The Canadian Investor - 8 Stocks That Could Benefit From Increased Global Uncertainty

Episode Date: March 9, 2026

In this episode of The Canadian Investor Podcast, Simon Belanger and Dan Kent kick things off with a surprising ripple effect from the AI boom: a full-blown RAM/memory shortage that’s sending PC upgrade costs through the roof. They break down why high-bandwidth memory (HBM) is crowding out “normal” consumer RAM production, how Micron, Samsung, and SK Hynix are prioritizing the most profitable AI-driven demand, and what that could mean for pricing, upgrade cycles, and the broader tech supply chain. From there, they shift into a pragmatic, investor-focused look at positioning during geopolitical uncertainty—without cheerleading conflict. Dan outlines key areas investors often look at in these environments: defense contractors (and why buying after the headlines can be “buying the umbrella in the rain”), Canadian energy as a cleaner way to express higher oil prices with less Middle East exposure, the growing (and expensive) opportunity set in cybersecurity, and gold as both a safe haven and an inflation hedge. They also touch on different ways to gain exposure—individual names vs. ETFs—and wrap up with updates on the podcast’s YouTube live plans and what’s coming next. Tickers of Stocks discussed: LMT, NOC, GD, RTX, MU, AEM, FNV, WPM, ZJG.TO   Subscribe to our Our New Youtube Channel! Check out our portfolio by going to Jointci.com Our Website Our New Youtube Channel! Canadian Investor Podcast Network Twitter: @cdn_investing Simon’s twitter: @Fiat_Iceberg Braden’s twitter: @BradoCapital Dan’s Twitter: @stocktrades_ca Want to learn more about Real Estate Investing? Check out the Canadian Real Estate Investor Podcast! Apple Podcast - The Canadian Real Estate Investor  Spotify - The Canadian Real Estate Investor  Web player - The Canadian Real Estate Investor Asset Allocation ETFs | BMO Global Asset Management Sign up for Fiscal.ai for free to get easy access to global stock coverage and powerful AI investing tools. Register for EQ Bank, the seamless digital banking experience with better rates and no nonsense.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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If there's uncertainty in the markets, there's going to be some great opportunities for investors. This has to be one of the biggest quarters I've seen from this company in quite some time. Welcome to the Canadian investor podcast. I'm Simone Berengé and I'm back with Dan Kent. We're back for a regular episode of the podcast. We have some fun things to talk about. So today we're going to be talking about, first of all, memory shortage and some investing place that people can look at due to the actual memory shortage. And then we'll look at some of the companies that should benefit from the geopolitical uncertainty. So obviously what we're seeing in the Middle East, of course, we're not trying to make light of this situation, but the reality is this is the world we live in. And

And at the end of the day, I approach, and I think you do as well, Dan, I'm not, I'm going to speak for you and let me know if you don't agree with this, but I think we invest for the most part in the world we live in, not the world we hope that we lived in. Yeah, and I think I kind of did that segment because there's been a lot of questions that come up. And obviously, when something like this happens, people, it's not necessarily like what's going to benefit. Like a lot of the questions I'm getting are like, you know, what are some industries that might do? well, what are some industries that might. It's more of like a question for people who want to position their portfolios in defense of it, I guess, even though they've kind of shown that the best thing is to do nothing. But yeah, it's not like when I did this, it would have been, well, back in 2022, like people

were asking me again, like, you know, what, you know, companies should benefit from the conflict over there. I got a lot of like replies of, yeah, like kind of encouraging it. It's not like we're cheerleading it. It's just people are going to, people are going to ask. question. So, and I think it's a good topic to go over period. So yeah, it should be a good, good segment. Yeah. And before we get started, we had a first YouTube live episode that we did last week on Tuesday. Went pretty well. We weren't, our expectations were pretty low. So we were

thinking, joking, oh, maybe we'll get a couple of people live. But I think we had about 25 people at the peak for the first one. It was more testing it out. It was our first time doing it. I think it went well. So make sure you subscribe to our YouTube channel. We'll try to do those. Maybe not every single week, but especially as there's more news coming up, I think there are fun things to do. We'll be looking else. I'll be also looking to book some guests from the podcast so I can try maybe do some of those live. And we've also been toying with the idea of doing a kind of quick 15, 30 minute live Monday morning type of deal before as the market's open. So if that's something that it would be interesting for you, our listeners, because obviously that's who we would do it for.

Let us know. And that's something we can look into doing, especially Monday starting the week. I think there would be a lot of stuff to talk about and seeing what happens now often, like, you know, there's always things happening on the weekends, it seems like. So I don't think we would lack anything to talk about on Mondays. Nope, definitely not. So yeah, just let us know. I mean, you got to tell us and then we'll, we'll, kind of draw it up. But yeah, you want to get into the, let's do it. Yeah. So the RAMs, so the reason why I decided to do that, I had a couple people reach out, say, oh, like, been noticing. So computer memory PC RAM has been really shooting up in prices recently. And I did notice that myself, too, which the reason I did that is I was looking to build a new computer, a computer to use primarily

as a PC for a poker solver. So I know people know that I play poker here on the podcast. And just to explain quickly what it does, it's essentially brute force calculations. So what it'll do is you input some situation in it and it will calculate essentially like do millions of calculations. And what you really need to run those solvers well, and poker is actually a very complex game,

depending how many players, the different stack sizes, the situation. So you can have massive amounts of calculations that are required. But for the most part, you want a good CPU and you want a lot of RAM. So when I was just doing some research and looking with AI in terms of what would be the optimal builds, it was telling me for the most part, like if you want to almost have no limitation, you'd need like a CPU that's 16 cores or more and 128 gigabytes of RAM or more.

