{"id":3324,"date":"2025-11-21T15:38:32","date_gmt":"2025-11-21T20:38:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/advisor.wellington-altus.ca\/haleinvestmentgroup\/?p=3324"},"modified":"2025-12-03T10:02:05","modified_gmt":"2025-12-03T15:02:05","slug":"executive-summary-wellington-altus-private-wealth-inc-november-2025-market-update","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/advisor.wellington-altus.ca\/haleinvestmentgroup\/2025\/11\/21\/executive-summary-wellington-altus-private-wealth-inc-november-2025-market-update\/","title":{"rendered":"EXECUTIVE SUMMARY \u2013 WELLINGTON-ALTUS PRIVATE WEALTH INC. NOVEMBER 2025 MARKET UPDATE"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Overview<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Portfolio and Market Performance<\/li>\n<li>Portfolio Update<\/li>\n<li>Company Updates<\/li>\n<li>Rapid-Fire Earnings<\/li>\n<li>Canadian Budget Highlights<\/li>\n<li>Interest Rates and Economy<\/li>\n<li>Market Outlook<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-3342\" src=\"https:\/\/advisor.wellington-altus.ca\/haleinvestmentgroup\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/165\/2025\/11\/Portfolio-and-Market-Performance-Nov-2.png\" alt=\"Portfolio and Market Performance - Nov\" width=\"702\" height=\"553\" srcset=\"https:\/\/advisor.wellington-altus.ca\/haleinvestmentgroup\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/165\/2025\/11\/Portfolio-and-Market-Performance-Nov-2.png 702w, https:\/\/advisor.wellington-altus.ca\/haleinvestmentgroup\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/165\/2025\/11\/Portfolio-and-Market-Performance-Nov-2-300x236.png 300w, https:\/\/advisor.wellington-altus.ca\/haleinvestmentgroup\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/165\/2025\/11\/Portfolio-and-Market-Performance-Nov-2-15x12.png 15w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 702px) 100vw, 702px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-3326 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/advisor.wellington-altus.ca\/haleinvestmentgroup\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/165\/2025\/11\/conservative-equity.jpg\" alt=\"conservative equity chart\" width=\"700\" height=\"256\" srcset=\"https:\/\/advisor.wellington-altus.ca\/haleinvestmentgroup\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/165\/2025\/11\/conservative-equity.jpg 1347w, https:\/\/advisor.wellington-altus.ca\/haleinvestmentgroup\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/165\/2025\/11\/conservative-equity-300x110.jpg 300w, https:\/\/advisor.wellington-altus.ca\/haleinvestmentgroup\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/165\/2025\/11\/conservative-equity-1024x375.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/advisor.wellington-altus.ca\/haleinvestmentgroup\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/165\/2025\/11\/conservative-equity-768x281.jpg 768w, https:\/\/advisor.wellington-altus.ca\/haleinvestmentgroup\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/165\/2025\/11\/conservative-equity-18x7.jpg 18w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>Portfolio Update<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>During the month of October, we trimmed our position in Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD), bringing it down to 4 per cent from 6 per cent. AMD is up over 100 per cent year-to-date and is the best performing equity in our portfolio this year. We still believe it\u2019s a great company, but this enables us to redeploy some of our profits into less volatile names.<\/p>\n<p>With the proceeds, we\u2019ve increased our weighting in Metro, a Quebec grocery chain operator, and Intact Financial, a Quebec-based insurance company. These two companies tend to underperform when markets rise, and perform well when markets decline. These positions add diversification to stabilize the overall portfolio.<\/p>\n<p>We also added slightly to Oracle, taking some profits from Apple, which is trading near all-time highs. We would be willing to add more to our position in Oracle at more favourable prices. Our position is small, now 2 per cent of the portfolio.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Company Updates<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>Intact Financial<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Intact Financial is a Canadian general insurance holding company worth about C$47 billion and has very little debt \u2013 about $2 billion. They\u2019ve earned $25 billion this year through their core business and the net income on this is about $2.1 billion.<\/p>\n<p>The stock has a 2 per cent dividend yield. It\u2019s trading at about 15.2x next year\u2019s earnings, which we believe is a fair value, slightly lower than historical.<\/p>\n<p>What\u2019s interesting about Intact is they operate something called a \u201cfloat.\u201d Basically, they take the money received as premiums and invest it. They have an approximate $27.5 billion float. From the float, some funds are used to insure the insurance (\u201creinsurance\u201d) against extreme risk such as significant weather events; if done right, even if there was a catastrophic event, Intact and our position in Intact would not suffer abnormally high catastrophic losses.