FidelityConnects: True North Trends: Opportunities in Canadian equities

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Hello, and welcome to Fidelity Connects.

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I'm Pamela Ritchie. After a strong year for Canadian markets investors are

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taking a closer look at what's driving returns for this year.

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Gold and energy have moved back into focus and Canada's industrial

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base is beginning to take shape again.

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Our next guest believes this is exactly the kind of environment where

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selectivity matters more than broad exposure.

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What does he say that active management matters,

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how does it matter more now and where is he seeking opportunity.

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Joining us here today to discuss all of this further is Fidelity

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True North Fund portfolio manager, Max Lemieux.

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Great to see you, Max. Thank you for joining us from Montreal.

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How are you today?

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Good. Good morning, everyone.

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Great to have you joining us here.

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Let's begin with what a year it was, certainly, last year.

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One of the big questions is sort of is it repeatable in the Canadian markets?

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You're sitting in the midst of it. You've been doing this for years.

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What did last year mean? Has it wrapped and where are we going?

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I call it a vintage type of year.

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Over the past 30 years, well, soon coming out to 30,

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it's been impossible to predict such a

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movement. We met last year talking about the first

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grenade from Washington in terms of potential tariffs and

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so on. I would have never been able to predict such a

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strong recovery for the Canadian market, finishing up more than 30%.

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Obviously, when there's so much sentiment and

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speculation, especially in gold and metals, it's

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been a heck of a year.

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I think it's hard to repeat this but there are trends that we

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think, again, personal view, trends that might continue

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to remain in place for the next year or two.

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We'll see. As you know, True North, we have a long term view when we invest.

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It's usually over the next three years plus.

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It's not day trading.

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Last year was very special because

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everything went up at the same time.

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Reminded me a little bit 2010, 2011 where the very speculative

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companies were just going after

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returns of 20, 30%, and small-cap also.

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We've seen a bit of a broadening marketplace coming towards the end of the year

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last year. I would say gold and copper and

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all these metals, including energy, as you mentioned, was also important, not

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necessarily because the price of oil has been as positive as

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gold.

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Remember that gold last year was up 60% and Canadian gold equities were

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up 120%, so it's a double.

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Energy, remember, there's been huge improvements out

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of Calgary over the past 10,15 years, consolidation,

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better management, the cost of producing gas

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and oil has improved quite a bit.

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Lower discounts on oil and also the new pipeline,

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Trans Mountain, allows us to export internationally

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so less dependent on the US Gulf Coast.

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To top it off, as you know, LNG Canada has just started last

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year, it's going to start to export more.

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There'll be two more terminals over the next three, four years and therefore

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they'll probably consume up to 10% of natural gas production in

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Canada. Short term, not necessarily a lot of excitement for the commodity,

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the natural gas per se, but I think that given the

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ongoing geopolitics we need to continue

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to take advantage of those resources that we have.

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We have not even talked about nuclear. Nuclear was topic du jour also last

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year. I'd like to remind the audience that

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two of the three nuclear technologies in the world are controlled by

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Canadians, i.e. Brookfield and Cameco both own

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Westinghouse, which is an American technology.

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And have a huge contract with the US government.

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Yes, absolutely. Those are long term duration, right?

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We don't always have all the details short term.

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I mean, as you know, Washington keeps us on our toes every single day.

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We don't have always have full transparency but we know what's the direction

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of travel.

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That's important.

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The old SNC, which is AtkinsRéalis, that owns the CANDU technology

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which is more in Europe but they'll try to probably enter the US market as

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well. We'll see how that's going to pan out for these names, doesn't mean that

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we own it today or if we're buying or selling.

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I just want to mention that Canada on the resource front,

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there's a lot also being supported by ...

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as you know, since Carney's been elected ...

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supporting these five large major projects and one of them that was in the top

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five was foreign, which is a copper mine, which is about to

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start, I think, next year out of Saskatchewan, that's

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a name that as of the last filing was in True North.