I went for something a little less because the problem is if you're looking at just 64 gigs of RAMs, you're looking at about $800 or more for just that and of course double the price if you're looking at 128. So let's just say 128 would be around 2K and then you're looking at the CPU, the hard drive, everything else. You're looking at a build that's probably going to be like $4,000 plus,

and that's quite a bit of money. Obviously, if you're just investing that, the good news it doesn't require like a very strong video card for those calculations. It's really, you can just get a really basic one. But the price of that type of computer increase massively just in a span of a few months and even more so in the last year. So over the last couple months, memory prices have more than doubled.

And the numbers I've seen is that since the start of 2025, so roughly a year or so, it's increased in about the neighborhood of 4x, which typically memory tends to go down in price. And it's also seen increases for older memory. So I'm not a computer expert, but right now kind of the standard for PCs like DDR5, while even DDR4, which was like the previous generation, that is still used for people making upgrades and stuff like that,

is seeing some increases as well because it was much cheaper. And then the prices, demand has gone up so high. And I'll explain why demand has increased so much. But it was really eye-popping. So instead of what I ended up doing is I had an existing PC. I bought in 2017. So clearly that would have struggled. to use that PC solver program.

So my cousin, Elliot, who is like does builds PC, I think he's a programmer by trade. He had like an older AMD CPU that was stronger than the Intel I had. And I had 32 gigs of DDR4 that he had bought a while back.

So I essentially paid him like a reasonable price for those. And he did the upgrade for me. I just had to buy a motherboard. So all in all, the upgrade cost me about $600. And I'll be able to do. do like 80% to 90% of the calculations I want to do. And then my my goal is like two or three years down the line when prices actually come down, just get a real, really strong PC that will

be able to really maximize it. But that was the value play that I ended up doing. Yeah. And I think I've kind of felt this too. I mean, you've seen I'm building out kind of that terminal with the with the fiscal data. And it is a lot of data. Like you're talking hundreds of gigabytes of data. So it does require a lot of RAM. Yeah. And you're even seeing it on the hosting side of things, like the web hosting, server hosting, like prices are going up because it is getting so expensive. I remember, I mean, I haven't bought RAM for a computer for a very long time,

but I remember it being like $50, $40 for eight gigs. Yeah. I mean, I might have been off on that, but I don't think so. That was like right before COVID hit. I think that's the last time I bought it. But yeah, it's getting crazy, pricey. Yeah, it used to be that CPU, like the actual processor and the video card, the GPU, were like usually the two biggest kind of pricing components and now it's shifted to RAM.

So obviously you can get some pretty, the highest I end CPUs are still pretty expensive, but you can get some pretty good ones that are not maybe the top top that are way less than RAMs. So if you're buying a computer, that is the reason. So I think for a lot of people, I think you're probably going to see a lot of businesses that will just decide to push off these cycles of upgrades a little bit, just seeing this heightened memory prices. They'll probably try to extend the useful life of the existing equipment. I would not be surprised if just individual as well, they start seeing these prices and say, you know what, I wanted to upgrade, but my computer still is fine for maybe a year or two,

and trying to wait it out. There is an old saying in investing. It's not about timing the market, but time in. the market. The most successful investors aren't usually the ones trying to catch every top and bottom. They're the ones who spend the most time in the market. I've been a quest trade user for over five years and the reason I stick with them is that they remove the friction of regular investing. With no commissions on stock and ETF trades, you don't have to wait until you have thousands of dollars saved up to make a move. You can contribute small amounts regularly and keep your portfolio

growing consistently, removing the stress of trying to time the market. And they keep making it easier to build a well-rounded portfolio. Soon, you'll be able to trade precious metals through Questrade, giving you even more ways to diversify. Questrade makes the whole process seamless, allow you to focus on what really matters your investment strategy, not trying to avoid fees. Ready to invest, head over to Questrade.com,

open and fund your account with, TCI and receive $50. Conditions apply. My wife and I are planning a big spring trip to Vancouver. It'll actually be my first time visiting the West Coast. We're looking for a place on Airbnb close to the water so we can wake up to those ocean and mountain views every morning. We can already picture ourselves walking the seawall, exploring Vancouver's neighborhoods, and then making our way toward the Rockies for a couple of unforgettable hikes.

Finding the perfect home base on Airbnb will make the trip perfect. It also got us thinking about our own place while we're away. If another family's home can be the backdrop for our first West Coast adventure, maybe ours could be that for someone else. Hosting our home on Airbnb would let travelers make their own memories in our beautiful neighborhood, while giving us extra money to put toward all those Vancouver meals and our Rockies excursions. And the nice thing is flexibility. We can decide to host our home only when it works for our schedule.

Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at Airbnb.ca slash host. If you're a DIY investor ready to take control of your portfolio, BMO all-in-one ETFs simplify the process. Whether you're new to investing or looking to streamline your existing holdings, these all-in-one solutions are designed to help you invest smarter. With management fees on popular portfolios now reduced to 0.15%. You get professional diversification at a lower cost.

Check out the asset allocation ETFs at bemoetifs.com. So let's go into what's causing the increase. Well, you may have guessed it. It's the theme word of the last few months and it is AI. So AI doesn't just need memory. It needs high bandwidth memory. So HBM, just remember this acronym, I'll be using it quite a bit. One HBM chip eats up three times the wafer capacity of standard RAM.

So basically what this means is that memory manufacturers are deciding to produce less consumer-grade RAM. So the one I'm buying, the one you're buying Dan, the one people are buying and they're buying PCs for themselves, and reallocating that production to HBM. On their Q1-2020-6 call Micron, one of the top three producers here, said that exact thing. They are focusing on higher volume products like HBM and that demand substantially exceeds the industry ability to supply. That's because HBM for them is way more profitable than traditional RAM.

Micron even said that HBM supply for fiscal 2026 is sold out with agreements on volume price through the year. And this shortage is likely to continue for some time for a few reasons. So first of all, AI demand continues to be extremely strong, which should continue to make memory manufacturer prioritize HBM over consumer grade, RAM, or business grade, or desktop grade, whatever you want to call it. Second, the big three of memory, Micron, Samsung, and SK Hynix, spent 2023 and 2024 cutting capacity because there was just simply not enough demand at that point.

That was just right before we started seeing this kind of exponential span. in AI Right? So it was just right And why? Well, it's pretty simple when you think about it Because remember the pandemic

You had a big consumer boom In the early pandemic Because everyone and their brother And sister needed a laptop To work from home, right? So a lot of people, kids needed laptops To do school from home

So everyone needed that There was a big boom And memory is notoriously cyclical So these manufacturers I've learned over the years that they should be careful into making massive investment because into additional production because it's unlikely that demand is going to continue

for a very long time or they'll wait until they know for sure the demand will be sustainable for a long period of time and when they do start investing in additional capacity it doesn't happen overnight either. So you have to think about that. So in other words, why invest in new production if you think demand will slow down rapidly over the next couple of years, you probably won't.

You have to be smart about it. And all of these things will lead to one thing, higher memory prices. So anything you wanted to add here before I kind of talk about what it means from an investment perspective? No, go ahead. So what it does mean here is memory manufacturers. So it should continue being a tailwind for the foreseeable future for those memory manufacturers or microns. Samsung iskei hynix that I just mentioned. Like I mentioned, with Micron, they're essentially sold out one year now for HBM.

So the demand is extremely high for that. So there should be some decent amount of demand for the foreseeable future. Although, just to be fair, these companies are trading pretty expensively right now. The market has definitely realized that this is going on. Consumer-grade equipment manufacturers like PC, phones that require. RAM, those will definitely have a negative impact. Think of a Dell or Lenovo. Although Dell has seen a big tailwind with their server, the demand on the server side of thing. So it's definitely offsetting that and I think and then some. But even a company like Apple, so they're going

to have to probably raise prices or cut somewhere else in the product. So maybe they just choose a cheaper video card or cheaper components elsewhere. So either you get something less performing for the same price or you simply have to increase the price. or you take it on the margins, right? So Dell has already started to increase their prices, so they announced that I think a month or two ago. And my prediction is that this will be a headwind for these manufacturers. Why?

Because consumers and businesses like I talked about, they will likely delay purchase if the price is too high because you as a consumer for computers, you know that over time you end up, for the most part, you're supposed to end up paying less for more, right? I was talking with my aunt who said that they bought, I think their first PC, like in the mid, late 1990s, and they paid $2,500 for it back then.

So that's like $5, $6,000, probably even more so, like $6,000, $7,000 in today's dollars. And today's dollars for that kind of computer, you'd have, like, my God, you'd have something, even with a higher memory price is something pretty phenomenal. So you can just imagine if memory prices were had not increased as much as they have, you'd have like, my God, you could run quite a bit like of LLMs like locally on your computer and not have many issues. Yeah, I mean, it's kind of the same as like televisions to an extent. They've become so cheap now that they're, yeah, like as the time goes on, it's supposed to get

cheaper. Like you can get a really good computer now for, well, I don't even know with this like price-wise, but I mean, $3,000, $4,000 will get you a very, very good computer. Maybe not graphically, but yeah, they've definitely come down in price quite a bit. I don't think, like I could see these companies, like, say, in Apple, I could see them keeping costs the same and maybe taking like a margin hit over the short term, but there's no way they're going to let it happen over the long term. They're going to end up raising prices or just kind of taking it out of somewhere else.

