Stocks that took your returns out of this world and the doozies that pulled them down to Earth: Stars and Dogs for 2024
Illustration by Stella Zheng
Well, that was a doozy. It was a year of extreme politics, extreme weather and extremely poor judgment coming back to haunt some once-respected companies, such as Boeing Co., Nike Inc., Intel Corp. and a certain Canadian bank that let some shady characters get too comfy in its big green chairs. Donald Trump was convicted and elected, proving the two are not mutually exclusive, and he immediately started sowing chaos for Canadian policy-makers, the Canadian dollar, Canadian exporters – and Canada in general, really. Gold was in its element amid the turmoil, as was its digital cousin, bitcoin. But there was also plenty from more conventional quarters that thrived in what proved to be a sterling year for stocks worldwide. Here, in our annual roundup of the best and worst of the investing world in 2024, are the tickers that trounced, and the stocks that stunk.
Gildan Activewear Inc. (STAR)
GIL-TSX
The Toronto Stock Exchange is a place where you can find an unusual number of companies specializing in extremely dull lines of business. Canada may have a $2-trillion national economy, but our premier stock index of domestic corporate champions includes a company that makes wooden utility poles, another that prints labels, and Gildan Activewear Inc., a global leader in blank T-shirts. While the companies’ mission statements may serve as powerful sedatives, that doesn’t stop these dullards of the TSX from kicking up the odd fuss. The battle over Gildan Activewear Inc. was the Canadian boardroom story of the year. After co-founding chief executive officer Glenn Chamandy was shown the door, a very public feud erupted between Gildan’s board and the ousted leader. Backed by powerful shareholders, Mr. Chamandy was eventually reinstated atop the highly profitable company. Was this triumphant return to the C-suite commemorated with a “Keep Calm and Win Back Gildan Activewear Inc.” T-shirt? Huge missed opportunity, if not. -Tim Shufelt
S&P 500 Index (STAR)
INX
The idea that the United States occupies an exalted position above all the other countries of the world is one that plenty of Canadians have denied their whole lives. So, it’s extremely annoying when American exceptionalism presents itself in ways that can’t be ignored. The S&P 500 Index of large U.S. companies has put together back-to-back blockbuster years, which has propelled the benchmark to a gain of 55 per cent, adding a whopping US$20-trillion in market capitalization. Much of this has been driven, of course, by rampant enthusiasm for U.S. tech stocks. Apple is larger than the market cap of the entire TSX. And while the past couple of years have been kind to stock markets globally, the U.S. is in a class of its own. The Magnificent Seven group of tech giants is larger than the stock markets of China, Japan, France and Britain – combined. The American weighting in the leading global stock benchmark is close to 70 per cent. But that’s fine. Let the U.S. have its stock market dominance. The 4 Nations Face-Off hockey tournament starts in a couple of months. How ’bout we settle this on the ice? -TS
MDA Space Ltd. (STAR)
MDA-TSX
Look at all the mind-boggling feats of technology to come out of the space race. The Voyager 1 probe is currently hurtling through interstellar space, 25 billion kilometres from Earth. The Americans put a man on the moon in 1969 with a fraction of the computing power you carry in your pocket. And there’s now a telescope that can see what the universe looked like 13.5 billion years ago. So, what is Canada’s main contribution to this great cosmic exploration? A big metal grabber. Now, the Canadarm series of robotic arms is many things. A staple of U.S. shuttle missions for decades. A key to assembling the International Space Station. And that project helped put MDA Space on the map. The company is on a roll, and its satellite business is booming. And in June, the company was awarded a $1-billion contract to build the Canadarm3, which is destined for a NASA-led space station that will orbit the moon. These are things worth celebrating, and Canadians ought to take pride in contributing a superhelpful appendage used to grab cool stuff other countries are making. -TS
GFL Environmental Inc. (STAR)
GFL-TSX
Tony Soprano famously turned the phrase “I’m in waste management” into mobster shorthand. So, a few months ago, when shots were fired at the homes of two GFL executives on the same night, the company’s CEO quickly assured everyone, “This is not The Sopranos.” But a few weeks later, a GFL office in north Toronto was also shot up. Perhaps it’s not surprising the always-lucrative trash business has become even more attractive over the past few years. Recession-proof and practically immune to inflation, waste management is generating juicy margins after a period of industry consolidation. In GFL’s third fiscal quarter, it posted an adjusted EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) margin of 31 per cent. While some investors may have shied away from the company’s heavy debt load in the past, GFL is in the process of selling its environmental services segment for around $8-billion, which will go a long way to improving its balance sheet. As the old saying goes, if they’re riddling your home with bullets, you must be doing something right. -TS