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We were in that name at that time for a long time, actually for

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more than a year. There's more to come, and this

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narrative is not changing in the short term so it's hard

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to say what's coming up next year, over the next 12

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months, but if commodity prices just remain where they're at a

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lot of companies in Canada, if they're energy or rare earth

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or copper, if the commodity prices maintain, sustain themselves

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you have companies that generate good free cash flow and good returns to

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shareholders.

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You're right in the middle of it.

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You just used that example of the mine in Saskatchewan which has now been

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picked up for bigger and greater and better things and you've been there

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for a long, long time. You've maneuvering this market and knowing the

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intricacies of it for such a long time

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so it sounds like you're saying the moment is continuing.

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This is something that's going to run for some time.

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That's what we feel. Again, I've given up on my crystal balls,

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the past three years have been quite something.

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The definition of a cycle, I think, has changed quite a bit.

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I'm not going back to university but I think what we've seen is

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unheard of in modern history.

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Think about it, the last recession was 2009,

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COVID was a two-week recession, it's very interesting.

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Again, rare earth, there's a company based

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in Montreal, they've been involved in this whole chain.

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Again, as of the last filing we had been shareholders for many, many years in

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that company. Sometimes to wait a bit more when you see that

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incrementally these companies are improving on what they do

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and expanding, the payoff long term can be very attractive.

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That's what we're trying to do. What people don't see necessarily, the

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investors, is that we try to manage risk in absolute terms,

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so we're not a benchmark hugger.

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Sometimes we're ahead of the crowd but when it becomes really

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exciting we're not going necessarily be overweighted, especially in

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Canada where the

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index is not as diversified.

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It's a different type of marketplace in Canada.

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If we want to protect shareholders' money, especially during downturns because

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there will be shakeups at times, we've seen it over

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the past few days with AI's impact on software.

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It's nothing new but there was another breach.

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You don't know what's going to come.

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We don't know if there'll be another statement from Washington that will just

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mix up all the cards out there.

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But you know the background is, again, there's a direction

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of travel. I think Mr. Carney's trips in China and

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Europe, I think he's maneuvering, not to escape

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a potential renewable of the

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USMCA but I think we always need to have a B plan.

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It's like when I do my homework with my analysts

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we try to measure what is the absolute downside scenario and

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what is upside, that's what we do all the time on all the

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stocks. I think Mr. Carney is doing this, he needs to prepare Plan B and

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probably a Plan C because we don't know what's going to happen when July comes.

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Will there be a full renewal of the free trade or is

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that going to be just like no renewal so therefore

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it keeps going on a yearly basis for 10 years or, as you know,

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the default option is that any of the three

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country from July and on can

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exit on a six-month notice, and that would be the

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absolute downside scenario for the industrial companies.

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What I want the audience to remember, the industrial

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economy in Canada since 1987, the first free trade agreement

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between Reagan and Mulroney, sorry,

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1988, I believe, part of the industrial

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sector in Canada was about 18% of the market.

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Recently, as of last year I think, we touched a low of 8% or 8.5%.

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Because natural resources were available or

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part of that free trade agreement, unlike most of the free trade agreements in

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the world that have taken place over the past 30 years, well,

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we tend to specialize in what we're best at.

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When your largest client is just down south it's easy to ship,

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train, truck, whatever.

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That's what happened. Now because of the geopolitics we need to spend more

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on defence. Usually, spending more on defence helps a

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country or an economy to rebuild its own industrial

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base. I think that's we're going to see over the next few years.

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We've seen a lot of Canadian names that have had quite a move last

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year just based on that prediction of more

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spending.

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For sure. It's just fascinating to watch this roll out and with your expertise

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behind it being able to shepherd people through

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where there's an opportunity now and when it's perhaps a bit early to

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take a look at things. You'll know that better than almost anyone.

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When you take a Look at the geopolitics, I don't want to bring too many of them

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in here but, for instance, there's a discussion of

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whether oil is going to feel the global price.