<\/p>\n<p>Intact is highly diversified. One-third of the business is outside of Canada, in the form of UK insurance companies and an Australian division. Roughly 28 per cent of their business is personal auto insurance, 18 per cent is home insurance, and 27 per cent is commercial insurance, while other specialty lines comprise another one-quarter of the business. This helps spread the company\u2019s risk.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-3327 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/advisor.wellington-altus.ca\/haleinvestmentgroup\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/165\/2025\/11\/2024-operating-direct-premiums-pie-chart.jpg\" alt=\"2024 operating direct premiums pie chart\" width=\"673\" height=\"314\" srcset=\"https:\/\/advisor.wellington-altus.ca\/haleinvestmentgroup\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/165\/2025\/11\/2024-operating-direct-premiums-pie-chart.jpg 675w, https:\/\/advisor.wellington-altus.ca\/haleinvestmentgroup\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/165\/2025\/11\/2024-operating-direct-premiums-pie-chart-300x140.jpg 300w, https:\/\/advisor.wellington-altus.ca\/haleinvestmentgroup\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/165\/2025\/11\/2024-operating-direct-premiums-pie-chart-18x8.jpg 18w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 673px) 100vw, 673px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>When we consider a company, we don\u2019t just look for their stock growth; we also look at how and where they earned their income over the last few years and where it\u2019s going to come from in the future. Intact expects 4 per cent growth to come from raising customer premiums, 2 per cent from operating efficiencies, and 4 per cent from strategic capital deployment \u2013 buying other insurance companies at a discount, improving them, and increasing operating income.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-3328 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/advisor.wellington-altus.ca\/haleinvestmentgroup\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/165\/2025\/11\/Q2-2025-canadian-results.jpg\" alt=\"Q2 2025 Canadian results\" width=\"573\" height=\"330\" srcset=\"https:\/\/advisor.wellington-altus.ca\/haleinvestmentgroup\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/165\/2025\/11\/Q2-2025-canadian-results.jpg 573w, https:\/\/advisor.wellington-altus.ca\/haleinvestmentgroup\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/165\/2025\/11\/Q2-2025-canadian-results-300x173.jpg 300w, https:\/\/advisor.wellington-altus.ca\/haleinvestmentgroup\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/165\/2025\/11\/Q2-2025-canadian-results-18x10.jpg 18w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 573px) 100vw, 573px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-3330 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/advisor.wellington-altus.ca\/haleinvestmentgroup\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/165\/2025\/11\/10-noips-growth-annually.jpg\" alt=\"10 noips growth annually\" width=\"460\" height=\"404\" srcset=\"https:\/\/advisor.wellington-altus.ca\/haleinvestmentgroup\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/165\/2025\/11\/10-noips-growth-annually.jpg 460w, https:\/\/advisor.wellington-altus.ca\/haleinvestmentgroup\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/165\/2025\/11\/10-noips-growth-annually-300x263.jpg 300w, https:\/\/advisor.wellington-altus.ca\/haleinvestmentgroup\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/165\/2025\/11\/10-noips-growth-annually-14x12.jpg 14w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 460px) 100vw, 460px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Over the past 10 years, Intact has proven their ability to execute on their plans. We believe they will continue to do so and that they are likely to generate our desired 10 per cent growth over the next 10 years.<\/p>\n<p><em>Brookfield Westinghouse Nuclear Deal<\/em><\/p>\n<p>On October 28, 2025, the U.S. government announced an $80 billion strategic partnership with Westinghouse Electric Company \u2013 owned by Brookfield Asset Management and Cameco Corporation \u2013 to accelerate nuclear power development. The deal, led by the Department of Commerce, commits to constructing at least eight new AP1000 reactors across the U.S.<\/p>\n<p>The goals include enhancing energy security, reducing carbon emissions, and creating jobs by deploying mature Westinghouse technology. The reactors will generate reliable base-load power for decades to come.<\/p>\n<p>This is why we\u2019re seeing Brookfield Renewables rallying substantially. It\u2019s the second-best performer in the Conservative Equity Portfolio, behind only AMD.<\/p>\n<p>If because of the contract the value of Westinghouse exceeds $30 billion, the U.S. government, by 2029, would have an option to IPO their portion of shares, which we believe will happen. The next few years should be very interesting.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Rapid-Fire Earnings<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Intact Financial<\/strong> <strong>\u2013<\/strong> Premiums increased 6 per cent while underwriting performance was good growing their profit margin by about 10 per cent on policies in the quarter.