FidelityConnects: Beyond the benchmark: Finding edge in alternatives
As the Fidelity Canadian Long/Short Alternative Fund marks two years, join Reetu Kumra for a timely update on the fund’s progress and positioning. She’ll also share the alternative investing themes she’s tracking – and what they could mean for diversified portfolios in the current environment.
Transcript
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<b>Subtitles are AI Generated</b>
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Hello, and welcome to Fidelity Connects.
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I'm Pamela Richie. This month marks two years since the launch of Fidelity
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Canadian Long/Short Alternative Fund.
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At the time it faced what seemed like an uphill climb.
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Canada just wasn't a priority for many investors.
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But oh, how the tables have turned.
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How has the fund adapted, what's changed in positioning, and
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where is our next guest finding opportunity in today's market?
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Joining us here today to break down her outlook for Canada and how her research
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team is navigating this new landscape is portfolio manager, Reetu Kumra.
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Warm welcome to you. Great to have you here today.
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Thank you for having me.
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Two years, eh?
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It's been two years.
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Wow.
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Feels like a lifetime.
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What was happening? I mean, we were still caught in very high
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interest rates, the cutting of rates was sort of still just
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in nascent times. It was very different.
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How different was it for Canada?
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Oh, very different. Canada was the market that everyone loved to not like.
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Again, like you said, how the tables have turned.
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My goodness, it is sort of fascinating to see all this.
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This is a long/short fund and it's been introduced to a lot of investors a
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few times at this stage in lots of different ways when you've been speaking,
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but it's a fund that is created to
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traverse market moments where things might be falling off a cliff.
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We have seen that over the course of the last few weeks, certainly.
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I wonder if you can just take us there on what the fund's been doing, what
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you're able to do in moments like this.
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Absolutely. If I think about what's happened over the last couple of years,
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let's take a step back and think about 2025.
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We started off the year, it was very much risk-off.
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The focus was the tariffs and reshoring and lack of immigration.
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Then Liberation Day happened and a few weeks later there was
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a complete 180 in the market where it became risk-on and the focus was,
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okay, wait a second, the tariffs aren't going to be as bad as we initially
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thought. The focus then became AI,
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monetary and fiscal stimulus, and we were off to the races.
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How did Canada fit into that story? Canada, of course, was very
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much part of the reversals that we saw last year.
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I guess if you think about what's happened in the broader market as we've
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turned into 2026 there's a few themes that have really emerged where
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Canada fits.
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The first theme is the continuation of the AI trade.
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Here in Canada there are not many ways to play the AI trade like you
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can in the US, but there are ways, whether it's through hardware,
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power names, nuclear, uranium, some industrials
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that have data centre buildouts or a relationship with AI.
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That's not the focus in 2026.
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The focus is now on what AI is going to disrupt.
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There's a question of the terminal growth rate of some of these businesses.
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We saw it with software and then it moved on to information
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services, private alts, commercial real estate,
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you name it, I'm just naming off a few, like exchanges.
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That's been the focus.
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We're trying to navigate through that.
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Building on that AI theme, another theme that we're really seeing is the rising
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of geopolitics.
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What has that done?
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It's created a CapEx cycle and, as a result, a hard asset cycle.
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If you think about the AI data centre buildout, you need CapEx for that.
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Unfortunately, borders are going up and so there is more infrastructure
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buildout. You're seeing more in the way of trade diversification.
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You're seeing critical minerals, a buildup of inventory,
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and more spent on defence.
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Again, these are all drivers of this hard asset cycle.
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Another thing that we're seeing is de dollarization and that's
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precisely why we've seen gold gap up the way we have.
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Whether it is the diversification away from the US dollar, central
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bank buying, we've seen the monitoring of fiscal stimulus,
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questions about central bank independence and debt levels.
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Those are the fundamentals for the dedollarization story, are they all still
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in place? I mean, they were largely the fundamentals last
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year and the reason for the gold run-up, they're still there.
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I think that there's a case for it.
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Gold is one of those interesting ...
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it's not a commodity, it's a currency, so it's like you can do this
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supply-demand model and figure out a price target.
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It's just you have to understand what the drivers are and what that really
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means for whether it can directionally go up or directionally go down.
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These themes are really against a backdrop of the economy is
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actually doing pretty okay.
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Down south we're expecting GDP growth of 3% to 4%.
