The best stock to have in your portfolio was data centre operator Bitfarms Ltd., with an eye-popping 247.8% return over the 90 days to September 30, followed by cannabis producer Curaleaf Holdings Inc. (233%) and uranium miner Energy Fuels Inc. (171.5%).
The 213-member S&P/TSX Composite—the standard index of Canadian stocks—gained 11.8% over the period. Its total return, including dividends, was 12.5%. These numbers compared favourably with the S&P 500 in the U.S., which returned 7.8% (8.1% total return) in Q3.
Of the 296 mid- to large-capitalization stocks in Canada (with a market value of $2 billion or more), the standouts included technology, cannabis, uranium, fast fashion, and gold companies—the domain of risk-takers. One of the top 10 performers (listed below), Cresco Labs Inc., started the quarter as a penny stock.
Canada’s best dividend stocks
Bitfarms has benefited lately from gains in the value of bitcoin, which it “mines,” and demand for data centres due to the artificial intelligence (AI) boom. The Toronto-headquartered company’s second-quarter revenue was up 87% year over year.
Curaleaf, which is based in Wakefield, Mass., joined the S&P/TSX Composite in September, becoming the only cannabis producer on the index. Inclusion in a major index usually boosts a company’s stock price as index funds are forced to add it to their portfolios. Curaleaf has also been buoyed by social media posts by U.S. President Donald Trump apparently in favour of wider cannabis legalization and Medicare funding for medical applications.
Lakewood, Colo.-based Energy Fuels’ growth has been driven by rising uranium prices and the Trump administration’s determination to boost nuclear energy use and supply chains in the United States. The company also has a sideline in rare earth elements, a market currently dominated by China but in which the U.S. seeks to develop its own supplies.
Here are Canada’s top 10 best performing mid- to large-cap momentum stocks for Q3 2025:
A hot streak in one three-month period is no guarantee of continued gains, especially for smaller or unprofitable companies in volatile industries. But momentum has been demonstrated to be a positive factor in investing, more often than not. There is no consensus on the optimal holding period for further price growth, though. Some investors say just a few months; others, a year or more.
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Momentum investing can be complemented with other factors such as value, growth, or dividend investing, helping ensure investors don’t end up simply buying stocks at high prices, only to see them fall thereafter.
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Michael is a financial writer and editor in Duncan, B.C. He’s a former managing editor of Canadian Business and editorial director of Canada Wide Media. He also writes for The Globe and Mail and BCBusiness.
Of course, those with guaranteed-for-life, taxpayer-backed, defined benefit pension plans may well be in an enviable position. I often wonder why the usual media financial profiles of senior couples even bother when their subjects both enjoy such pensions.
Sadly, most of us are not in such a fortunate position. We may have cobbled together a couple of small private-sector pensions over the years, but for the most part what wealth we have is in RRSPs/RRIFs, TFSAs and non-registered savings, which rise and fall with financial markets. From what I see at the new Retirement Club (which I wrote about in this space this past summer) most of those in the so-called retirement risk zone realize they are in effect their own pension managers, which means paying close attention to the markets.
Retirement Club co-founder Dale Roberts posted a typically anxious commentary on a recent The Globe and Mail column by Dr. Norman Rothery, CFA. Rothery, a celebrated value-stock picker who runs the StingyInvestor.com site, suggested the current environment of Trump-inspired tariffs and global trade wars is causing plenty of anxiety for this group. In the link, summarized as “With today’s market, investors close to retirement face precarious times,” Rothery said investors on the cusp of retirement are “facing peril from a combination of the unusually lofty U.S. stock market and political uncertainty that’s disrupting world trade.”
U.S. stocks trading at worrying levels
The U.S. stock market is “trading at worrying levels,” based on several value factors, Rothery said: the S&P 500 Index is “trading at a cyclically adjusted price-to-earnings ratio near 39—above its peak of 33 in 1929 and approaching its top of 44 in late 1999, based on monthly data. Similarly the index’s price-to-sales ratio is approaching its 1999 high. A broader composite measure that includes many different market factors indicates that the U.S. market’s valuation is at record levels.”