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Apple<\/strong> <strong>\u2013<\/strong> CEO Tim Cook said their new iPhone 17 sales were \u201coff the chart,\u201d reporting 12 per cent revenue growth year<strong>&#8211;<\/strong>over<strong>&#8211;<\/strong>year and increasing their forward sales guidance into December.<\/p>\n<p><strong>AMD<\/strong> <strong>\u2013<\/strong> Secured huge orders from Oracle and OpenAI this quarter. OpenAI\u2019s purchase of chips alone will double AMD\u2019s total revenue.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Amazon \u2013<\/strong> Amazon Web Services growth is picking up again to 20 per cent and on pace with their growth in 2022. Everyone has been talking about their announcement of 14,000 layoffs but they forget to mention Amazon has 1.5 million employees, so this is less than 1 per cent of their workforce. Amazon\u2019s core business will be enhanced by their investment in AI and robotics and should expand their margins.<\/p>\n<p><strong>CP<\/strong> <strong>Rail<\/strong> <strong>\u2013<\/strong> Freight volumes improving, carloads up 4 per cent, earnings up 11 per cent. The stock is down because people are concerned about the trade war, but we believe the trade war has bottomed and the stock is starting to trade up.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Google \u2013<\/strong> Over US$100 billion in quarterly revenue \u2013 great numbers thanks to AI supercharging everything from search to business tools. They\u2019re ramping up spending to $93 billion next year on data centres, while a $155\u00a0billion backlog means customers are planning to use Google\u2019s AI smarts, which could power the next wave of smart apps.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Eli Lilly<\/strong> <strong>\u2013<\/strong> Beat expectations with 54 per cent revenue growth since the same quarter last year. Launched weight loss drugs in China, Brazil, and India. Rumours today are that there soon will be an announcement that Medicaid and Medicare will cover GLP-1 drugs for weight loss, with an agreement on a less expensive version.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Microsoft<\/strong> <strong>\u2013<\/strong> Microsoft\u2019s cloud hit a whopping US$42 billion, up 22 per cent, with AI tools growing 60 per cent. Microsoft handed back $9.7 billion to shareholders in dividends and buybacks \u2013 rewarding investors like a thank-you bonus after strong growth.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Meta (Facebook\/Instagram<\/strong>) <strong>\u2013<\/strong> 3.5 billion people log in daily across Meta\u2019s apps \u2013 that\u2019s nearly half the world scrolling, chatting, or sharing \u2013 underscoring Meta\u2019s grip on social life. They\u2019re spending big (US$70+ billion) on AI and the metaverse, like building virtual worlds \u2013 CEO Mark Zuckerberg sees it as the next internet revolution, but it\u2019s pricey short term. Stock was punished down 10 per cent the day after Meta announced the increased spending.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tesla \u2013<\/strong> Record vehicle deliveries worldwide, with sales up 12 per cent<strong>.<\/strong> China and Europe sales surged 33 per cent and 25 per cent, respectively. 81 per cent growth in energy storage deployment. Production ready robot prototype to be revealed at the start of 2026 with plans to have a production line capable of making 1 million robots a year by the end of 2026.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Canadian Budget Highlights<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>The Good<\/em><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>No surprise tax increases.<\/li>\n<li>The federal workforce was reduced by 2.6 per cent per year going forward (it has increased by 5 per cent per year for the past 5 years). This will be more attrition than layoffs.<\/li>\n<li>Reductions in both immigration and temporary resident admissions, reducing strain on housing, healthcare, and education. Reached 6 per cent per year, down to 2 per cent.<\/li>\n<li>Accelerated depreciation and capital cost expensing \u2013 100 per cent in the first year to match U.S. policy.<\/li>\n<li>Shadow corporate tax cuts with $60+ billion set aside to give tax breaks to companies that move here or keep factories here.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><em>The Bad<\/em><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>$80 billion deficit, the largest ever outside of COVID years.<\/li>\n<li>$1 trillion in \u201cinvestment\u201d spending over 5 years.<\/li>\n<li>Manufactured figures and math, quoting of items like the \u201cworld uncertainty index\u201d chart, puzling figures.<\/li>\n<li>Budget using a new figure called \u201cnet\u201d debt-to-GDP ratio, saying we have the best in the Group of Seven major economies (G7). By net debt they are counting the Canada Pension Plan and Quebec Pension Plan assets of C$717 billion against our debts but not subtracting the actual pension obligations. No one uses this figure; everyone uses debt-to-GDP.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><em>The Interesting<\/em><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>$660 million over 5 years to the \u201cWomen and Gender Equality\u201d department.<\/li>\n<li>$533 million over 3 years to maintain and repair small fishing harbours.<\/li>\n<li>$183 million over 3 years to the Department of Defense to \u201cestablish sovereign space launch capability.