Like, do people really pay attention in that regard? Like if they're cutting the tech somewhere else to offset the cost, like most people when they buy an iPhone, they don't pay attention to actually what's in it. No. I mean, no, yes, I guess. So it depends on who you're selling it to, right? Like if you're buying a MacBook Pro, for example, you're probably going to be more. Paying attention, yeah. More paying attention to the actual components because usually you're paying $2,500 plus for that kind of computer. But I think a lot of people may result to just maybe they have like sufficient amount of RAM and they're just like, you know what? I play video games on my computer. I might just upgrade the GPU for like a reasonable price and just write this computer out for an extra year or two. Yeah. I think this is what you'll likely see.

Well, it's a behavior you're going to see. It still doesn't, you know, it doesn't probably replace the fact that some people will still have to upgrade. Yeah. Because their computer is just way beyond their useful life. but I think if you can push that back, push back that upgrade cycle, you probably will. And the last year, I think, is what people might think is hyper-scaler. So they'll end up being a bit of a loser, but also a winner.

I think it's kind of neutral for them when you think about it. First, it will increase their costs, obviously more demand for HBM. It's going to be a higher cost for them. But on the other side of things is that it will make competition more difficult if you have a massive financial, like unless you have massive financial resources to do it. So it's kind of a good and bad situation.

So you kind of can think that they're, yeah, they're probably going to benefit and not at the same time. So yes, I call it, but it probably increases the barrier to entry for potential competitors.

So it's kind of, yeah, it's kind of funny. But, you know, at the end of the day, I think overall, you can definitely have some, uh,

some interest. investing investment ideas there, especially if you're ahead of the curve, if you're thinking that maybe some of the hyperscalers will see some tailwind, you might be able to get some discounts on those names. Who knows? Or you're looking at Adele or Lenovo. I don't know if Lenovo, is it traded publicly? You can't remember. I have no idea. Yeah. But anyways, some of these companies that might be facing tailwinds, maybe it's a bit more short term. Yeah, it's a bit more short term and you can benefit from that longer. term. But I thought it was interesting. Definitely something I wasn't super aware until I started shopping for the PC and boy, is it pretty obvious. Yeah. And I had like, same with me. I had no idea until I got the kind of the callback from what the, what the hosting will cost in regards to like the new platform. And yeah, it's, it's not cheap. But yeah, I don't, I don't know that like I haven't paid too much attention to any of these companies. Like, I didn't even know Samsung made RAM. So I mean, I guess that's how out of touch I am on that side.

Yeah, they're one of the big ones. So definitely one of the big three. Samsung obviously has seen a big run up in this stock price. And I'll just show here for joint TCI subscribers. And you'll see it's been a pretty good run for Micron. Decent. Yeah. Over the last year, it's up 350% over the last year alone.

So congratulations to anyone who bought the stock about a year ago. And the last three years, it's up. 600% so done pretty well. I mean if it is like if we do hit you know the the top of the cycle and we start heading downwards like I can't imagine how far that will come down but man yeah 10 years it's like a 30 bagger so congratulations yeah yeah so anyway so that that's the segment let's move on to yeah the geopolitical risk and what kind of industries and companies could benefit from that yeah so again I guess we kind of put all the disclaimers out at the at the start here. But yeah, it's not necessarily,

so I'm going over four areas and it's not really who would, let's just say benefit, but just kind of like different areas that I think a lot of people are going to want to look at that kind of stand out because of this. And I mean, the first one, which is probably the most obvious one would be the defense contractors. So I mean, regardless if it's for the current situation or future situations. I mean, countries ramp up defense spending during times like this. When situations like this happen is most often when governments are going to sign, you know, multi-year deals with these defense contractors. As a result, you know, they're typically late to react. I guess you could say Lockheed is one that comes to mind and is one I've owned. I've owned Lockheed for for many years. And

my, my main thesis was was much the same. The world is always in some sort of conflict. And the U.S. is always looking to dump a ton of money into their military. For some people, these are not companies they want to own. And I mean, that's just kind of what, you know, I don't even. Yeah, and that's not a company you want to own. That's completely fine. There's other good investments. And that's perfectly fine.

But at the end of the day, too, I think I'm like him very pragmatic. And this is just, yeah, it's the reality that we live in. A lot of people won't touch these companies. I mean, like, I won't touch meta. I've never owned Facebook in my life because I am not a huge fan of a lot of the stuff that came out on them. So, yeah, that's just, I kind of draw the line there. Yeah, and some people, like the whole whistleblower thing with meta and Facebook and stuff, I would never touch that company. And some people wouldn't touch Lockie.

Like, it's just, it's completely up to you. Yeah. And some people wouldn't touch, like, subprime lenders because they, you know, you can make a case that's predatory lending, just the rates that. they charge. Look, everyone can decide how they invest. Everyone has their own morals and everyone can decide what they do with their investment portfolio. That's the beauty of being a self-directed investors. You can really build a portfolio how you want it to be built. But I think we've been clear the way we invest. Yeah, it's just to me, I try to be pragmatic and just invests in the world that we live in and search for big kind of macro themes. And at the end of the day,

I think this before you go on, I saw someone not too long ago, maybe a few weeks ago, before the Iran conflict erupted, but basically this guy was a portfolio manager and he said, my best advice to people is just invest as if you're in a wartime economy. Yeah. And it's hard to disagree with him. Yeah, because it seems constant now. But yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So Lockhe's bread and butter is the F-35.