Rothery concluded it’s “likely that the U.S. stock market will generate unusually poor average real returns over the next decade or so.”Unfortunately,the U.S. now represents about 65% of the world’s stock market by market capitalization based on its weight in the MSCI All-Country World Index at the end of August. So if the U.S. market flops, “It’ll likely take the rest of the world with it— at least temporarily,” Rothery cautioned.
This could affect recent retirees just beginning to draw down portfolios, due to “sequence-of-returns risk.” That means those in the retirement risk zone who suffer early losses could eventually be in danger of outliving their savings. Rothery also references the famous 4% rule of financial planner and author William Bengen: the theory that investors in a 55/40/5 stocks/bonds/cash portfolio should be able to sustain retirement savings for 30 years provided the annual “SafeMax” withdrawal not exceed 4% a year after adjusting for inflation. Bengen has just released a new book titled A Richer Retirement: Supercharging the 4% Rule to Spend More and Enjoy More, which this column may review next month.
Can defensive funds reduce the risk?
At the Retirement Club, members anxiously posed questions in the site’s chat room about whether they should be moving to cash and bonds, gold, or other alternatives to U.S. stocks. To this, Roberts—who also runs his own Cutthecrapinvesting blog—warned against getting too defensive but agreed that a move to a 70% fixed income/30% stocks allocation might work for some nervous early retirees. Personally, he has trimmed back his U.S. growth stock exposure and added to defensive exchange-traded fund (ETF) sectors like consumer staples, health care, and utilities. He also mentioned a U.S. equity ETF trading in Canadian dollars: iShares Core MSCI US Quality Dividend ETF (XDU.T)
Advisor and certified financial planner John De Goey, of Toronto-based Designed Wealth Management, took a similarly cautious stance in his recent (Sept 12) speech at the MoneyShow in Toronto, archived here on YouTube. Titled “Bullshift and Misguided beliefs,” the talk expanded on De Goey’s usual themes of advisor bullishness and complacent investors, also articulated in his 2023 book, Bullshift. De Goey suggests many advisors believe their own bullish messages, often to the detriment of the performance of their own investment portfolios.
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In the talk, De Goey said the U.S. economy is getting dangerous for investors. “A whole series of economic indicators are flashing red… Despite that a lot of Canadian investors are piling into the U.S. market.” U.S. stocks now account for more two thirds of the global stock market and many Canadians are overweight U.S. stocks, De Goey said, referencing the same elevated CAPE ratio that Rothery cited.
But the “real pain of the tariffs that was expected in April is now just around the corner, as stockpiled inventories get used up.” Trump’s 2025 tariffs are a case of “déjà vu all over again,” De Goey said, comparing them to the protectionist Smoot-Hawley tariffs of 1930, which ushered in the Great Depression. The U.S. now has its most corrupt administration in history, he said, so “expect chaos.” But investors are being “gaslit” by the financial industry. “There’s clear evidence mutual fund registrants are prone to herding/collective stupidity… and it seems the industry is the culprit because who else could it be?” In short, he believes optimism is good for business in the financial industry.
Peter Grandich, a veteran U.S. investor and author, is also bearish about U.S. stocks. His 2011 autobiography was titled Confessions of a Former Wall Street Whiz Kid. Having experienced three major financial panics in his 41-year career (1987, 2000 and 2008), he recently told clients he believes “we’re on the threshold of economical, social, and political crisis, which I believe can make those other three look like a walk in the park in comparison.” His personal asset allocation consists of only cash, T-bills, and three speculative junior resource stocks. “I certainly am not suggesting others consider such a portfolio, but I do believe capital preservation must overwhelm capital appreciation positions. Because corporate bond yields are now so close to Treasury bond yields, I don’t wish to own any. I suspect such a view is rarer than finding a needle in a haystack, but I never have been more adamant in needing to personally be a live chicken versus a dead duck.” (In September, Grandich interviewed me on his podcast.)
