Renewed trade tensions are back in focus as the European Union weighs retaliatory tariffs if the United States moves ahead with new levies on European imports. The developments are adding to market volatility, even as investors remain focused on earnings growth and interest rate expectations.
BNN Bloomberg spoke with Barry Schwartz, chief investment officer and portfolio manager at Baskin Wealth Management, about tariff risks, commodity prices, earnings momentum and why corporate profits remain the key driver for equities.
Key Takeaways
- Fresh tariff threats are increasing volatility but have historically proven to be buying opportunities when earnings fundamentals remain intact.
- Strong results from U.S. financials and Taiwan Semiconductor point to resilient economic growth and sustained demand tied to artificial intelligence.
- Canadian stocks are increasingly priced for a commodities supercycle, raising concerns that some valuations have moved well ahead of fundamentals.
- Gold, silver and copper prices reflect heightened uncertainty, but sharp rallies raise the risk of boom-and-bust reversals if growth slows.
- The bull market can continue if S&P 500 companies deliver expected double-digit earnings growth through 2026 and 2027.
Read the full transcript below:
ANDREW: The European Union is in talks to potentially impose tariffs on tens of billions of dollars’ worth of U.S. goods if President Donald Trump follows through on his threat to hit European countries with a 10 per cent levy if they oppose his takeover of Greenland. Let’s get more on this from Barry Schwartz, chief investment officer and portfolio manager at Baskin Wealth Management. Barry, thank you very much indeed for joining us. Uncertain times. What do you make of this from an investment point of view, this faceoff over Greenland?
BARRY: I’m going to start with a bad joke. I’m going to have tacos for lunch and hope that will be the case with this round of tariffs. You know, the bottom line, Andrew, is every one of these threats has been a buying opportunity for the S&P 500, right? It’s just, can you withstand the day-to-day volatility and the nonsense that comes with it? But no question, we’re glad the U.S. market is closed today, because it probably would have been a very terrible open. As for the TSX, you know, nothing can stop it, right? Because the Toronto silver and gold exchange seems to want to go up every single day, because we get more uncertain and nasty headlines every single day. So, you know, I am worried at some point this looks to me like what happened a few years ago with the marijuana stocks, where everybody needs to buy the same stocks and they’re just going up because they’re going up. And at some point in time, I think people are going to get their heads handed to them in this gold and silver trade, because it’s not that easy. Investing is not that easy. You can’t just buy a commodity and think it’s going to go up every single day for the rest of your life. So eventually some sanity will return to these markets. But this is the year we started off with. It’s been wild already. What are we, only 19 days into the year?
ANDREW: That’s interesting, though, your thesis that Trump makes threats — and then your taco reference, Trump always chickens out. People say that he backs down. Of course, that’s his style, perhaps make threats up front as an aggressive bargaining position. So that’s interesting, that you can, in theory, ride this stuff out if cooler heads prevail on the tariff front.
BARRY: Well, you raise a good point. And the question is, why can we ride this stuff out? And the reason we can is, look what happened last year. Corporate earnings were incredibly strong. We had double-digit earnings growth in the S&P 500. We had a terrific catch-up for a lot of underperformers in the Toronto Stock Exchange last year. And the rationale is interest rates are headed lower. Inflation — you know, even that Canadian number today is kind of misleading, as you pointed out, because of the handout of the lower GST that happened in 2024. Probably we should have got a lower GST in 2025. It’s not like things are that much better this year or 2026. But the bottom line for us is it’s all about corporate earnings. And the expectation for the S&P 500 as we head into 2026 is double-digit profit growth, as well as double-digit profit growth heading into 2027. So it’s hard to fight that tape. It’s also hard to fight a Federal Reserve that’s in lowering interest rates mode, especially because of the tamer inflation that we’re seeing and the weakness in the job market. So all these things put together should lead to a nicer corporate profit outlook. And over time, stocks follow earnings, as we all know.
ANDREW: Speaking of stocks that have gone up a lot, what about the good old banks? Barry, are you seeing value there, or are they getting pricey?
BARRY: They are pricey. But I think, as we all know, they were priced for calamity — calamitous times — as we came out of 2022, 2023, right? Interest rates got up so much. Everybody was worried about the Canadian economy, how it’s going to react to higher interest rates. And if they don’t cut those interest rates, there’s going to be defaults on mortgages. I mean, we’re still kind of seeing it, Andrew, in the real estate market. As you know, condos aren’t selling. Houses — it depends what area. We’re seeing so many of these private real estate companies gating redemptions, and so times are not exciting for developers, in fact the opposite. So, you know, we’re still on a tightrope in terms of a bunch of parts of the economy. On the other hand, we have to feel good about what Prime Minister Mark Carney is doing, signing trade deals, trying to open up relationships more with China. These are good things for Canada, as we hope to reduce our dependence on the United States.
ANDREW: And what about the copper party? Maybe you can have a look at copper. I’m not sure — I think copper is trading today, even though U.S. equity and bond markets are closed. I’m not 100 per cent sure, but copper at record highs too.
BARRY: Here’s the thing. We’re back to the supercycle that we had in the early 2000s. We all remember how badly it ended when Potash was the world’s biggest company and Teck Resources was going to go straight to the moon. People forget that commodities are the most boom-and-bust type of industry to be in. Why is copper at these levels? You know, we’re all so excited about the electrification of the grid, this AI demand, the fact that even with all this trade and tariff uncertainty, the economy around the world is still growing. And copper is not easy to find or get out of the ground. That being said, prices can reverse. I mean, that move — you’re looking at that chart — that move since the middle of 2025, straight up, parabolic, that does not make sense to me. That’s not how things should be going in terms of commodity prices. It obviously can go on for longer than people expect. But at some point, you know, people are going to be overpaying for a bunch of these commodities. And if the economy starts to slow down, if that’s the case, you don’t want to be overweight commodities. So I think the TSX — brilliant year in 2025, sure, I’m super jealous — but I’m not at all tempted to buy any of these commodity names at all-time high prices. It’s just ludicrous.
ANDREW: Why do you say super jealous, Barry?
BARRY: Well, because there was a great return on the Toronto stock market last year, close to 30 per cent. And no one who didn’t own commodities in size — gold, silver, you name it — did not catch up at all to the Toronto Stock Exchange. But if you look for many, many years, the Toronto stock market completely underperformed quality U.S. stocks for a number of years. But nothing grows to the sky. You can say that about quality stocks too. They probably had their day in the sun a few years ago and have to cool off. We’re in the commodity supercycle right now, where everybody’s so excited and pricing uranium as if we’re going to be building nuclear power plants everywhere. But the valuations are way, way ahead of themselves, in our opinion.
ANDREW: Apparently there are no plants under construction in America right now, and even if some are approved, they won’t be going until the 2030s.
BARRY: Well, yeah. People cannot do math in the short term. We get excited about the fear of missing out, and I get it. We’ve seen parabolic moves over the years in so many different commodity prices and different sectors. Throughout history, it always ends up poorly. It doesn’t mean that we’re not going to be using these things. It doesn’t mean that there’s not demand for these things. It just means sometimes we totally get ahead of ourselves in pricing commodities. People need to understand how volatile commodity prices are. When they’re working in your favour, you feel like you can’t lose, you’re a genius. But it can go against you really, really quickly, because demand can turn on a dime.
ANDREW: Barry, always great to hear from you. Thank you very much.
BARRY: Be safe out there.
ANDREW: Thanks. Barry Schwartz, chief investment officer and portfolio manager at Baskin Wealth Management.
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This BNN Bloomberg summary and transcript of the Jan. 19, 2026 interview with Barry Schwartz 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.
