Chris White’s Top Picks for June 29, 2026

Chris White, Head of Research, 5i Research

Focus: Canadian equities

Top Picks: Robinhood Markets, EQB, Celestica

MARKET OUTLOOK:

For most of the past several months, the market headlines and investor sentiment revolved around the U.S. and Iran conflict, and in effect also the price of oil. Oil prices have essentially round tripped the war premium, back to pre-conflict levels, and I expect the markets to begin focusing their attention on other areas in the coming months.

One area that I’m watching closely are bond yields. The U.S. 10-year bond yield has been rising to elevated levels near 4.5 per cent, and historically at or above these levels, the market tends to see a lot of headwind pressure. Names related to artificial intelligence (AI) have been fairly insulated from the pressure of rising bond yields recently, but many other non-AI names have been seeing downward pressure from the high yields. I think if we begin to see bond yields fall and begin a downtrend that this could lead to a more broad-market rally, where growth names outside of AI can benefit.

For bond yields to drop, I think that gasoline futures are likely the first area to look at. We can see that the price of oil has largely round-tripped the war premium, but pump prices are still lagging behind and I think if we see gasoline prices drop dramatically, this could act as a leading indicator for future inflation readings, and thus bond yields can ease up.

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TOP PICKS:

Robinhood Markets (HOOD NASDAQ)

A lot of investors still view Robinhood as its story from 2020 and 2021, as simply a trading app for meme stocks and for speculation. But I believe that narrative is evolving, it has since evolved beyond just a trading app and into a diversified financial super-app. Robinhood is well-positioned because it owns the youngest, fastest-growing U.S. retail user base, built specifically for mobile-first. It’s building a real financial super-app, banking, retirement, credit cards, and prediction markets that are growing faster than anything else on the platform.

What surprises people the most is that net interest income, not crypto is Robinhood’s largest revenue segment at 34 per cent of sales. Crypto makes up about 13 per cent of total sales, and prediction markets are actually a slightly larger piece of sales than crypto. Yet, the stock still trades like a crypto proxy, moving on investor sentiment.

First quarter net revenue grew 15 per cent year-over-year to roughly US$1.1 billion, and gold subscribers are up 36 per cent year-over-year to a record US$4.3 million. It is not cheap around 40 times forward earnings, but management has done an excellent job at continuing to innovate and bring forward new products, and I think the boom in AI names right now can be a leading indicator for HOOD as a brokerage platform. If we continue to see AI names continue to perform well, I believe the market can broaden out to other areas, and investors will begin to trade and see opportunities in the market, which bodes well for HOOD.

EQB (EQB TSX)

EQB is Canada’s digital-first challenger bank, and as a result of being digital-first it can offer better rates on products than the Big six banks. EQB operates through two main divisions, personal banking and commercial banking, through its brands Equitable Bank and EQ Bank, it serves about 800,000 Canadians, with a strong niche in alternative mortgage lending.

The real story here is the PC Financial acquisition which is expected to close July 1. This acquisition would nearly quadruple its customer base to 3.3 million, adds $5.8 billion in assets and $800 million in retail deposits, and is expected to nearly double revenue. It also gives EQB a credit card franchise with over two million active accounts and makes it the exclusive financial partner of the PC Optimum loyalty program.

It trades around 12 times forward earnings with a dividend yield of two per cent, which I think is cheap if the integration goes smoothly. There will be some one-time integration costs, but overall this adds a solid credit card platform to an already strong cloud banking platform.

Celestica (CLS NYSE)

Celestica is the best Canadian AI infrastructure play, and they manufacture hardware that goes into the hyperscaler data centres. They take semiconductor chips, networking equipment, and the power systems to build the systems that can be dropped into data centres. Investors can think of them as a design partner, rather than just assembly. They recently announced a design partnership with AMD to design and manufacture a networking switch for its AI systems, and they separately landed a contract win designing a next-generation optical networking switch for a major hyperscaler – so these design wins are stacking up across multiple customers

Celestica has two main segments, its advanced technology solutions segment which is a diversified bucket across aerospace, healthcare, and the other is its cloud solutions, which is where the AI and hyperscaler data centre business lies. Five years ago, it was a more balanced split but today cloud and AI represents about 80 per cent of sales and is growing 76 per cent a year. Management raised full-year guidance to roughly 70 per cent earnings growth.

It does have customer concentration risk, with the top three customers making up 65 per cent of sales, but considering its growth rates and increasing hyperscaler partnerships, it trades at a reasonable valuation of 32 times forward earnings. The data centre buildout is a multi-year story, and it’s not just that we need to build more data centres, but it’s also that the data centres are getting more complex and require better networking and power technology to support the speeds these AI models require.

PAST PICKS: APRIL 13, 2026

TMX Group (X TSX)

Then: $51.16

Now: $46.06

Return: -10%

Total Return: -10%

Constellation Software (CSU TSX)

Then: $2441.42

Now: $2810.00

Return: 15%

Total Return: 15%

Shopify (SHOP TSX)

Then: $114.97

Now: $118.72

Return: 3%

Total Return: 3%

Total Return Average: 2.6%