But first, a global “melt-up”?
Not everyone is so bearish. One newsletter I subscribe to argues markets will continue to “melt up” in multiple asset classes: stocks, crypto, gold and silver. And while they may well correct in 2026 or so, market strategist Graham Summers argued late in September that “The great global melt-up is accelerating now” so “investors need to take advantage of this while it lasts.”
Dale Roberts and Retirement Club members believe new and would-be retirees can find shelter in traditional asset allocation, taking partial profits in overvalued U.S. stocks and moving to more reasonably priced international and Canadian equities. Asked whether the popular global asset allocation ETFs can protect retirees against overvalued U.S. stocks, De Goey said such products may soften the blow “but right now the U.S. represents almost two-thirds of global stock market capitalization. So, if all your stocks were in a single global ETF or mutual fund with a cap-weighted mandate, you’d have massive exposure to a massively overvalued market.”
Using annuities and other defensive investments
Investors can instead focus on defensive sector ETFs that overweight niches like consumer staples, utilities and health care. Low-volatility ETFs from providers like BMO ETFs, iShares and Harvest ETFs tend to overweight such defensive sectors and underweight overvalued stocks like the technology giants. However De Goey downplays how well low-volatility ETFs work in bear markets. “If the market falls by 25% and the investor can handle that, they may not need such an ETF. “Low-volatility products are more defensive than market-cap weighted products, but it all depends on how investors react and behave when things go south.”
Asked whether RRSP/RRIF investors can buy protection from market volatility through annuitization or partial annuitization, De Goey said maybe, but he prefers products like the Purpose Longevity Fund, a mutual fund “which offers pension-style diversification and aims to replicate annuity payments for the remainder of the unitholder’s life.”
On protecting against Trump’s trade wars, De Goey agreed retirees should have exposure to the gold and precious metals sectors. His clients are 10% in gold and 8% in resources stocks through products such as Mackenzie Core Resources ETF (TSX:MORE), up 33% this year.
Oracle Power plc (LON:ORCP – Get Free Report)’s share price traded up 64.7% on Saturday . The stock traded as high as GBX 0.03 ($0.00) and last traded at GBX 0.03 ($0.00). 1,772,197,625 shares traded hands during trading, an increase of 700% from the average session volume of 221,636,516 shares. The stock had previously closed at GBX 0.02 ($0.00).
Oracle Power Trading Up 64.7%
The firm has a market capitalization of £4.37 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of -280.00 and a beta of 1.44. The company has a fifty day moving average price of GBX 0.02 and a two-hundred day moving average price of GBX 0.02. The company has a current ratio of 3.74, a quick ratio of 5.67 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 9.98.
Oracle Power Plc (AIM: ORCP) is an international project developer in the natural resources and energy sectors. The Company is currently committed to two areas of focus: Western Australia, home to two of Oracle’s highly prospective gold projects, and Pakistan, where it is working to establish one of the largest hydrogen production facilities in the region. Located in the wind corridor in Jhimpir, Pakistan, The Green Hydrogen project is being developed on a fast-track basis thanks to the joint venture (JV) formed between Oracle and His Highness Shaikh Ahmed Dalmook Al Maktoum (through his wholly owned company, Kaheel Energy Limited). The JV intends to support the global transition to a carbon neutral future through establishing Pakistan as one of the main Green Hydrogen players in the region, to meet global demand for clean hydrogen forecasted to be 660 million metric tons in 2050.
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The SEC and FINRA have launched an investigation into suspicious trading activity before publicly traded companies announced plans to acquire crypto.
Regulators believe some investors may have profited from having prior, non-public knowledge of these crypto-treasury announcements, potentially violating fair disclosure rules.