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Here, we're kind of muddling through but PMIs are above 50, both
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manufacturing and service, for the first time in quite a few years.
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We're seeing inflation that's tame.
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The consumer, the K-shaped consumer, is hanging in there.
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Monetary and fiscal, easy conditions.
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We're lapping the tariff news and so things...
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We're lapping the tariff news. I feel like you've got to brand that.
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We are though, it's amazing.
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We are and that's something to keep in mind.
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The market's expecting double digit to mid-teens earnings growth both in Canada
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and the Us so it seems pretty good.
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What is our team doing in this context?
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Your research team is incredible. Let's just talk about this a little.
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You've told us before the genesis of this fund is really
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the incredible research team.
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Actually, at one point you were chucking out, weeding through,
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and now you're using it, ultimately, to construct this fund.
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Just remind us of the team you've got there.
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Our team is fantastic. It's a fantastic group of investors and I have
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a privilege of just building, mentoring, developing this team,
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along with my co-DOR, Steve MacMillan.
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These individuals really have the fire to come in to work every day and they're
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just looking to be the best analysts in their respective sector
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in Canada so they can generate those excess returns for our funds.
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What this means is this team, they cover roughly 25 securities in
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their respective sectors. They're on their sector for about three to four years
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so they're really in-house experts on their sectors.
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They're just navigating everything.
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They are looking at industry analysis, company analysis, dissecting
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balance sheets, modelling out profitability and cash flows, meeting with
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management teams, going to conferences, looking at valuation,
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talking to experts, talking to peers, talking to competitors.
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They're putting all of this analysis into ...
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they take this mosaic and they create a thesis and they're constantly
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monitoring this thesis for change.
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As we've seen there's been a lot of change in the last little while so real
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time in the past several weeks this team has been on the ball where they have
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been looking at what companies can be disrupted and
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which companies we can potentially go short, and then
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which companies have been oversold or overdone, or which
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companies have just been thrown out with the bathwater.
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We're trying to navigate this volatility and as a result
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actively changing positioning as a result.
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That's amazing. It just seems like such an incredible moment to have this type
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of fund as a tool to go through this moment because you really
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are seeing, I mean, some extraordinary moves.
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Maybe just speak a bit to what levers you're able to pull here.
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I think what's so great is to have such a large team.
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That allows every individual, every analyst
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on the team, to go knee-deep in their sector.
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When you know your sector so well during times of volatility such as the
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last few years but particularly the last months, it's so easy
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to make decisions quickly.
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As we know, time is money so it's really helpful to have such a large team
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navigating these markets.
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It's incredible. The overall theme to Canada
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last year, and really always, has been resources, along
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with banks probably but that's sort of what we do.
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That's what we do well. What kind of moment is this for Canada?
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We saw the run-up in the TSX last year.
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It was largely gold, resource-based, where does it go from here?
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It's so interesting, and I love that question. A few years ago, like
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I mentioned earlier, everyone loved to not like Canada, and
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for good reason. We have a levered consumer, we had
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the wall of mortgage maturities that were coming due and resetting higher,
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lack of productivity, anemic growth.
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I think Canada has gone through a moment similar to how we think about stocks
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where things have went from bad to less bad.
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I think the catalyst for the change has been what's happened in the
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world in terms of deglobalization, also policy change just here domestically.
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You've heard me say this before but I think of the TSX as not necessarily
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a stock market but a market of stocks.
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The reason that we saw the 31%, 32% performance
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last year was because we have
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about 36% to 37% of the benchmark that's in resources,
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which includes 15% that's in gold, and these businesses
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aren't the businesses of the past. They're generating a tremendous amount of
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free cash flow, the capital allocation frameworks are much better, the
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balance sheets are cleaned up, so they are better businesses than what we've
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seen from the last 10 to 15 years.
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Then we have about 40% of the benchmark that is roughly interest rate
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sensitives. These stocks do well in a monetary easing environment.
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Which is what we got.
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Exactly. The rest of it
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is effectively just stock picking businesses.
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We have consumer, tech,
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industrials, health care.
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Those are the ones where you see a variety of different businesses, a lot
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of dispersion. You get your early cyclicals in the consumer, in the auto,
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some industrials. You get your quality compounders with the
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dollar stores. You get your defensive names in the grocers.
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You get a number of different businesses that you can just stock pick your way
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through. That's really what we do best.