Gold (STAR)
GCG25
Have we ever really known what makes the price of gold go up and down? It’s certainly not its uses and prospects as an industrial metal. Sure, it makes shiny things and top-notch circuitry, but that doesn’t explain why people can’t get enough of the one-ounce gold bars Costco started selling in 2023. Gold has often been thought of as a hedge against inflation. But that hasn’t really held up over the past few years, either. Gold prices went nowhere while consumer prices spun out of control in 2021-22. And then gold picked 2024 to shine as inflation came back down to target, or close to it. We can’t point to the economy as a catalyst for the rally, which has been resilient worldwide. The same goes for stock markets, which posted strong gains around the world almost without exception. Rising central bank demand for gold is definitely part of the story. Still, it’s a little puzzling. But maybe we don’t need to overthink it. These are crazy times. The risk of nuclear conflict has made a dramatic return, the U.S. president-elect is “joking” daily about turning Canada into a U.S. state, and gold is something that people can bury in their backyard when things get weird. -TS
Dollarama Inc. (STAR)
DOL – TSX
How often have you thought to yourself: Canada is a nice place, but we could use more Dollarama stores? After all, in some parts of Canada, you can walk a block or more before encountering one of the company’s big green and yellow signs. Well, cheer up: In its quest to bring cheap snacks, holiday decorations and household items to every corner of the country, the retailer recently announced its intention to open about 600 new stores over the next 10 years, on top of the roughly 1,600 it already operates. Montreal-based Dollarama Inc. also unveiled plans to build a logistics hub in the Calgary area to support its expansion. These are all wonderful developments, particularly for Dollarama investors. Thanks to new store openings, growing customer traffic and rising prices, Dollarama’s shares have produced a compound annual return of more than 22 per cent over the past decade. The gains in 2024 were even more impressive, as the stock soared nearly 50 per cent through mid-December, demonstrating Dollarama’s resilience in the face of growing economic uncertainty. But why stop at 2,200 stores? Why not 10,000, or 100,000? Naming rights should also be on the table: “The Dollarama Art Gallery of Ontario” or “The Dollarama House of Commons.” Heck, let’s just get it over with and rename the country Dollaramada. -John Heinzl
Bitcoin (STAR)
It wasn’t supposed to happen this way. In the cryptocurrency bloodbath of 2022, the industry seemed to be on the brink of a mass-extinction event. With inflation and interest rates surging, bitcoin and other speculative digital assets cratered, triggering a wave of bankruptcies that toppled multibillion-dollar hedge funds and wiped out countless retail punters who had to explain to their spouses what happened to the kids’ college fund. As an estimated US$2-trillion of value was vaporized, the implosion lifted the curtain on widespread fraud in the industry – What?! Shocking! – underlined by the conviction of crypto poster boy Sam Bankman-Fried. But even as the FTX founder landed in prison, the unexpected happened: Bitcoin rose from the ashes. Propelled by falling interest rates and U.S. president-elect Donald Trump’s vow to turn the U.S. into the “crypto capital of the planet,” the FOMO crypto trade was back – this time on steroids. In December, bitcoin’s price blasted past US$100,000 for the first time. Clearly, crypto had entered a new era of legitimacy and limitless wealth creation, or so the crypto bros claimed. Armed with fresh supplies of borrowed money, speculators once again have lined up to place bets in the 24-hour crypto casino, hoping this time will be different. -JH
Capital Power Corp. (STAR)
CPX – TSX
Here’s the thing about electricity. If you’re careless with it – say you climb a high-voltage transmission tower, or you stick a fork into an electrical socket – it can fry you like a piece of bacon. But invest in electricity wisely, and it can make you a lot of bacon. Just ask shareholders of Capital Power. The Edmonton-based electricity producer delivered some sizzling returns in 2024 thanks to strong results from its U.S. gas-fired facilities and booming electricity demand from power-hungry data centres used in artificial intelligence. “Our confidence level in playing a leadership role providing power for the build-out of data centres in the U.S. and Canada is rising,” said Avik Dey, Capital Power’s president and CEO. Rising even faster was Capital Power’s stock price, which was swept up in the mania for all things AI. “We continue to believe CPX is a top idea within our coverage as an AI/data centre play,” Brent Stadler of Desjardins Securities said in a June note. Since then, the shares have surged more than 50 per cent. Then there’s the fact that Capital Power has raised its dividend for 11 consecutive years, all while maintaining a reasonable payout ratio and successfully weaning itself from coal-fired generation. Bottom line: Stay away from electric towers. Investing in electricity is better for your health – and your wallet. -JH