Possible Breach of Fair Disclosure Rules
The investigation focuses on publicly traded digital asset treasury (DAT) firms, which are companies that declare plans to acquire capital and buy cryptocurrencies. More than 200 DATs went public this year, and some of them are currently in contact with regulators.
Regulators identified “suspicious trading patterns”, including high trading volume spikes and sudden price rises in the days or hours before firms announced their crypto-buying plans. The actions suggest that at least some investors might have been profiting by trading on inside information.
SEC officials have already cautioned several companies over potential Regulation Fair Disclosure (Reg FD) breaches, a provision requiring material, nonpublic information to be broadly disclosed rather than selectively. The financial watchdog is concerned that some were tipped about impending crypto buys and profited by selling the companies’ stock ahead of the news release.
Experts agree that these breaches put market value at risk and expose businesses to legal repercussions and reputational consequences. Even in the larger non-crypto financial market, the agency has never had such reservations about Reg FD violations. Therefore, this level of scrutiny raises the likelihood that crypto-treasury firms will face tighter restrictions in the near future.
Corporate Crypto Boom Under the Microscope
The investigation occurs against a backdrop of more businesses moving to adopt cryptocurrency. Early movers have already helped digital asset treasuries attract over $20 billion in venture capital this year, with more than $100 billion committed to crypto buying plans.
Public firms now hold over 1 million BTC, valued at $113 billion, and 5.26 million ETH, worth $20.6 billion. Monthly DAT raises peaked at $6.2 billion in July, representing the highest single-month total ever recorded.
Regulators now face the challenge of ensuring this growing trend does not open new avenues for insider trading and selective disclosure.
Advocates argue that investment by corporate treasuries signals confidence in the long-term value of cryptocurrencies. However, there remain concerns over the pace at which companies disclose market information and raise funds, which could encourage selective disclosure, leaks, and manipulative trading.
The SEC and FINRA have said that the crypto treasury boom must operate within existing securities laws and are moving proactively against suspicious patterns. If misconduct is uncovered, enforcement action could follow, setting a precedent for future regulation of corporate digital asset adoption.
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On an adjusted basis, BlackBerry says it earned four cents US per share for the quarter compared with zero cents US per share a year earlier.
Revenue for the company’s latest quarter totalled US$129.6 million, up from US$126.2 million a year earlier. The increase came as its QNX segment revenue rose to US$63.1 million, up from US$54.7 million a year ago, while secure communications revenue fell to US$59.9 million compared with US$66.5 million. Licensing revenue amounted to US$6.6 million, up from $5.0 million a year earlier.
In its outlook for its full year, BlackBerry says it now expects full year revenue of US$519 million to US$541 million, up from earlier guidance for US$508 million to US$538 million.
The company also raised its guidance for its adjusted earnings per share for its full year to between 11 cents US and 15 cents US, up from earlier expectations for between eight cents US and 10 cents US.
Air Canada lowers full-year guidance as hit from strike estimated at $375M
Air Canada (TSX:AC)
Adjusted guidance for the year:
Previous: $3.2 billion to $3.6 billion
Adjusted: $2.9 billion to $3.1 billion
Source Google
Air Canada has lowered its guidance for the year after taking a hit from the flight attendant strike that took place earlier this summer. The Montreal-based airline said in a press release that it estimates the cost of the labour disruption was $375 million on operating income and adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization.
Air Canada said that it now expects to make between $2.9 billion and $3.1 billion in adjusted EBITDA for the full year. This is in comparison to the airline’s previous 2025 guidance that it suspended in August, which had projected adjusted EBITDA between $3.2 billion and $3.6 billion.
For the third quarter, Air Canada said it expects operating capacity to decline by around 2% from the same period last year, due to the cancellation of more than 3,200 flights. It also expects operating income between $250 million and $300 million during the quarter.