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You approach this sort of with super sectors and then within that
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sometimes you'll have, like, if we went to resources, broadly speaking,
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within that speak a bit to the positioning and sort of the material side.
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We've got lots within that.
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There's also energy. Just talk a little bit about how you go in via the
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super sector and then kind of position within that.
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From a portfolio construction standpoint what we do
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is we try to neutralize the super sector.
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A reminder, the super sectors being resources, interest rate sensitives,
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consumer, and industrials.
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We let the stock picking generate the alpha.
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That way we have that alignment to the market but we allow the stock picking to
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do the work.
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As a result, I consider this more of an all ideas fund.
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We have roughly between 120 to 190 positions
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at any given time.
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Within that between 40 and 80 would be short.
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It's very diversified
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on the short book and the long book.
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As I was mentioning, the way we like to generate the alpha is through
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the stock picking within the resources. If I talk about where our positioning
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is, starting off with resources, it's
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positioned materials over energy.
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Within materials, specifically copper, lumber and gold
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over energy. If I kind of just take us
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through each of those commodities, gold, I mean, I think I talked about that
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already in terms of...
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To some degree the market has voted on that one.
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Yes, we've seen a massive gap up here.
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All those themes I talked about earlier are still in existence.
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With copper, it's interesting because
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the supply side of copper has ...
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there's a bit that's come offline just given closures whether it's for
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geopolitical risks or just execution risks.
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We've had quite a bit of supply come off but on the demand side copper's
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considered a critical mineral. Going back to the geopolitical risk, there has
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been a lot of inventory buildup around the world for copper.
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Sitting in warehouses inside the borders of countries, not moving international
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trade.
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Exactly. This is at a time, copper is doing well at a time where China
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has been pretty anemic. China's typically 50% of the demand
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so if China were to ever invest
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more infrastructure and kind of be on a cyclical upswing
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you might see more demand for copper.
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For lumber, lumber is one of those stories where...
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It's always gotten caught in trade.
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I mean, you sort of leave it as just always caught in trade.
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It has been, it absolutely has been, and as a result there's been a lot of
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capacity that's been shut off.
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You have some supply coming off and then on the demand side,
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one thing that we do know about the Trump administration is they're very
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laser focused on affordability, particularly housing affordability.
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Just more recently, a few weeks ago, they had announced that
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they're looking to stop institutional buying of single-family homes.
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Let's see what ends up happening, whether they do anything with mortgages.
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We know that that is a huge concern of theirs, especially heading into the
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midterms. We're also in a monetary easing condition.
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More interestingly, these stocks have just been left for dead.
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Some of these stocks are discounted to book and they have net cash balance
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sheets and so you're just paid to wait.
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Even though they've seen a big rise recently they're still ...
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because they had been down sort of in the gutter.
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You're just paid to wait. You don't know what the catalyst is or when the
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catalyst is but you know it will come at some point and you have a balance
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sheet that can withstand this.
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Then you compare that to energy, oil's actually
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done really well year-to-date but last year was down however the stocks
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continued to rise. Again, going back to the theme that I mentioned earlier, a
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lot of that is just geopolitical risks.
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But there is still a lot of oil out there so the preference is materials over oil.
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Hello, investors. We'll be back to the show in just a moment.
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I wanted to share that here at Fidelity, we value your opinion.
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DialoguesFidelity podcasts available on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever
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else you get your podcasts. Now back to today's show.
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At this point but at some point you would be positioned ultimately, or you
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would have the choice with this fund, obviously, to take a look at...
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Absolutely. And it depends on what we think internally in terms of our
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research, in terms of where we like the
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stocks on the long side versus the short side.
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That's resources. I can get into interest rate sensitives.
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I was going to ask you about the financials, let's go into the interest rate
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story for sure.
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Within interest rate sensitives, again, it's a very large part of the market,
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the way we're positioned is diversifieds and utilities are overweight.
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Diversified financials?
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Yes, diversified financials and utilities are overweight.
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We're fairly neutral telcos and REITs and then
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we're underweight the banks.
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They've had their run.
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Looking at the diversified financials,
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very much a mix of businesses so you can kind of stock pick your way through
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it. It's important to because it has been caught up in the eye of the storm
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of AI disruption...
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Who invested in software too much but maybe it's been overdone, the reaction,
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obviously.
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Our research team is looking at that as we speak.
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We're just stock picking our way through it.
