Darren Sissons’ Top Picks for Dec. 8, 2025

Darren Sissons, Partner & Portfolio Manager, Campbell, Lee & Ross Investment Management

Focus: Global & Technology Stocks

Top picks: Brookfield Corp, Intercontinental Exchange, Straumann Holding AG

MARKET OUTLOOK:

The market surprised to the upside in 2025 after a tariff induced deep sell-off in April. The recovery catalyst was the May 2, 2025, U.S. Federal budget, which included a highly stimulative seven percent deficit and a 13 per cent increase in the defense budget. That signaling of inbound stimulative government spend was akin to pouring gasoline onto red hot embers. Growth names leapt upwards. Artificial intelligence added further upside to Big Tech and was a tailwind for electricity generating franchises.

Healthcare was hard hit by tariffs and the Most Favoured Nation (“MFN”) drug pricing policy, which collectively drove a deep sell-off across the broader sector. However, the market’s bias for selling first asking questions later supported the failure to weigh obvious workarounds and offsets. That MFN is largely a Medic Aid targeting policy addressing less affluent Americans implies a small to modest healthcare tariff impact. Equally so, the optionality of non-American companies utilizing their U.S.-based production facilities and or U.S. partnerships coupled with minor restructurings and perhaps some labour culls imply the Trump Administrations’ American Made policies are largely irrelevant.

Despite the easy money being made in broader healthcare in the summer of 2025 excellent risk adjusted value remains in the sector for new money. Europe was also poorly diagnosed vis-à-vis tariffs given the offsets and workarounds noted above so is attractively priced. Energy is value priced currently as are most defensive categories. Gold and precious metals look fully valued at least for the near term as does the crypto trade for those who participate.

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TOP PICKS:

Brookfield Corp (BN TSX)

• A rising dividend currently yielding 0.50 per cent.
• An asset accumulation business underpinned by a rising war chest of assets under management.
• Private capital franchises frequently outperform post recessions and or periods of economic weakness as investments made at inexpensive valuations are later divested at higher prices and valuation multiples.
• The public equities funding of the franchise provides a permanent funding mechanism to hold long lived assets without the need for divestiture, which is a major departure from the legacy institutionally funded past.
• Low interest rates will positively drive returns.
• Given high levels of national indebtedness across the developed world, a re-visit of the Margaret Thatcher initiated government asset sale thematic to lower national debt levels is a high probability catalyst for the company and its peers looking forward.
• The annualized five and ten returns are, 19.1 per cent and 16.5 per cent, respectively.

Intercontinental Exchange (ICE NYSE)

• A rising 1.2 per cent dividend.
• It is a net beneficiary of central bank printing presses, inflation, the mortgage market, and passive ETF and mutual fund flows.
• An asset light business model that requires modest capital expenditures to fund growth.
• Management is opportunistic growth by acquisition investors as the recent Polymarket investment highlights.
• Revenue and Net income have grown at an average annual ten-year rate of 11.6 per cent and 10.9 per cent, respectively.
• Given the 2025 share price decline and despite the headwinds of the strong U.S. Dollar, the company is attractively priced for new Canadian investors.

Straumann Holding AG (STMN SW)

• A Switzerland-based company with a 1 per cent rising dividend.
• The global leader in the restorative dentistry and dental implants market, which is growing organically at high single digits annually.
• A track record of an accretive +23 per cent annualized return on invested capital.
• An active tuck-in acquirer of technology and smaller regional competitors.
• Despite the continuous strengthening of the Swiss Franc, which is a major headwind, net profit grew at an annual average rate of 9.4 per cent in Canadian Dollars since 2015.
• Operationally, tariffs are a minor irritant as the company has a production site in Ann Arbor, Michigan and modest labour culls and a limited restructuring will minimize the tariff impact.
• It is attractively priced as U.S. tariffs on European healthcare, and the rotation out of healthcare post the Covid-era super cycle for broader healthcare, has seen its share price fall 35 per cent since Q4 2024.

PAST PICKS: DEC. 23, 2024

CSX (CSX NASD)

Then: US$32.22

Now: US$36.73

Return: 14%

Total Return: 16%

JPMorgan Chase (JPM NYSE)

Then: US$238.39

Now: US$315.81

Return: 32%

Total Return: 35%

Mettler-Toledo (MTD NYSE)

Then: US$1234.39

Now: US$1400.23

Return: 13%

Total Return: 13%

Total Return Average: 21%