Northrop Grumman, which would trade. under the ticker NOC. They're kind of more missiles, submarines, etc. Then there is general dynamics. They're more like tanks and ships, stuff like that. RtX,

I think you talked about this like last quarter probably on the earnings. Formerly known as Raytheon. Yeah. So there are more on like the missile defense type of things. And if you look to- Patriot missiles for example, right? And I know if you look up, you're kind of pulling up the chart of all these right now.

But if you don't get the chart up in time, one thing that's that's clear is if you look to a long-term chart of these companies, pretty much all of them are outperforming the markets post-COVID like from 2020. And if you extend it to 10 years, Lockheed's keeping pace with the S&P 500. And the only one that's lagging is general dynamics. And I mean, these companies just do very well. They're very profitable, very, you know, high levels of free cash flow. Yeah.

So, Harry, you have the 10-year chart there? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so you got Lockheed trailing just a little bit. And I think the one reason that Lockheed was struggled for a while, like it was Elon's Musk's kind of comments on the F-35 and it ended up bombing from that. But I mean, these companies do very well over the long term again for the reasons I mentioned. And I mean, the one thing I will say about this area is like you don't, if you're going to buy it,

you don't really buy it once the conflict has started. This is kind of, it's like buying an umbrella. in the middle of a rainstorm, like when you're outside, like you, you kind of got to own these beforehand. And you can tell, like, if you look at the price action on this chart, they've all gone straight north over the last like three months. I think Lockheed's up something crazy like 40% over the last three months. Yeah, 50%, 47% over the last three months.

So the entire world knows the conflict exists. There's really no edge in dumping money in these defense stocks right now. Could they do well? Yes. but thinking you're buying them because of the conflict. No, like, yeah, the time to own them is kind of before this type of stuff starts, but that, you know, these companies do well in, you know, today's world. So I don't know if you have any more comments on that.

Or you want me to move to energy? Yeah, no, move on. I guess the only thing that they could have, like a headwin for these companies is just what the U.S. government has been saying if they don't meet deliverables. They may, I think they may even cancel some comments. contracts or they went as far as seeing that. Whether they do it or not, we'll have to see. But that would be the main headwin for them as the US government being a bit aggressive in their procurement practices with these companies.

Yeah. And I know with Trump was saying that because a company like Lockheed, tons of buybacks and a lot of dividends. Like if you look at a buyback chart of Lockheed, they buy back a ton of shares. And I know Trump was saying that he doesn't really like that. he wants him to invest to reinvest, like into new distribution, new warehouses, new production, things like that, which I mean, for a company like Lockheed, I don't think they're growing fast enough to justify something like that. So that is an issue too, because if Trump kind of forces them to not buy back shares or not grow the dividend as much and they have to reinvest, it might not

be at the most attractive rates unless, you know, defense spending is a ramp up through the roof. But that's another issue as well. There is an old saying in investing. It's not about timing the market, but time in the market. The most successful investors aren't usually the ones trying to catch every top and bottom. They're the ones who spend the most time in the market. I've been a quest trade user for over five years, and the reason I stick with them is that they remove the friction of regular investing.

With no commissions on stock and ETF trades, you don't have to wait until you have thousands of dollars saved up to. make a move. You can contribute small amounts regularly and keep your portfolio growing consistently, removing the stress of trying to time the market. And they keep making it easier to build a well-rounded portfolio. Soon you'll be able to trade precious metals through Questrade, giving you even more ways to diversify.

Quest Trade makes the whole process seamless, allow you to focus on what really matters your investment strategy, not trying to avoid fees. Ready to invest, head over to Questray.com, open and fund your account with code TCI and receive $50. Conditions apply. My wife and I are planning a big spring trip to Vancouver. It'll actually be my first time visiting the West Coast. We're looking for a place on Airbnb close to the water so we can wake up to those ocean and mountain views every morning. We can already picture ourselves walking the seawall, exploring Vancouver's neighborhoods,

and then making our way toward the Rockies for a couple of unforgettable hikes. Finding the perfect home base on Airbnb will make the trip perfect. It also got us thinking about our own place while we're away. If another family's home can be the backdrop for our first West Coast adventure, maybe ours could be that for someone else. Hosting our home on Airbnb would let travelers make their own memories in our beautiful neighborhood, while giving us extra money to put toward all those Vancouver meals and our Rocky. excursions. And the nice thing is flexibility. We can decide to host our home only when it works

for our schedule. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at Airbnb.ca slash host. If you're a DIY investor ready to take control of your portfolio, BMO all-in-one ETFs simplify the process. Whether you're new to investing or looking to streamline your existing holdings, these all-in-one solutions are designed to help you invest smarter. With management fees on popular portfolios now reduced to 0.15%, you get professional diversification at a lower cost. Check out the asset allocation ETFs at bemoetifs.com. On the energy side of things, just focus on Canadian energy, because unlike, say, global or even US majors, like we're talking about.

talking like Exxon, Conoco, things like that. Canadian majors have virtually no exposure to the Middle East. Like Canadian natural, I think is, you know, Canada or sorry, North America and let's say Africa and the UK Imperial is I pretty sure 100% Canada, Suncor as well, maybe some, some international stuff. But when you think of the Canadian energy companies, they have very little exposure to the Middle East, whereas the US companies have exposure to the Middle East. So the critical thing, right now for that is that conflict is threatening the straight of, how do you pronounce it? Hormuz. Hormuz, yeah.