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>$150 million additional spending to the CBC to \u201cserve the public and reflect Canadian diversity.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>$635 million over 3 years to \u201cconnect students with work experiences in high-demand sectors.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Bottom line, if I saw a budget like this for any public company I would be very upset as a shareholder. Spending looks scattershot with no real focus or direction, the executive team is not transparent with the facts, the figures are cooked, and the capital plan has a total lack of discipline. Unfortunately this has become all to comon when it comes to developed countries and so with the bar being extremely low most will not be so critical.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Interest Rates and Economy<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Rates have been coming down in the U.S and Canada. Both the U.S. Federal Reserve and the Bank of Canada are saying they\u2019re going to wait and see before making further reductions, and for the U.S. we expect that to happen. However, we believe rates are way too high for the current environment in Canada and hence we are still forecasting another 50 to 100 basis points of rate cuts over the coming year. Canada\u2019s economy is in a bad spot and getting worse. It\u2019s not improving from an economic perspective. In Ontario alone, unemployment is 7.6 per cent.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Market Outlook<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Our outlook is bullish. We see the S&amp;P hitting 7,000 this year and 8,500 by the end of next year. While we do expect corrections, we don\u2019t believe there will be one before Christmas. We will maintain our focus on what the investments in our companies will be worth in the next 3 to 5 years, and much less on their worth in the next 12 to 18 months.<\/p>\n<p>~~~<\/p>\n<p>Winter is coming and with that, a lot of snow is expected. We hope you get out and enjoy it!<\/p>\n<p><strong>Simon &amp; Michael <\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Simon Hale, CIM\u00ae, CSWP, FCSI\u00ae\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong><br \/>\nSenior Wealth Advisor,<br \/>\nPortfolio Manager,<br \/>\nWellington-Altus Private Wealth<\/p>\n<p><strong>Michael Hale, CIM\u00ae<\/strong><br \/>\nPortfolio Manager<br \/>\nSenior Wealth Advisor,<br \/>\nWellington-Altus Private Wealth<\/p>\n<p><strong>Hale Investment Group<\/strong><br \/>\n1250\u00a0Ren\u00e9-L\u00e9vesque Blvd. West, Suite\u00a04200<br \/>\nMontreal, QC\u00a0 H3B 4W8<br \/>\nTel: 514\u00a0819-0045<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>During the month of October, we trimmed our position in Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD), bringing it down to 4 per cent from 6 per cent. AMD is up over 100 per cent year-to-date and is the best performing equity in our portfolio this year. We still believe it\u2019s a great company, but this enables us to redeploy some of our profits into less volatile names. With the proceeds, we\u2019ve increased our weighting in Metro, a Quebec grocery chain operator, and Intact Financial, a Quebec-based insurance company. These two companies tend to underperform when markets rise, and perform well when markets decline. These positions add diversification to stabilize the overall portfolio.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":193,"featured_media":1889,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_oasis_is_in_workflow":0,"_oasis_original":0,"_oasis_task_priority":"","_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3324","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-monthly-updates"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/advisor.wellington-altus.ca\/haleinvestmentgroup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3324","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/advisor.wellington-altus.ca\/haleinvestmentgroup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/advisor.wellington-altus.ca\/haleinvestmentgroup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/advisor.wellington-altus.ca\/haleinvestmentgroup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/193"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/advisor.wellington-altus.ca\/haleinvestmentgroup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3324"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/advisor.wellington-altus.ca\/haleinvestmentgroup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3324\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3343,"href":"https:\/\/advisor.wellington-altus.ca\/haleinvestmentgroup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3324\/revisions\/3343"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/advisor.wellington-altus.ca\/haleinvestmentgroup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1889"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/advisor.wellington-altus.ca\/haleinvestmentgroup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/advisor.wellington-altus.ca\/haleinvestmentgroup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/advisor.wellington-altus.ca\/haleinvestmentgroup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}