The craze in artificial intelligence investing has bypassed Canadian equities markets and left its key index to chase higher-flying stocks in New York. Strategists in both countries think that will reverse in the second half of 2023.
(Bloomberg) — The craze in artificial intelligence investing has bypassed Canadian equities markets and left its key index to chase higher-flying stocks in New York. Strategists in both countries think that will reverse in the second half of 2023.
The S&P/TSX Composite Index has eked out a 2.2% gain so far this year, directly in line with the Dow Jones Industrial Average. But it has vastly underperformed the S&P 500, which is up 15%, thanks to a surge in its biggest market sector — information technology — that’s been fueled by an AI investing bonanza.
BofA Securities Inc. strategist Ohsung Kwon ascribed 85% of the divergence between the Canadian index and the US benchmark to the surge in tech. Going forward, however, he sees Canadian equities bouncing back and offering longer-term upside as well as a rotation from growth stocks — including in the tech sector — back into value stocks that Canadian markets are known for.
“We think that the old economy is going to be the big winner from AI,” he said, adding that sectors with larger weightings in Canada — like financials, materials and energy — will eventually enjoy efficiency benefits from AI without spending the money to develop it.
Tech companies account for just 7.7% of the S&P/TSX Composite, a weighting that is smaller than financials, energy, industrials and materials. Still, it has topped the leader board so far this year in Toronto.
Ottawa-based Shopify Inc., which is up 77%, did catch at least part of the AI wave after launching a new AI shopping assistant powered by OpenAI’s ChatGPT AI in May when it released its first quarter results. The stock will benefit more from the technology in the coming quarters, said Ivana Delevska, founder and chief investment officer at SPEAR Invest.
READ: May 4, Shopify Jumps Most Since 2015 on New Job Cuts, Logistics Sale
Still Shopify’s gains are dwarfed by the likes of AI-darling Nvidia Corp., which has risen 194% year to date.
“It’s easy to say Canada has kind of missed the boat on AI,” CIBC Capital Markets Managing Director Ian de Verteuil said by phone, pointing to the powerhouse of a tech market in the US that has it surging ahead of virtually every other country. “I don’t think there’s any other place in the world that are really good at competing.”
The first-half rally in US equities has been “very narrow” and contained to a handful of mega-cap tech stocks, Purpose Investments Chief Investment Officer Greg Taylor said by phone, noting the performance gap between the S&P 500 and the S&P Equal Weight Index has widened sharply in the first half of the year. Stocks in Toronto have performed more like the equal weight S&P 500 this year, he said.
By contrast, three of Canada’s largest market sectors — financials, energy and materials — have “vastly underperformed this year,” AGF Investments Vice-President and portfolio manager Mike Archibald said, adding those cyclical sectors have weighed on Canadian indexes. Oil prices have been range-bound below $75 a barrel, base metals have struggled to rise amid Chinese economic weakness and “the banking crisis obviously wasn’t helpful,” Archibald said.
To be sure, consensus estimates on Toronto’s Bay Street has the TSX rising 18% from here, compared with Wall Street expectations of a 9.5% gain for the S&P 500.
In order for the TSX to hit that target, investors need more confidence in the earnings outlook for energy, financial and materials sectors — and the companies in those sectors have not provided that confidence, BMO Capital Markets Chief Investment Strategist Brian Belski. He has an S&P/TSX year-end price target at 22,500, up about 13.5% from current levels.
“I think the banks and most Canadian companies continue to be positioning for a downturn that may actually not happen in the economy, and they’re playing defense, defense, defense and retrenching – and I think that could be a mistake,” he said.
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