This Week’s Highlights
- Oil Surge from Iran War Fuels Canadian Inflation Spike in March
- Apple Names New CEO as Tim Cook Steps Aside After 15 Years
- The Best Global Stock Funds and ETFs to Buy
- This Small-Cap ETF is Hard to Beat
- This Quality Stock Trades at a Surprising Discount. Is It a Must-Buy?
The Canadian stock market closed out the week in the red, falling 1.3%, as uncertainty around the Iran war continued to inject volatility. That said, Canadian stocks are still up nearly 7% for the year.
Earnings season is in full swing for TSX and S&P 500 companies. Canadian telecom giant Rogers RCI.B reported first-quarter earnings on April 22. Morningstar analyst Matthew Dolgin says the stock is “extraordinarily cheap”, even with its double-digit post-earnings rise. Electric vehicle giant Tesla TSLA shares fell slightly on the company’s first-quarter earnings release as management raised capital expenditure guidance. Business process software leader ServiceNow NOW rode strong demand to turn in impressive quarterly revenue growth.
Next week, expect earnings reports from names like e-commerce major Shopify SHOP, gold miner Agnico Eagle AEM, and apparel maker Gildan GIL. Among US stocks, tech heavyweights Alphabet GOOG, Microsoft MSFT, and Meta META are among the big companies slated to report.
Meanwhile, Canadians are still experiencing higher gas prices, thanks to the war in the Middle East. As a result, inflation jumped in March, reversing the trend of the past two months. Here’s a roundup of analyst reactions to the March Consumer Price Index report. Speaking of inflation, this timely piece from Leslie Norton explains why investors may want to position for a prolonged, 1960s-like environment of steadily rising inflation.
The Iran war also underscores the importance of portfolio diversification through exposure to a wider set of sectors and markets. For investors looking for opportunities beyond their North American backyard, Tom Lauricella screened global stock funds that offer broad geographic dispersion and cost efficiency. These funds have solid odds of outperforming their peers, according to Morningstar analysts. And for market cap diversification, Morningstar’s Zachary Evens shines the spotlight on a small-cap fund that offers unique exposure to fast-growing companies in the US market.
Despite the week’s tech rally, which pushed the Nasdaq to a new all-time high, one key blue-chip stock remains surprisingly undervalued. Find out what it is in this deep dive from Morningstar analyst William Kerwin.
Finally, tech behemoth Apple AAPL made headlines this week with a surprise leadership announcement. After 15 years at the helm, CEO Tim Cook is stepping down, naming as his successor John Ternus, the firm’s senior vice president of hardware engineering. Ternus will take over in September. Read more about Apple’s incoming chief executive and what the transition could mean for the company’s future.