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They tend to be good businesses, know high single digit, low double digits EPS,
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not too expensive from a valuation perspective.
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That's kind of a stock picking type sector.
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Move on to the utilities, utilities are just dependable businesses, mid-single
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digit to high single digit EPS growth.
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Valuation isn't too demanding but you also have an AI kicker where there's
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infrastructure buildout with data centres on the power side with independent
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power producers. You have that AI kicker.
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We're overweight those two sectors.
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Neutral telcos, there's been a lot happening in the telcos.
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They're trying to get out of debt. They are doing it.
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They're still...
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They're trying, they're trying.
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It's been a tough market for several years
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now just given increasing competition.
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Less new adds too [crosstalk].
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Exactly, because of immigration, lack of immigration.
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These are indebted balance sheets
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so we're watchful of that but we're kind of stock picking our way through that
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one.
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When you watch telcos, there's lots of different reasons within
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there and there's lots of different lines of business within there, but one of
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the pieces of the story, of the debt story, is that things like fibre optics
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and running the internet was put on their shoulders, and that worked out very
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well for a while, but there were things that were overdone and
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perhaps too much money was spent there.
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I mean, there are a lot of people who will connect that to what we're seeing
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right now, the data centre buildout. Do you see analogies there.
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I'm sure it's something that you watch as an overly funded area
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that we're not quite sure how it's going to turn out.
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I think we've had a lot of CapEx put into fibre in
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general in Canada. I think the story about the telcos is about
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... these are highly levered businesses,
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capital intensive businesses, the top line is challenged.
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We've seen one dividend cut in the sector.
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We're watchful of that sector because that one has been so bad for
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so long so when will it get less bad, that could be a powerful story.
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We're very focused on that but for now we're neutral.
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And then banks underweight. The banks have been fine,
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they've been great businesses. They are great businesses, they're well
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capitalized.
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Fee-based businesses are doing extremely well, whether it's trading, wealth
[00:18:47.926]
management.
[00:18:51.830]
Loan growth is a little subdued but credit is no longer necessarily a
[00:18:56.235]
huge concern. We're kind of muddling through that.
[00:18:58.437]
So there could be some releases of...
[00:19:00.873]
We'll see, we'll see. For now I think we'll just muddle through that but
[00:19:05.110]
you have to compare that to valuation so we're just trying to navigate that
[00:19:08.780]
accordingly.
[00:19:10.682]
That's super interesting, particularly on how you take a look at the super
[00:19:15.487]
sectors themselves and then stock pick within that.
[00:19:20.092]
I wonder if we can just talk a little bit about some of the other
[00:19:24.229]
alt names. This seems like a really interesting moment for the entire
[00:19:28.333]
structure of an alt strategy to be working.
[00:19:31.336]
Recently, the multi-alt was launched and that was meant to
[00:19:35.941]
take into consideration the other products that are out there.
[00:19:38.544]
Do you want to just speak to that a little bit and, again, it's moment when
[00:19:41.680]
you're watching markets like this.
[00:19:43.315]
Absolutely.
[00:19:44.983]
Jurrien Timmer has put it so well. He's talked about the 60/40 transitioning to
[00:19:48.820]
the 60/20/20 where we have 60 equities, 20 bonds, 20
[00:19:52.925]
alts. The multi-alt would fit right into the 20 alt.
[00:19:56.395]
We've actually seen it prove its use case so...
[00:19:59.364]
So it's got the products, the various long/short offerings that Fidelity has
[00:20:03.368]
within one.
[00:20:04.102]
Exactly. The combination of Dave Way's Long/Short, the Canadian
[00:20:08.340]
Long/Short which we're talking about today, Brett Dley's Market Neutral, and
[00:20:12.477]
Dan Dupont's Global Value Long/Short, as well as a small slither for Bitcoin.
[00:20:17.716]
What we've seen since it's been launched is it's doing what it's supposed to
[00:20:21.086]
do, where it's keeping pace with the markets on the upside and on the downside
[00:20:24.823]
we have downside protection just given the combination of these funds.
[00:20:29.361]
It tends to have a low correlation with the equity markets, which is exactly
[00:20:32.698]
what it's supposed to do.
[00:20:34.700]
That's absolutely fascinating how all that ultimately works.
[00:20:39.605]
You mentioned Bitcoin so let's go there.