Nvidia Corp. (STAR)
NVDA – Nasdaq
Everyone has regrets. For example, the Democrats probably wish they hadn’t waited so long to push Joe Biden aside. Justin Trudeau probably regrets waking up pretty much every day in 2024. And if you ask investors what their biggest regret is, many will say it’s that they didn’t dump a wheelbarrow full of cash into Nvidia. Shares of the chip maker – by far the largest supplier of specialized graphics processing units used for AI – have been on a multiyear heater, soaring more than 2,000 per cent since the start of 2020. To the average investor watching from the sidelines, however, Nvidia’s ever-rising shares always seemed too expensive. Now, here we are again near the end of a year when Nvidia Corp. more than doubled in price. Clearly, the stock is way overvalued now, right? I mean, sure, 58 of the 64 analysts who follow Nvidia Corp. still rate it a “buy” or “strong buy,” and the stock trades at about 30 times next year’s estimated earnings, which actually seems fairly reasonable for such a fast-growing company. But what if you buy Nvidia Corp. and it plunges? You’ll regret it. But what if Nvidia Corp. keeps rising? Then you’ll regret not buying it. There’s only one sensible way to settle this dilemma: Ask ChatGPT. -JH
Manulife Financial Corp. (STAR)
MFC – TSX
When investors get burned, they have long memories. After Manulife Financial Corp. cut its dividend in half during the financial crisis of 2009, the stock spent more time in the penalty box than most NHL enforcers – a decade and a half, to be precise. As the years ticked by and Manulife’s stock went sideways, countless investors threw in the towel, convinced that the company would never escape from the sin bin. All the while, however, Manulife Financial Corp. was planning its comeback. By cutting costs, reducing its exposure to the volatile stock market and de-risking less lucrative business lines such as long-term care, Canada’s largest life insurer transformed itself from a washed-up fighter into a lean, mean scoring machine. A growing middle class in Asia, where Manulife Financial Corp. has a significant presence, and higher bond yields, which boost insurers’ investment earnings, also helped. Not only did Manulife’s stock eclipse its precrisis peak, but its dividend more than tripled since that fateful cut 15 years ago. All of which proves that investors will eventually forgive and forget – if you make them enough money. -JH
Toronto-Dominion Bank (DOG)
TD-TSX
Maybe those big green chairs were just too cozy. For nearly 25 years, they’ve been a staple of TD’s marketing, which once included the tagline: “Banking can be this comfortable.” But then a bunch of U.S. drug dealers sat in them. And the bank never thought to say, “I’m sorry, those chairs are for our non-money-laundering clients only.” In chasing an ambitious U.S. expansion, TD lost its way, forgetting the basic principles of transaction monitoring, risk management and not letting crime syndicates launder hundreds of millions in cash through your branches. In October, the bank pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit money laundering – the first bank in U.S. history to do so. TD was slapped with fines totalling US$3.1-billion, as well as a cap on the bank’s U.S. retail assets – a worst-case scenario that deprives TD of its growth engine indefinitely. Perhaps a fresh ad campaign is just the thing to kick-start the rehabilitation of TD’s image. Retire the roomy easy chair. Its successor should be small and unforgiving, a sturdy pine with a stiff back. And in a bold, no-nonsense font: “Banking can be this law-abiding.” -TS
Boeing Co. (DOG)
BA-NYSE
You had one job, Boeing. Okay, you had lots of jobs, but one that really mattered: Make good planes. Planes that don’t plummet from the sky, or lose parts of their fuselage mid-flight, or have loose bolts rattling around in them. The only reason we get on these things in the first place is because we’re assured of their safety, despite our primal instincts telling us that sitting in a chair in the sky going 900 kilometres an hour is deeply unnatural. Boeing, whose once-venerable safety record went a long way to popularizing jet travel, started doing its utmost to shatter our faith in flying. Suddenly, people paid attention to the part of their flight reservation that lists the make of aircraft and said, “If it’s Boeing, I’m not going.” The company is now bleeding cash. In its last fiscal quarter, it posted a loss of US$6.2-billion. Its credit rating is on the verge of junk status. Boeing has now become a turnaround case of epic proportions. If it can pull it off, at least part of the agenda should be learning how to make airplanes great again – MAGA, for short. Might look good on a hat. -TS