Which is pretty much, from what I'm reading, it has like over 20% of the global supply that's going through it. So as I had mentioned, you think companies like Exxon, Chevron, Conoco, Phillips, they have large chunks of their business in the Middle East, whether it be oil or LNG. I know Conoco and Exxon have big exposure to LNG in Qatar. And they, I don't know if it's still halted, but I think they like halted LNG production, which caused like natural gas prices to go through the roof LNG prices. So. Yeah, I think there's some facilities. And even though Trump actually said they would dispatch U.S. escorts, I think even if that happens, it would still, in best case scenario, it was still slow down the traffic because you have to get those escorts ready, wait till they're ready.

go, but it still doesn't prevent, you know, from these massive ships from being kind of sitting ducks because a lot of these, what I was reading is these low type of missiles or drones that will fly very low and can arrive from the shore within 60 seconds a minute or so. They can be very difficult to intercept even with warships. So I think it's still, you're still seeing shipping companies and even captains like refusing to go through that, even with the U.S. assurances. On top of that, the U.S. government said they would also look to offer insurance at reasonable prices, because that's the other issue is these cargo ships are they have to pay insurance,

and the insurance premium just go way, way up because of the risk associated with that. So the U.S. is looking to offer some more affordable insurance. But again, you're still getting into a situation where it may not even resolve the traffic in the Strait of our moves because the risk is still. so high. So until the armed conflict gets resolved, then who knows what the outcome will be at this point, there's just a whole lot of uncertainty. And I think this was done by the US, I think pretty obvious. I can just see Trump losing it. Losing is, uh, you know what? After the conflict started because some of his advisor were saying, oh, no, it's fine. Energy prices won't go up. And now it's

trading above 80 for the, for brand crude. So I think it was probably an attempt to reassure the markets. but it reassured maybe a tiny bit, but I think traders are still kind of wait and see approach. Yeah, I mean, if you think, you know, I don't necessarily think that the diversification from a lot of the U.S. oil producers was a bad thing or is a bad thing. Like Exxon is world-class company, but right now they kind of have a front row seat to a lot of this conflict,

at least for, you know, a portion of their production. Whereas, again, you look to a company like Canadian Natural, they're pretty much a pure play North American company. Like I had mentioned, like Africa and some UK exposure, but like those are a long ways from the conflict. And I kind of find Imperial a very interesting play here too, because it is majority owned by Exxon. I think it's 70%.

So it does get, you know, the Canadian exposure with kind of the global brain, I guess you could say. So 100% of their production is in Canada, but they kind of, they leverage Exxon's global reach. and it's kind of impressed me over the last half decade here. I think I've mentioned this a few times, but I used to work for Imperial at their at their curl facility. And I mean, I, that facility was in my opinion very, very, very badly managed when I was there.

It was, uh, but I mean, it's, it looks like they've turned it around. I would have never owned the company because of that when I did, when I did, when I was there, but they've been a buyback machine, cash flow machine. And they do have that interesting element just because the Exxon kind of overreach. I don't spend a lot of time researching the oil and gas sector outside of like the majors to a certain degree. And I'm far from an expert. I mean, it's just been too cyclical for me to ever buy and hold long term, especially being from Alberta. I've seen the booms and boss that the industry goes.

So if I was going to buy the space and I would before, I'd probably just buy an ETF. Like I bought in and out of XG quite a bit historically. I know 9Point has a fund that a lot of people like. It's more the actively managed one. But in terms of like stocks for this, I mean, you're looking at the Canadian majors if you really want to go for stocks. But for there's a lot of broad-based ETF that will cover Canadian energy plus pipelines. I don't know if you have any more comments on the energy or we go into the next one. No, I mean, I think, I think we may have mentioned that in the live episode.

Of course, the live episode will be out as a regular podcast episode as of last Thursday when you were listening to this on Monday. but the Canadian energy companies, especially those who are predominantly in Canada, I think one of the potential tailwinds is the midterm is coming. And if price stay elevated with Brent and WTI and there's traditionally and still is, there's discount on Western Canadian select. Yeah, Western Canadian select. And there's this 10% tariff on Canadian energy products. Wouldn't that be an easy win for Trump to negotiate, in air quotes, a deal with Canada where the U.S. would drop those tariffs and then in exchange Canada could like give something to the Trump to save face. Maybe it's just signing that Lockheed Martin contract or something like that, right? Like just something where the U.S. would be like Trump would be like, see, it worked. We got this concession from Canada.