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The airline said three factors combined for the $375 million financial impact of the strike. The first is an estimated $430 revenue hit from refunds, customer compensation and lower travel bookings. It also had about $90 million in incremental costs associated with reimbursements for customers and some labour operating costs. However, the company also saved $145 million, primarily due to lower fuel costs, which reduced the loss.
The Air Canada flight attendant strike lasted three days and ended on Aug. 19, though it took longer to ramp up to full operations.
Earlier this month, Air Canada flight attendants massively rejected the employer’s wage offer, with the airline saying the wage portion will now be referred to mediation as previously agreed to by both sides.
The tentative deal that was voted down raised wages for workers and established a pay structure for time worked when aircraft are on the ground.
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However, David Goldreich, a finance professor at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management, says stock splits are sometimes seen by investors as a positive signal. “When the manager does a split, it is reasonable to interpret it as management is confident that the future is looking good,” he said. He said if executives at a company are expecting a rough patch that could hurt the price of its shares, it’s unlikely they will want to split them, but if they are optimistic about future growth, a split might be more likely.
Goldreich said companies sometimes split their shares to keep their share price within what is seen as a “normal range,” which he puts at between $50 and $100 per share.
Stock splits make shares cheaper, not more valuable
Stock splits don’t create any shareholder value, they only divide the ownership of a company into smaller pieces. If you own 100 shares in a company with a share price of $10 each and it splits it shares two-for-one, you double the number of shares you own, not the value of your holdings. Your investment in dollar terms remains the same. Instead of owning 100 shares with a price of $10 per share worth a total of $1,000, you now own 200 shares at a price of $5 per share—the total worth is still $1,000.
When grocery retailer Loblaw Cos. Ltd. split its stock last month on a four-for-one basis, it said it was doing it to ensure its shares remained accessible to retail investors and its employees that participate in its employee share ownership plan, and to improve liquidity. Loblaw shares were trading for more than $200 a piece before the split, making it a pricey purchase for small individual investors looking to buy a position of 100 shares in the company.
Will Gornall, an associate professor at UBC’s Sauder School of Business, uses the analogy of a pizza when explaining how a stock split works. If you have three pieces of pizza and they are split two-for-one, you end up with six pieces of pizza, but the total amount of pizza you have is the same, the pieces are just smaller. “It’s not really changing the fundamentals of the company in any way, just like if you slice the pizza differently, you’re not creating more pizza,” Gornall said. “The amount of pizza hasn’t changed, but now you have more slices.”
It’s the same for stocks.
Chipmaker Nvidia, which split its stock 10-for-one last year, said it was doing it to make its stock more accessible to employees and investors. Shares in Nvidia were trading for about US$1,200 each before the split last year. The move brought the share price down to about US$120 per share immediately after the split, but the overall shareholder value of the company was unchanged.
Canada’s best dividend stocks
How stock splits affect dividends and taxes
Goldreich added that when dividend-paying companies split their shares, they generally adjust their dividend to match the split to keep things constant. But if a company keeps the same payment per share after the split, it effectively increases the dividends paid to shareholders. If that happens in a two-for-one share split, “essentially what they’re doing is they’re doubling the dividends,” Goldreich said.
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There are also adjustments that have to be made when it comes to taxes when you sell shares that have been split since you bought them. For example, if you bought 100 shares for $10 each and they split two-for-one, your cost for the shares when calculating the capital gain when you sell them needs to be adjusted. While you paid $10 per share when you bought them, the adjusted cost after the two-for-one split becomes $5 per share because you now hold twice the number of shares. That means if you sold the shares after the split for $10 each, you would realize a $5 gain per share.
Goldreich said the key thing to remember is that there is no free money with stock splits. While you may have more shares in a company, that doesn’t mean your investment is worth any more. “You can’t magically become richer,” he said.
