Market volatility tied to geopolitics and artificial intelligence disruption is creating opportunities for active investors to reposition portfolios, according to Chris Kerlow. He says disciplined investors should use market weakness to deploy capital into high-quality assets rather than react emotionally to selloffs.
BNN Bloomberg spoke with Chris Kerlow, Senior Portfolio Manager & Investment Advisor at Canaccord Genuity, about opportunities in gold equities, cybersecurity and private AI-related investments, while explaining why he remains cautious on Alphabet and Meta.
Key Takeaways
- Investors should use periods of volatility to tactically deploy cash into high-quality companies, particularly during sharp market pullbacks and V-shaped recoveries.
- Artificial intelligence is creating long-term risks for traditional search and software business models, contributing to a cautious outlook on Alphabet and Meta.
- Precious metals remain an important long-term portfolio allocation, with gold producers providing leveraged exposure to higher commodity prices.
- Stack Capital offers retail investors exposure to private companies such as SpaceX, OpenAI and CoreWeave ahead of potential IPOs.
- Cybersecurity companies with established platforms and competitive advantages may be better positioned to withstand disruption from emerging AI technologies.
Read the full transcript below:
LINDSAY: Investors are awaiting any update from U.S. President Donald Trump, who is in China, along with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and other tech CEOs. Shares in Nvidia are getting a bounce on the hopes China might be open to buying more of Nvidia’s chips. Let’s get reaction and some ideas for your portfolio from Chris Kerlow, senior portfolio manager and investment advisor at Canaccord Genuity. It’s great to have you join us. Good morning.
CHRIS: Good morning.
LINDSAY: What are your thoughts on the trip to China? What do you expect to come out of this?
CHRIS: Well, we’ve been an owner of Nvidia since the inception of the team, LWC. U.S. Top Picks mandate. We haven’t placed much value on China and the opportunity to sell chips in the market. But it certainly looks like we’re getting closer by the day here. Like Jensen said at CES, physical AI is upon us, and this could be the ChatGPT moment for it. I believe all manufacturing and automation businesses are going to be impacted and turn into kind of these robotics companies. And so with their latest tech stack being almost 30 times faster than previous versions, we think that that latency issue and the ability to see that impact in the real world is here now.
LINDSAY: Looking at some of the other topics that might be on the agenda for this trip to China, Donald Trump also plans to talk to China’s leader Xi Jinping about the war in Iran. What have you learned as a portfolio manager during volatile markets that are brought on by the war? What do you expect to happen here with this potential conversation?
CHRIS: Well, last time I was on was March 20, and we were very active in deploying cash tactically into market weakness. We are strong believers of strategic and tactical asset allocation, moving around pieces, using dry powder when opportunities present themselves. You know, all dips have been bought since the COVID lows. We haven’t seen the typical W-shaped recovery. It’s been these sharp V-shaped reactions. And so as an investor, you need to set target prices, look for those opportunities, assess the information as it comes to you and be buyers on weakness.
LINDSAY: Okay, let’s talk about some of the tech stocks that you have recently dropped. We’ll go through a couple of names here, Alphabet and Meta. Tell us why you’re not as keen on these two at the moment.
CHRIS: Yeah. So we’re just generally underweight the media and entertainment subsector of the market. It’s about 10 per cent of the S&P 500. We haven’t owned Alphabet, but believe that the risk that we saw coming into 2026 with software companies being hit by the challenges that could be presented by AI. Alphabet, the artist formerly known as Google, clearly is at a huge risk for their search business being disrupted, which is still about 58 per cent of revenue. Meta was a name we dumped last time I came on back in about February. We think that the stock had gotten ahead of itself. Earnings growth was coming back down, and you can see it hasn’t participated in this tech-led rally off the April lows. In that space, though, we still have Netflix. With the Paramount deal behind them, we see an opportunity there that there could be more capital appreciation. And back in April, we talked about the addition of Palo Alto Networks, a security that we don’t think will be as disrupted by the AI regime because of the breadth and stack that they’ve made around and created a moat around their business.
LINDSAY: In terms of commodities, particularly gold, you say Alamos Gold is a cleaner way to own gold. Tell us why you think that.
CHRIS: Yes, we believe that precious metals in general have shown to be a permanent place in portfolios, not just a tactical addition during times of volatility. Alamos and most producers are still a great way to get leverage exposure. You can see the chart of Alamos strongly reflects the movement in the commodity. After a strong run-up until March, we’ve seen the lows tested twice here on gold, and the dips have been bought, showing that the demand for the physical metal is remaining strong. Even India today, one of the largest consumers of the yellow metal, is imposing an import tax to try to take advantage of the 86 tonnes of gold that they’re producing on a monthly basis. Not only gold, silver provides a fantastic opportunity as both the precious metal and as an industrial metal. Silver is the most conductive metal in the world. It could end up being the copper of space because of its ability in both thermology and electricity.
LINDSAY: The copper of space. I haven’t heard that one yet. Okay, you also like Stack Capital. Tell us what opportunities you’re seeing there.
CHRIS: Yeah. So Stack is a group we’ve been working closely with over the years. We added a substantial position in the summer through a private placement at $13.75, with some warrant coverage. I think it’s one of the greatest ways for a retail investor to get exposure to some of these near-IPO opportunities such as SpaceX or OpenAI. They’re the two biggest positions, as well as CoreWeave, in their overall portfolio. When we entered the position, we saw the company trading below the net asset value. Pretty easy to value this company. Just add up the sum of the parts of the holdings they have in the portfolio. Something like SpaceX still trading below what the rumoured value will be at the IPO of possibly $2 trillion. And so if people are looking for a way to get exposure to some of those companies that aren’t yet public, Stack’s a great way to do that. And with our relationship, we provide our investor an opportunity to co-invest in some of those directly over time.
LINDSAY: You mentioned OpenAI, and I did want to ask you, investors now awaiting OpenAI’s potential IPO. Are you in the buy camp for this one?
CHRIS: We own it indirectly. We were big participants in offering memorandum funds that do secondary offerings. And so basically, the IPO market was closed for quite a substantial amount of time following kind of the doldrums of 2022 for the tech sector. That’s obviously opened back up, so we were able to buy shares of OpenAI through our partners at Overbay and others at a large discount. We recently looked at an opportunity to invest in Anthropic. It kind of came and went so quickly, as these companies are being marked up very, very fast. And so we wouldn’t be buyers here at this level, as we already have exposure from earlier rounds of financing.
LINDSAY: Okay, just wanted to ask you that. We’ll get to your last pick now, and that is Palo Alto Networks. What is it that you like about this company?
CHRIS: Yeah, so Palo Alto was a name we added at the start of the year as that aforementioned tech selloff was taking place. Market leader in cybersecurity. Just came out with great numbers that showed the Street was kind of wrong in discounting the company back down here, back near all-time highs. A little harder to get behind a buy position, but we still hold the name, very encouraged, and think that it’s a bit of an overexaggeration that the likes of Anthropic and Claude will be able to disrupt what Palo Alto has built over decades of work.
LINDSAY: Okay, we’ll leave it there. Chris Kerlow, senior portfolio manager and investment advisor at Canaccord Genuity, appreciate you joining us today. Thanks so much.
CHRIS: Thanks for having me.
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This BNN Bloomberg summary and transcript of the May 13, 2026 interview with Chris Kerlow 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.