In exchange, we're dropping the tariffs, which will help with American energy prices. Like, I don't know, but to me, that seems like a low-hanging fruit if the conflicts go on for a bit. Yeah. Yeah, I think the key here is how long does this stretch out. Yeah, exactly. It's like, it's hard not to be bullish Canadian energy companies. I mean, kind of just overall, not even necessarily do this conflict, but, you know, the potential demand for natural gas and oil from, you know, AI buildout power. demand, things like that. So it's not just this conflict. Like Canadian energy companies,

they're in a pretty good position. But the next one I'll go on to is cybersecurity. And I think this one is pretty interesting because I think there's massive tailwinds in the space. I think it's not necessarily, this isn't necessarily solely related to the conflict either, but I think you're going to see cybersecurity pop up. I think it's already popping up for governments, for companies, all that type of stuff. And I think it's going to be nearly, impossible for cybersecurity companies to keep up in this day and age. But regardless of this, like governments will pay them to try and keep up. Hackers and governments will now use AI to find holes.

And I have a hard time believing like humans will be able to patch them as fast as AI can find them. So I think you're going to get a situation where these companies will not only pay, be paying for defense or government's institutions, whatever it may be to block attacks, but they're kind of going to be paying for resilience to the point where they understand they're going to get attacked, but they need to continue to operate. So, I mean, if you use boxing as a reference, like cybersecurity used to be dodging the punches, now you just know you're going to take them on the chin and you just kind of have to build out, you know, a system that you're still able to operate. And I think... Build a bigger chin.

Yeah, build a bigger chin to be able to take more punches. And, yeah, I think what you're also going to get is a bunch of governments shifting from, to internal solutions from a country standpoint. And like I guess what I mean by that is the US government isn't going to be using any sort of cloud data that is not outside of the US or at least like I guess a very, very friendly ally to that certain degree. And I mean, yeah, I don't know. I don't really know this space much very well. But it's kind of these things are just kind of things that popped in my head. And I could see this being.

Yeah. This was a big tailwind before this conflict. I think it's just going to stand out even more. Well, I think there was news of even U.S. large banks kind of bracing for potential cyber attacks from Iranian hackers. So, I mean, I don't know this space all that well, but I would tend to agree with you there. Yeah. It's hard to not see tailwinds here. The thing is I think a lot of, a lot of the companies in this space are very expensive.

Now, I don't know the space all that well. So I don't really know, you know, in terms of how these companies are going to grow. But when you look on the surface, you look at. Companies like CrowdStrike, Palantir, for example, like valuations are are very, very high. But I think if you were to ask, let's just say a corporation or a government, like the top risks today overall, just broad risks for companies, the economy, like I have a hard time believing cybersecurity would not be in their top three or in their top five, whatever it may be. So this is probably the one, because I know I've been naming companies in each space,

This is probably the one outside of, you know, Crowdstrike, Palantir, things like that, that I have no idea in terms of companies to look at, but it's just a space that it's, it's an interesting space, especially with how fast it's expected to grow. Yeah, and there's always, whenever you're not sure and you want some exposure to a...

Space in general, yeah. ...sector or space. You can look at the ETF. I think there is like H or XHAC from BlackRock would be one. There's, I think hack is also HACC, EKK, another ETF. There's a few out there. So you can always do that or you can do a kind of basket approach.

You pick four companies, four or five companies in this space and you equal weight them. So there's different ways to do it. Personally, if I were to get some exposure to the space, which I don't have. Right now, I'd probably look at the basket approach and just pick what looks to be the four or five best companies and just do an equal weighted approach, especially because I think having looked at those ETFs a while back, I think they're. The fees are not that low either. So you may be better off just to try and do your own, right?

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's the basket approach makes sense when, you know, a lot of these companies are trading at like 80, 90x free cash flow. Like you definitely do not want to pick the wrong horse in the race, I guess, sir, if you're going like the individual route. So yeah, much like the energy. I find like the less you know about the space from an individual company perspective,

the more sense it makes to go broad-based. Like there's probably a lot of people who know a ton about Canadian energy companies. And for that reason, they buy individual holdings, whereas if you don't know a lot about them, I mean, there's a ton of ETFs out there to go kind of broad-based. I don't know, we're running on 40 minutes here. Do you want to go over gold? Yeah. Yeah, I'll go over gold, mainly because gold is typically seen as a safe haven asset.

It's been all over the place ever since. the conflict started, but if we remember with the January peak, it peak, I think, around $5,500, maybe a bit above that, went down about 15, 16%, and now it's trading around 5,100, but was trading as high as 5,400 on Monday when the first trading day of when after the conflict erupted. So gold can definitely benefit as that safe haven asset. The other way that gold could also benefit is that if inflation expectations, start creeping up, gold is typically, well, will typically do well when inflation starts rising. And I think that's why you're seeing U.S. treasuries, whether it's the 10 or 30 years,

those will typically be also safe haven assets. Maybe that's starting to change on the safe haven perspective because there's just so much issue with U.S. debt and how large it's become. and overall global sentiment towards U.S. finances and also the U.S. how it's been acting on the geopolitical front. But let's set that aside, it was interesting to see when markets open, U.S. Treasury's actually the yield went down and then started creeping back up, especially as the market started realizing, okay, this could actually impact inflation and down they're starting

to yield more because the market is starting to price. some higher expectation, which is being reflected on those treasuries. But back to cold, gold tend to do pretty well when there's high inflation. So ways to play gold, obviously, you can hold the metal. But if you're looking to stick to equities, I think some of the names we've talked about before, especially if you are like I am, obviously I'm a pretty large portion of my portfolio in physical gold, through some gold ETFs, but also actual gold that I give, keeping a safe deposit. the box with the bank, but I also own some mining stocks.