[00:20:41.306]
Let's talk a little bit about it versus gold, possibly.
[00:20:44.509]
This is an area of the market that you've been very interested in.
[00:20:47.246]
It's part of, for instance, other ETF products and so on.
[00:20:51.416]
What's the story for Bitcoin? A lot of people have been a bit worried.
[00:20:55.220]
The market, you can see it's gone from being over 120,000
[00:21:00.125]
to below 70. We've had quite a drawdown here.
[00:21:05.230]
I think the interesting thing about Bitcoin is that all the
[00:21:09.234]
drivers of Bitcoin are in play right now but Bitcoin's not
[00:21:13.205]
working. But what you're seeing is gold is working.
[00:21:16.608]
What are the drivers? What do you mean?
[00:21:19.444]
If you think about Bitcoin, just taking a step back, you think about
[00:21:23.682]
Bitcoin on the supply side. I'll just compare it to gold.
[00:21:27.185]
Bitcoin on the supply side, the huge value proposition
[00:21:31.556]
for Bitcoin is that we know what the inflation is for Bitcoin.
[00:21:35.894]
Right now it's a touch under 1%.
[00:21:38.430]
That was driven by the halving that just happened in 2024.
[00:21:41.300]
It'll halve again in 2028
[00:21:45.671]
so we just know what that inflation rate for Bitcoin's going to be.
[00:21:50.208]
But with gold we don't necessarily know that.
[00:21:52.244]
The drivers are the same for both, and that is
[00:21:56.615]
the debasement of fiat currency.
[00:21:59.318]
If there are concerns about fiscal debt or
[00:22:03.488]
concerns about fiat currency, or if
[00:22:07.926]
there's monetary or fiscal easing happening, those will all drive
[00:22:11.897]
these alternative assets like Bitcoin and gold.
[00:22:15.667]
Alternatively, if you think about the developing markets there's countries
[00:22:19.771]
that have runaway inflation where you actually want to be in an alternative
[00:22:22.607]
asset, or an alternative to fiat currency.
[00:22:25.344]
Those are the drivers for Bitcoin and gold.
[00:22:27.379]
Where Bitcoin and gold differ, and the reason that they're so uncorrelated as
[00:22:31.516]
assets, one's a risk-on asset, which is Bitcoin, the other one's a risk-off
[00:22:35.821]
asset, which is gold. Right now, as we've been talking about this hard asset
[00:22:39.958]
cycle, it's no surprise that Bitcoin
[00:22:46.131]
has kind of been left.
[00:22:46.965]
That's interesting. I haven't heard talk about it that way in the sense that
[00:22:49.968]
it's part of the services sell-off or whatever you want
[00:22:53.905]
to call it but it's not hard asset.
[00:22:56.174]
You can see why gold is working and Bitcoin is not necessarily working because
[00:22:59.111]
Bitcoin, it's been thought
[00:23:03.081]
of as highly correlated to tech.
[00:23:07.352]
As a result, when you're seeing tech sell off here it's no surprise
[00:23:11.490]
that Bitcoin is behaving like a risk-on asset versus gold's
[00:23:15.594]
getting its market share right now.
[00:23:17.062]
Is there an argument within that part of it is this so-called ...
[00:23:20.365]
it's a terrible phrase, the baby being thrown out of the bath water, we really
[00:23:22.968]
need to think up something else for that, but is it part of that?
[00:23:26.138]
I mean, is there an argument that it'll find its footing, it's been overdone.
[00:23:30.041]
I think, and I've always thought about Bitcoin from a long term perspective.
[00:23:34.946]
It's hard to know what Bitcoin is going to do tomorrow or the next day but if
[00:23:39.151]
you just take a step back and just think about are the supply drivers in place,
[00:23:42.587]
are the demand drivers in places?
[00:23:44.856]
If you believe in those supply and demand drivers I think it will have
[00:23:49.094]
its day in the sun. At the moment it's not that.
[00:23:52.664]
The volatility around Bitcoin is a feature of it and not necessarily a bug.
[00:23:57.068]
That's what we're seeing right now.
[00:23:59.337]
That's fascinating. Let's come back to sort of the story of Canada because
[00:24:03.308]
that's what you're focusing on here.
[00:24:06.478]
It almost sounds like when you were beginning to put this fund together in
[00:24:10.715]
the years prior, it's two years now so we've said happy anniversary but it just
[00:24:15.187]
bears repeating going back to that time, it was out of favour.
