From my desk: 2025 in the rearview and reading the road ahead for markets

Whew…2026 is finally here. Even with all the noise, the markets found a way to remain positive.

From where I’m standing, 2025 felt like a very long year. With so many headlines to absorb, it was hard to not get sucked in.  Whether it was our own domestic politics, or watching from afar, the geopolitical whirlwind unfolding in US and around the world—it was hard not to have opinions, debates, and meaningful conversations.

Having had the opportunity to travel across the country and speak with advisors made those conversations quite interesting, pointed, and vastly different – especially by region. The west coast was very US centric, the prairies leaned more conservative,  Ontario and Quebec focused on managing risk, and in Atlantic Canada, the perspective was a lot more Canada-centric.

While these discussions were often opinionated, one notion that stood out – something I haven’t seen before in my 20 year career in sales – is how patriotic we became. I think having the Blue Jays make the World Series was a timely rallying call that helped our country come together, especially with some of the rhetoric coming out of the US.

It's been nearly a year-to-the day since Trump’s inauguration. In that time, the world has shifted in mindset. Societies have either become more nationalistic or leaned into pluralism. It was a year in which we witnessed large-scale conflict and tragedy, yet – by the end of 2025 – both bond and equity markets were actually positive in returns. Markets remained very data-dependent and had seemingly blocked a lot of the noise out.

Of the four large core investment building blocks broken down by geography, from an annualized performance basis, S&P/TSX Capped Composite Index was actually the leader and led the charge being up over 31.68% (CAD), fueled by the gold and silver rally. Then came the MSCI EAFE index market, up 26.17% (CAD), followed by the MSCI EM index at 25.21% (CAD) and finishing off with the S&P 500 index market at 11.92% (CAD). From a fixed income perspective, the FTSE Canada Universe bond Index finished slightly positive at 2.64% (CAD)¹.

Where do we go now for 2026?

As a firm, we foresee broadening opportunities across global capital markets, driven by attractive profit growth outside the United States and global monetary policy easing. Yield curves look poised to steepen, and we expect the US dollar will remain weak.

Looking forward to seeing what’s in store for 2026!