BRP Inc. (DOG)
DOO-TSX
If you want to make a snowmobiler well up with tears, ask how they coped last winter. When they weren’t staring blankly at the snowless expanses or screeching their hulking machines across dry pavement, they were scraping ice shavings off the inside of their freezers in a sad attempt to replicate that which nature had cruelly deprived them. Last year’s “winter” was Canada’s warmest on record, with average temperatures 5.2 degrees higher than historical norms. When you sell about half of the world’s snowmobiles, this is a wee bit of a problem. Unsold Ski-Doos piled up at dealers. In the spring, the company said it planned on reducing snowmobile production by 30 per cent. As the year unfolded, BRP Inc. posted its first quarterly loss in eight years and cut its earnings guidance for the year by more than half. A few weeks ago, the company’s CEO touched on the snowmobile season at hand. “The snow was a bit late, but now it’s catching up.” Translation: “Please God, blanket the planet in vast quantities of snow.” In a warming world, the prospect of further lost winters looms over BRP. Has anyone checked if snowmobiles work on sand? Might be just the thing for a Mad Max – style desert dystopia. -TS
Intel Corp. (DOG)
INTC-Nasdaq
Boeing: “Behold as we destroy a pillar of corporate America. Future scholars will use our undoing as a cautionary case study in how misguided leadership can poison the culture at the core of a great enterprise.” Intel: “Hold my beer.” Three historically terrible decisions lie at the heart of Intel’s downfall. Figuring it had built up an insurmountable lead as the world’s largest chip maker, Intel cut deeply into its research and development budget over more than a decade of underinvestment. The company also took a pass on the iPhone and pretty much missed out on the whole mobile revolution. And then it neglected the graphics space and is now badly behind the curve in AI technology, having ceded that ground to the likes of Nvidia Corp. – a company that’s now nearly 40 times larger than Intel in terms of market cap. But what’s a series of grievous mistakes if not the prelude to a monumental comeback? On that note, Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger recently promised the “most audacious rebuilding plan” in corporate history. How’s it going so far? Considering the leader “retired” a month later, and then called for “prayer and fasting” for Intel’s 100,000 employees, it could maybe use some tweaking. -TS
Magna International Inc. (DOG)
MG-TSX
Have you ever been cruising along on the highway when suddenly all the dashboard warning lights come on at once, seemingly indicating that every major component of the vehicle has simultaneously broken down? That’s kind of what happened to Magna. Start with its exposure to the electric-vehicle space, which became a problem when automakers started scaling back EV production in the face of weakening demand. Light vehicle production also slumped globally in 2024, as consumers contended with high car prices and high interest rates. The next to start blinking on Magna’s dash was the tariff light. Donald Trump’s threat to impose a 25-per-cent tariff on Canadian imports would be devastating for companies such as Magna, whose parts cross the border up to eight times before ending up in a completed vehicle. Finally, there’s Magna’s association with its founder, Frank Stronach, who was charged with a string of sex offences spanning nearly five decades. While he hasn’t been involved with Magna for years, it’s been difficult for the company to distance itself when its headquarters sit on Stronach Boulevard in Aurora, Ont. If there’s a version of CAA for troubled companies, Magna could use some roadside assistance. -TS
Canadian Dollar (DOG)
CADUSD
Long before COVID-19, Canada was gripped by a different sort of national emergency. The scourge of “cross-border shopping” erupted into an epidemic whenever the Canadian dollar traded at or near par with its U.S. counterpart, as millions of Canadians flocked to places such as Buffalo and Bellinghman, Wash., to indulge their thoroughly unpatriotic desire for cheap gasoline, chicken wings and outlet-mall clothing. Thankfully, this sad chapter in our nation’s history has largely faded, but not without a cost, for it took a massive drop in the Canadian dollar to stem the southward flow of bargain-crazed shoppers. The most remarkable part? Years later, the loonie is still falling. In 2024, the currency was knee-capped by Bank of Canada interest rate cuts, a strong U.S. economy, tariff threats and political turmoil in Ottawa. Shopping in the U.S. is one thing. With the Canadian dollar sinking below 70 US cents in December, who can afford to visit Walt Disney World or the Grand Canyon when everything costs nearly 50 per cent more in Canadian money? Worse, if the loonie keeps falling, who’s to say Donald Trump won’t attempt to do some cross-border shopping of his own and try to buy Canada on the cheap? O Canada, there’s never been a more important time to stand on guard for thee. -JH