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Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang called it “a fusion of two world-class platforms” that combines Intel’s strength in making conventional computer chips, known as CPUs, that power most laptops, with Nvidia’s focus on the specialized graphics chips that are critical for artificial intelligence. “This partnership is a recognition that computing has fundamentally changed,” Huang told reporters Thursday. “The era of accelerated and AI computing has arrived.”
Intel shares jumped nearly 23%, its biggest one-day percentage gain since 1987. Nvidia shares added more than 3%.
Nvidia deal and U.S. backing give Intel a much-needed boost
For data centres, Intel will make custom chips that Nvidia will use in its AI infrastructure platforms. For personal computer products, Intel will build chips that integrate Nvidia technology.
The agreement provides a lifeline for Intel, which was a Silicon Valley pioneer that enjoyed decades of growth as its processors powered the personal computer boom, but fell into a slump after missing the shift to the mobile computing era unleashed by the iPhone’s 2007 debut. Intel fell even farther behind in recent years amid the AI boom that’s propelled Nvidia into the world’s most valuable company. Intel lost nearly $19 billion last year and another $3.7 billion in the first six months of this year, and expects to slash its workforce by a quarter by the end of 2025.
U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration stepped in last month to secure a 10% stake—433.3 million shares of non-voting stock priced at $20.47 apiece—making it one of Intel’s biggest shareholders. Federal officials said they invested in Intel in order to bolster U.S. technology and domestic manufacturing. Of Nvidia’s own Intel stake, Huang said “the Trump administration had no involvement in this partnership at all,” though “would have been very supportive, of course.”
Intel’s stock price surge Thursday pushed the total value of the U.S. government’s stake in Intel to $13.2 billion, a $2.5 billion increase from before Nvidia’s announcement.
Canada’s best dividend stocks
Nvidia–Intel pact a “game-changer” for U.S. tech
Huang said Nvidia has been in talks with Intel for about a year. Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan, who joined the press call with Huang on Thursday, said he’s been talking to Nvidia since he was named Intel’s new leader in March. “This is a very big, important milestone,” Tan said. “I call it a game-changing opportunity that we can work together.”
The deal is “bullish for U.S. tech,” Wedbush Securities analyst Daniel Ives said in a client note. Ives said it brings Intel “front and center into the AI game” and, combined with the U.S. government stake, adds to “a golden few weeks for Intel after years of pain and frustration for investors.”
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Nvidia, meanwhile, has soared because its specialized chips are underpinning the AI boom. The chips, known as graphics processing units, or GPUs, are highly effective at developing powerful AI systems.
Left out of the celebration Thursday was another U.S. chipmaking rival, Advanced Micro Devices. Shares in the leading maker of both GPUs and CPUs dropped slightly Thursday. AMD, Intel, and Nvidia are all headquartered in Santa Clara, California.
Chip rivalry intensifies as China boosts Huawei and bans Nvidia
The deal between Nvidia and Intel comes as China moves to be less dependent on U.S. semiconductor technology. This week, Chinese officials reportedly forbade several large domestic technology companies from purchasing Nvidia chips, and China-based Huawei announced that it was expanding its development of AI chips and manufacturing.
While Nvidia and Intel will work together to develop new chips, a manufacturing deal has yet to be struck between the two. The potential access to Intel’s chip foundries by Nvidia poses a risk to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, which currently manufactures the tech giant’s flagship processors. Huang emphasized Thursday that both his company and Intel remain “very successful customers” of TSMC. Huang has been in Britain on a visit that coincides with Trump’s trip to the country, and he has been attending events with the president along with other Silicon Valley bigwigs.
At a signing ceremony for a trans-Atlantic tech partnership on Thursday with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Trump mused that AI was “taking over the world.” “I’m looking at you guys. You’re taking over the world, Jensen,” Trump said. Huang and Trump also both attended a royal banquet, prompting the tech mogul to dish about the Windsor Castle event to Intel’s CEO in the seconds before their press event. “The cognac was excellent, but just not enough of it,” Huang told Tan. “I guess the cognac was from 1912.”
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