The U.S. Thanksgiving break gave investors a chance to reassess diverging signals between major American indexes and the relative value emerging in Canadian equities, including the TSX’s multi-year performance strength.
BNN Bloomberg spoke with Ross Healy, chairman of Strategic Analysis Corporation, who outlined why he sees more stability in Canadian assets, opportunities in select gold and financial names and potential catalysts for undervalued bank stocks.
Key Takeaways
- Healy says the Nasdaq is showing technical weakness while the S&P 500 remains stable, echoing patterns last seen during the 2000 tech cycle.
- The TSX trades at less than half the U.S. market’s price-to-book value, suggesting Canadian equities offer more attractive entry points.
- AI-related stocks may be retreating under the weight of high valuations and rising costs tied to infrastructure build-outs.
- Gold stocks remain appealing as reserves grow and valuations stay low, with renewed investor interest boosting the sector.
- Healy highlights Fortuna Mining, Power Corp and Laurentian Bank as undervalued names with meaningful long-term potential.
Read the full transcript below:
ANDREW: The U.S. market is closed today for the Thanksgiving holiday. This gives Canadians time to pause and reflect on the performance of the S&P 500 and compare it to that of the TSX, and perhaps consider some Canadian stocks. We’re joined by Ross Healy, chairman at Strategic Analysis Corporation. Ross, thanks very much indeed. What’s top of mind for you today, with the U.S. market closed?
ROSS: Well, Andy, I’ll tell you the truth. I’m going to turn on my... there we are. That’s good.
ANDREW: We can see you now.
ROSS: I suddenly realized that I was in the dark there. At least I realized, looking at the U.S. market—oh, sorry, okay, we’ve got a fire department thing. Oh, come on. Sorry, Andy.
ANDREW: Do we have to break away, Ross? Is something happening? Should we come back?
ROSS: Yeah, we’ve got a fire alarm.
ANDREW: Okay, we’ll come back to you when possible. Ross, thanks very much. Let’s switch over now to have a look at commodities—copper. Copper of interest here. Let’s put up a one-year chart for copper, because the anticipated giant amount sparking M&A in that sector... you can see copper up 25 per cent in the past year. Maybe we could put up a five-year chart for XBM. I often cite this—it’s an ETF in Toronto—as a proxy for sentiment in the base-metal stocks. And look at that: they’re moving up, classic cyclical stocks. But of course, copper is a special case right now because of the anticipated massive electricity build-out. Let’s have a look at CEG now, which is Constellation Energy, a major electricity producer south of the border. We’ve seen stocks such as Nvidia and Oracle come off the boil as people reflect on the massive cost of the AI build-out. But—we’ll have a look at CEG in a second. I think we’ve got Ross Healy back.
Ross, thanks very much indeed. We’re going to put up a ten-year chart for the TSX Composite. It hasn’t been a bad run lately for our benchmark.
ROSS: Well, when you compare the valuation of the TSX to both the Nasdaq and the Standard & Poor’s, our index is way, way, way cheaper than theirs. In price-to-book terms, we’re about half—actually a little bit less than half—of the American market. And it looks very much to me as if there is going to be a swing towards Canadian assets, therefore, which are quite cheap. And you mentioned oil earlier, but oil, our banks and golds and so on...
When I look at the U.S. market, what I see is extreme uncertainty. The Standard & Poor’s and the Nasdaq have recently reached back to their peaks from the year 2000.
ANDREW: And sorry, in terms of valuation, Ross?
ROSS: In terms of the valuation, yes—in terms of their price-to-book, their valuation. And at that time, the S&P just held up there, and actually it looks as if it was kind of breaking out. The Nasdaq looks as if it tried to break out and is breaking back, I think under the pressure of the downward move in the AI stocks. So the U.S. market is at kind of sixes and sevens, whereas our market, I think, is quite clear. It’s cheap and the values are good—and the values are rising, by the way, which I like to see. So all in all, I think Canada is a safer place to invest.
ANDREW: I’m just looking here. We have very different markets, but over the past five years, our market—according to my Bloomberg screen, when you include dividends—is now ahead of the U.S. market, with a total return for the TSX of 108 per cent. That’s seven points ahead.
ROSS: That’s right. In a very long-term sense, Andy, if you look at the Canadian versus the U.S. market, there will be periods when the U.S. market outperforms and periods when the Canadian market outperforms. And I think we’re moving away from the U.S. market outperforming to the Canadian market outperforming.
ANDREW: Now, you have some stock ideas for us. Fortuna Mining—FVI. What attracts you there?
ROSS: First of all, it’s a very cheap gold stock compared to most of the other gold stocks. Secondly, it does what I like to see: it has excellent reserves, and the high-quality reserves are growing. When you’ve got a gold mine, you have to remember that every time you take something out of the ground, if you don’t replace it, your total values are declining. Well, that’s not happening with Fortuna. They are expanding. And when I look at a quality balance sheet, cheaper than the average Canadian gold stock, and expanding reserves—and I think, by the way, in a nice, politically stable environment in Côte d’Ivoire—all of those things add up, I think, to a very promising investment.
ANDREW: Certainly that stock has had a tremendous run. Another name that’s attracting you is Power Corporation, the financial conglomerate.
ROSS: I’ve been steadily recommending Power Corporation for the past three years to my clients, and for the first two it just sat there and didn’t do anything. Then this year, all of a sudden, it all came together and Power Corp has done very, very well. It is still, however, very cheap. I wish, instead of taking two years flat and then one year straight up, it had just given me 20 per cent a year—I’d have been happier. But that isn’t the way life unfolds. The stock, when you look at the historical peak, still has a nice way to run.
ANDREW: And then finally, Laurentian Bank. It has been a disappointment for investors over the years, but you see upside here?
ROSS: I do. Laurentian Bank is very cheap. And this reminds me, of course, a lot of Power Corp—just sitting there and sitting there and sitting there. “Why don’t you move? Why don’t you reflect those values?” you ask the market. Well, I have no doubt the market will reflect the values, but it’s going to take time. And when it does, I think we could see a very nice move in this stock.
ANDREW: What attracts you? What could ignite Laurentian Bank, do you think?
ROSS: I had thought for some time it would make a... and by the way, if you look at all the fundamentals of Laurentian Bank, it would make a superb acquisition for another Canadian bank. I thought, with TD being essentially shut out of the U.S. market, it would be an ideal acquisition—huge discount from its book value. You put the TD systems in there and the ROE on Laurentian Bank would just shoot up. It would be an absolute steal.
Another possibility is that an American bank decides it wants to come into Canada, and this would make a superb platform for that. However, if I go back in history and look at Laurentian Bank, I see that from time to time, whether anybody buys it or not, the market just says: “Hey, tremendous dividend, very cheap,” and up the stock goes. Forty-two dollars was the area people were hoping the company would sell itself at. It wasn’t able to do that. But nonetheless, that is still incredibly cheap, and I suspect that all by itself this stock is worth a good deal more.
ANDREW: Ross, thank you very much indeed. Ross Healy, chairman at Strategic Analysis Corporation.
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This BNN Bloomberg summary and transcript of the Nov. 27, 2025 interview with Ross Healy are published with the assistance of AI. Original research, interview questions and added context was created by BNN Bloomberg journalists. An editor also reviewed this material before it was published to ensure its accuracy and adherence with BNN Bloomberg editorial policies and standards.