Nike Inc. (DOG)
NKE – NYSE
There’s an old saying: Never judge a man until you’ve walked a mile in his shoes. But what if the shoes are old and give off a rancid stench? Are you really going to put those things on? I don’t think so. Which brings us to Nike. After dominating the athletic footwear market and watching its stock go virtually straight up for decades, Nike suddenly began to smell like the Toronto Raptors’ locker room after a gruelling triple-overtime loss. In some ways, Nike was the author of its own misfortune. In 2017, the company decided to emphasize its direct-to-consumer business. This worked well during the COVID-19 pandemic as more consumers shopped online. But as lockdowns were lifted, Nike’s e-commerce sales skidded. Adding to Nike’s woes, competitors including Adidas and upstart brands such as On and Hoka upped their games. In June, Nike experienced the stock market equivalent of a ruptured Achilles tendon after it projected that revenue would fall in its current fiscal year, sending the stock to its biggest one-day drop on record. Less than three months later, Nike named a new CEO, Elliott Hill, to replace John Donahoe, who had been in the job for less than five years. Whether Mr. Hill will be able to clear the putrid odour hanging over Nike remains to be seen, but investors should keep a can of air freshener handy. -JH
Superior Plus Corp. (DOG)
SPB – TSX
Everyone knows that climate change contributes to natural disasters such as hurricanes, flooding and wildfires. But lately, it’s also become a leading cause of costly portfolio catastrophes. Superior Plus investors don’t need to be reminded. As Canada’s largest propane distributor, Toronto-based Superior Plus thrives during deep freezes, when customers who use propane to heat their homes burn more of the fuel. But with milder-than-usual temperatures in recent years – the winter of 2023-24 was the warmest on record for North America – the company has struggled with weak propane demand. Superior Plus’s 2023 purchase of Calgary-based Certarus Ltd., a supplier of compressed gases, has only added to the pain. Hit by increased competition and lower prices for the industrial gases it sells, particularly to the oil and gas industry in Texas, Certarus’s margins were squeezed. With Superior Plus’s balance sheet under pressure, its stock price tanking and its yield climbing into the double digits, the company made the decision in November to slash its dividend by 75 per cent. The only people freezing now are investors. -JH
BCE Inc. (DOG)
BCE – TSX
Canadians have a long and proud history of heaping hate on their cellphone providers. “We’re getting screwed by the telecom oligopoly in this country!” they like to complain. “My cousin in Buffalo gets unlimited data, free Netflix and a 50-per-cent discount at Tops Friendly Markets for $9.99 a month!” Well, the good news is that wireless plan prices in Canada have finally started dropping as competition intensifies after Quebecor Inc.’s acquisition of Freedom Mobile in 2023. The bad news? With industry profits and stock prices under pressure, telecom investors are now the ones complaining. Nowhere is the frustration more evident than with BCE Inc. Weighed down by debt and with its dividend payout ratio well above 100 per cent, the company laid off thousands of workers and agreed to sell its 37.5-per-cent interest in Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment to Rogers Communications Inc. for $4.7-billion. A few weeks later, BCE said it will use the proceeds to purchase U.S.-based Ziply Fiber for about $5-billion. Underlining its stretched finances, BCE also put dividend hikes on hold through 2025, ending more than a decade of annual increases. With the stock recently yielding more than 11 per cent and investors bracing for a potential dividend cut, the BCE hate-fest may just be getting started. -JH
Russian Ruble (DOG)
RUBGBP
For Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, 2024 was like a perverse version of one of those Russian matryoshka dolls: Open it up, and there’s always a fresh disaster waiting inside. It wasn’t just Mr. Putin’s heavy battlefield losses in the war with Ukraine, or the fact that Russia had to recruit inexperienced North Korean troops to bolster its depleted forces, that contributed to Mr. Putin’s annus horribilis. Thousands of kilometres away, in Syria, his friend and fellow dictator, Bashar al-Assad, was forced to flee from Damascus to Moscow to avoid getting captured by advancing rebels. At home, Russia’s economy began to creak under the weight of mounting war expenditures, economic sanctions and central bank interest rates topping 20 per cent to fight surging inflation. With food prices jumping as much as 25 per cent year over year, some shops took to keeping butter and other high-value items in locked cabinets to prevent theft. All of this took a heavy toll on Russian stocks, sending the MOEX Russia Index down more than 20 per cent as of mid-December, while the Russian ruble also plunged against the U.S. dollar. The world is waiting to see what surprises the matryoshka doll will have for Mr. Putin in 2025. -JH