[00:24:18.924]
I mean, there's no question. You would look for companies that would
[00:24:23.061]
be out of favour, as always, assuming that at some point they'll
[00:24:27.532]
take off. There's sort of a larger connection there
[00:24:31.870]
it seems.
[00:24:33.104]
That's what we do and this is why we have our analysts going in so deep.
[00:24:37.876]
For example, right now the market has been very favourable to
[00:24:42.347]
the out of favour from last year, the out of favour early
[00:24:46.318]
cyclical stocks that were so cheap.
[00:24:48.820]
Our team was very much focused on where can we find the earnings upside but
[00:24:52.691]
also the multiple upside.
[00:24:54.860]
You don't have any better story than that when you can get your multiple and
[00:24:58.697]
your earnings upside. That's what our team has been laser focused on, and
[00:25:02.067]
that's with this fund can actually capitalize on.
[00:25:04.669]
It's incredible, actually. Do you think that all of the
[00:25:09.174]
announcements by government, it's hard to know, again, policy,
[00:25:13.578]
there's sort of been announcements, but to what degree do you lean into
[00:25:17.616]
the overall story, which appears to be infrastructure, rebuilding everyone's
[00:25:23.054]
access to resources, to energy, and being that country
[00:25:27.359]
on the world platform to sell to the world.
[00:25:31.162]
We've seen policy change. We've also seen pipelines being built.
[00:25:35.100]
We have LNG Canada. There's been a real push
[00:25:39.237]
for trade diversification.
[00:25:41.306]
Let's see what ends up happening. These are more long cycle stories but we're
[00:25:45.110]
watching them. If it were to play out,
[00:25:49.114]
again, that's favourable to the hard asset cycle.
[00:25:53.218]
And overall to this fund. What's sort of a final thought for investors, would
[00:25:56.288]
you say, that are thinking about, I mean, we hear, the
[00:26:00.292]
numbers are, that Canadians are still invested outside their
[00:26:04.296]
country to an extent that maybe they want to rethink.
[00:26:06.698]
I mean, some people say take a look at international shares, maybe just less
[00:26:11.236]
exposure to the US, I don't know. How would you sort of put this fund to
[00:26:15.440]
investors now who maybe still haven't pivoted back?
[00:26:19.778]
I would say that this fund is very much just a core Canadian
[00:26:23.982]
130/30 long/short product.
[00:26:26.718]
It offers directional alignment to the Canadian, like the TSX,
[00:26:31.723]
through neutralizing the super sectors, but it also allows investors
[00:26:35.927]
to own the Fidelity research by us going long
[00:26:40.198]
on our buy-rated names, going short on our sell-rated names, and really
[00:26:44.135]
just capitalize on that repeatability, the accuracy
[00:26:48.840]
and the strength of our research platform.
[00:26:53.345]
Fantastic. Reetu Kumra, thank you so much for joining us.
[00:26:55.747]
Happy anniversary on the fund.
[00:26:57.082]
Thank you. Thank you for having me.
[00:26:58.183]
Delighted to have you here.
[00:26:59.985]
Thanks for watching or listening to the Fidelity Connects
[00:27:02.621]
podcast. Now if you haven't done so already, please subscribe to Fidelity
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Connects on your podcast platform of choice.
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And if you like what you're hearing, please leave a review or a five-star
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rating. Fidelity Mutual Funds and ETFs are available by working with
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a financial advisor or through an online brokerage account.
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We'll end today's show with a short disclaimer.
[00:27:36.321]
The views and opinions expressed on this podcast are those of the participants,
[00:27:40.158]
and do not necessarily reflect those of Fidelity Investments Canada ULC or
[00:27:44.095]
its affiliates. This podcast is for informational purposes only, and should not
[00:27:48.099]
be construed as investment, tax, or legal advice.
[00:27:50.635]
It is not an offer to sell or buy.
[00:27:52.937]
Or an endorsement, recommendation, or sponsorship of any entity or securities
[00:27:57.275]
cited. Read a fund's prospectus before investing, funds are not guaranteed.
[00:28:02.080]
Their values change frequently, and past performance may not be repeated.
[00:28:05.650]
Fees, expenses, and commissions are all associated
[00:28:07.986]
with fund investments.
[00:28:09.788]
Thanks again. We'll see you next time.

