailwind for integrated producers, while highlighting CNQ (Canadian Natural Resources Limited, BUY, $58.81) and SU (Suncor Energy Inc., BUY, $83.69) as being uniquely positioned to benefit from the trend”

Housing market stays weak

The Teranet-National bank housing price index dropped for the fourth consecutive month as National Bank strategist Daren King reported,

“The decline even accelerated, with property prices falling by 1.0 per cent between February and March, compared with a 0.6-per-cent drop the previous month. As a result, prices have fallen by 2.3 per cent over the past four months and by 5.0 per cent year-over-year. Furthermore, 55 per cent of all markets tracked by our price indices in March were down 10 per cent or more from their peak. Although this proportion is lower than what was recorded in 2022, it remains very high by historical standards, especially given the current environment of more accommodative interest rates. The continued price decline in March comes as the number of transactions in the resale market remains particularly low, despite stabilization in sales during the month. In fact, the ratio of transactions per household nationwide was 26 per cent below its historical average. It is also worth noting that the price decline over the past year was nearly as significant for condos (down 5.6 per cent) as it was for single-family homes (down 4.9 per cent), illustrating the widespread weakness of the Canadian residential market. There is no doubt that several factors continue to weigh on the real estate sector, including demographic decline, the weak labour market since the start of the year, and trade uncertainty—to which geopolitical uncertainty has now been added”

“Housing Market Monitor” – National Bank Economics and Strategy

Themes to watch

Morgan Stanley’s weekly Sunday Start report written by analyst Stephen Byrd emphasized their top 10 investment themes as a way to cut through the daily market noise and volatility,

“Our advice: Focus on the megatrends embedded in our 10 Thematic predictions, and tune out the day-to-day, news flow–driven volatility. The durable nature of our key themes — defense, as an example — cut through the day to-day noise and continue to generate alpha. In 2025, our thematic stock categories on average outperformed MSCI World and the S&P 500 by 16 per cent and 27 per cent, respectively, and continue to outperform in 2026. What Are the Big Thematic Drivers in 2026 and Beyond? 1. The non-linear rate of improvement in AI capabilities. Recent data points suggest an even faster acceleration of AI capabilities than we expected. The authors of a recent Stanford HAI report (’The 2026 AI Index Report’) note that LLMs ‘now meet or exceed human baselines on PhD-level science questions, multimodal reasoning, and competition mathematics. On a key coding benchmark—SWE-bench Verified—performance rose from 60 per cent to near 100 per cent in a single year.’ … The demand for compute will greatly exceed supply. We are entering a world where ‘Gross Domestic Intelligence’ may become a key economic and geopolitical concept … 3. The drive for national self-sufficiency across many sectors. This includes Energy, Critical Materials, Defense, and Technology. In our view, many countries will double down on efforts to eliminate their dependence on others for the most important drivers of national economic health and prosperity … We believe the acceleration of AI capabilities — and their resulting ripple effects across industry — will drive broad societal impacts around the world. We believe AI will have both disruptive effects (employment shifts), as well as positive effects (such as Life Sciences breakthroughs), with profound implications for societies, governments, economies, and corporates”

There were no stocks mentioned in the report (I hate it when they do that), but Mr. Byrd highlighted Nvidia Corp., Apple Inc., Microsoft, Meta Platforms, Arista Networks, Constellation Energy Corp., Brookfield Corp., and Cummins Inc. among other opportunities in an April 6^th report.

Bluesky post of the day

Diversion

“Things You Told ChatGPT or Claude My Have Already Doomed You in Court” - Futurism