Franco Nevada, Wheaton would be two pretty good choices if you're looking for really high quality companies that are usually less volatile than gold miners. You can look at Agniko is a good play here in term of gold miner, probably one of the better ones in terms of the large ones. If you're looking for quality located in Canada, it has a really low cost compared to some of its competitor, usually 5 to 10% lower. They're all in sustainable costs compared to other competitors. Obviously, you can look at some ETFs.

BMO has some pretty interesting. They are obviously a sponsor of the show, but BMOTEF, I don't have the tickers in front of me, but you can look them up. They have a junior miner, and I think they have mining a gold ETF. So if you're looking for something a bit more broad-based, that's also a fine way to play them. So these are kind of the main ways I would say you play them. So holding the physical metal, the physical ETFs are also an option.

And then the streamers and then the gold mining company. Personally, I'd stay more in the majors. So these like senior gold mining company like an EGNECO, like I just mentioned. If you're looking in the juniors, which I do have some exposure to junior mining myself, but I do it through an ETF. So that's how I kind of play that. ZJG. ZJG.

Yeah, is the BMO Junior one. Yeah, the Junior one. So that's one. Yeah, it's going to be more volatile, but. Oh, yeah. It could definitely benefit from just more geopolitical tension, but obviously, like I mentioned, the higher inflation expectations. I'm very bullish gold long term, just because I think at the end of the day,

we're probably going to see structural inflation when we're looking more than a few years out. and the uncertainty and the fact that people are losing more confidence in U.S. treasuries in general, not super quickly, but slowly. So those are the reasons, but I think that kind of just, this conflict just reinforces both of these. Reinforces that inflation will likely head higher because of the oil constraint that we talked about. And also the uncertainty and the fact that more and more investors and countries

may look as gold as a safe haven and different ways to play it depending on what suits your boat but the gold miners i mean you'd have to be a pretty bad gold miner to not be able to make money right now you'd have to be a terrible gold miner i guess on the franco nevada side too is they have the oil and gas royalties as well i think it's like 15 percent so yeah they wheaton doesn't have any oil and gas but franco is you know the bulk of it is is a it's a metal streamer but it also has streaming and royalties in energy. So which has kind of been a drag for the company for a bit now, but you get $80, $90, $100 barrel of oil.

I think that'll turn around pretty quickly. But it just depends. Like if this conflict ends quickly, all of this might be a non-issue. So it's impossible to say how long it's going to last either. Like they obviously they say it's going to be quick, but I mean, I wouldn't trust what they say. they're always going to say that because, you know, that's what the people want to hear. But yeah, I mean, obviously I hope there's some kind of peaceful resolution quickly.

I mean, who wouldn't want there to be a peaceful resolution? But, and I'm no expert in these type of conflicts. But one thing, you know, I have noticed is these Middle East conflicts tend to not just last a few weeks or months. Like they tend to drag on. Look at after 9-11. How long was that? like Iraq? Yeah, Iraq.

They pull like that was post COVID when they finally took the last. Yeah. It lasted like 20 years of Afghanistan was something like that too. So these like end up. They're very, very long conflicts. And I certainly hope for everyone involved that it does not long. It lasts that long. But unfortunately, I don't know.

Maybe I'm a pessimist. It's just these. I think it's a wishful thinking that it will be a quick resolution. I do hope that I'm wrong. I sincerely hope I do. But from an investment perspective, I think more and more, I'm just thinking back of that podcast I was watching on YouTube that essentially said we should probably, you know,

if you're an investor, think about like how a wartime economy is and start positioning yourself that way. And I don't think that's bad advice per se. I know it's probably not what a lot of people want to hear. But I think it's reality staring us in the face. And yeah, that's about it. Yeah, that's all I got. Yeah.

So, well, thank you everyone for listening. We do appreciate all the support. Make sure if you haven't done so already, subscribe to our YouTube channel. We will be posting some more stuff. I've just dealing, I've been dealing a little bit with health issues. Dan, you know what it is. Nothing major, but I just kind of prevented me to not post as much as I would have wanted in the last couple of weeks.

I wanted to do some additional content outside of the podcast on YouTube. But we tested out a lot. went pretty well, so we might toy with the idea like we had mentioned doing some of them more often, maybe some even like weekly thing, short kind of YouTube live on the podcast, on the YouTube channel. So make sure you subscribe there. If you're looking for more content for us, make sure you check out join tci.com. We post our monthly portfolio updates every single month. So see exactly what we buy and sell, our exact portfolio and percentage breakdown. It's all there I also post my parents' retirement portfolio, which has been crushing the markets for the last

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Aside from that, thanks a lot for listening. We will be back for a news and earnings episode Thursday. And stay tuned on YouTube. Like I said, we'll have some more content and we'll give you a heads up at least a few days before we'll schedule a live recording. So if you turn on those notifications, you should get a notification when it does happen. So thanks for listening. We'll be back on Thursday. The Canadian Investor Podcast should not be construed as investment or financial advice.

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