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This is a bit of a shock.

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There are things going on in the Middle East. We don't know if it'll be a

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nothing or if it's something that goes further.

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Again, just tell us a little bit about your energy positioning within the fund

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at this point.

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Without naming specific names we've always been

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quite involved with royalties type of companies where

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the different moves in commodities are not necessarily going to have the same

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impact as a producer.

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You can think of the refiners, they can

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have a great run, especially if oil stays at a lower price because their

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margins improve by default.

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We've got some secular stories, including also some of the pipelines, some

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of the pipeline companies, especially for natural gas.

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We've always believed that natural gas is a bridge towards

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a greener world. I've not changed my personal view on this.

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Same thing as rare earth or some metals will be needed for this

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ongoing transition, but there will be hiccups.

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In terms of oil and gas, as I've mentioned earlier, a lot of these companies

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at $60, $65 oil are more

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profitable than they used to be.

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They're just better companies than they're used to.

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Now, of course, given the geopolitics, if you tell me that oil goes

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to 50 bucks some of these names will go down,

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there's no doubt about it. There's a currency also that we need to factor in.

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I cannot promise, and I don't know if there'll be another oil pipeline, it's

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not crystal clear. I think based on my readings and our discussions with

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CEOs of different companies it looks more like we might have

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a great opportunity to continue to expand on the current infrastructure that

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has already been built as opposed to building a brand new pipeline.

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That alone could increase quite a bit the overall exports [crosstalk].

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It's all about the capacity and the export piece

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so if it gets there...

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You want to diversify away from the US, right, 80% of what

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we ship used to be in the US.

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You want to play your cards well because now we don't know what's going to

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happen in Venezuela but if Venezuela were to go

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back to what they used to produce, which was like $3 million, I think, a year,

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they're at 800,000 barrels a day, I think, used to being closer to

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2, in the heydays I think it was 3 or slightly above,

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it would take years.

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It takes a long time. Remember when the US invaded Iraq

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it took them more than a decade to bring back the

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production that Iraq had back in their peak.

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It takes lot of time.

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Again, I want people to remember we have a

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diversified economy.

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As I said, uranium, nuclear, copper,

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the gold companies have a lot of byproducts as well.

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It's super interesting to see where Canada sits right now.

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I was speaking to an old friend in Boston a

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few weeks ago and he was mesmerized about why

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are investors more enthused about the Canadian marketplace

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given all the resources that we have, and if the world continues

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to go through a duplication of all the supply chains

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as a result of the geopolitics Canada sits very

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well. Remember, we talked about this when the Russians invaded Ukraine.

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Hello, investors. We'll be back to the show in just a moment.

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else you get your podcasts. Now back to today's show.

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Absolutely. That was the beginning of one piece of the gold trade,

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certainly. There's more to it perhaps now because it's a

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gathering storm to an extent.

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We saw gold fall out of bed last week, for sure,

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maybe linked to the new Fed nominee, head of the

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Fed nominee. I don't know what you think about that but where does gold

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play a role going forward.

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Maybe it was a buying opportunity for some people.

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It seems to be okay today.

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Maybe. In terms of how I perceive gold,

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I always had this soft rule since I've been a fund manager,

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gold is very much based on sentiment.

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It's not a productive asset.

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As a result, all the funds I've managed previously usually I've got this 10%

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threshold as percentage of the total assets of the fund.

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We were in gold last year, two years, five years

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ago. Now as you get more advanced

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in that cycle people go from the large cap to the

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smaller and mid-cap companies that become more speculative.

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They want a bigger bang for their bucks, right?

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It gets a bit harder for True North, which is a 7

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billion plus fund, to get involved with but we're always on the lookout

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for interesting opportunities that will have potentially a long duration,

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no matter what happens with the gold price.

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The reality is we've been on the wait over the past couple months

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just because now it's way above 10% of the TSX,

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as I've mentioned to you, and therefore more than 10% of the fund,

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a little bit more. So I'm just a little careful on short

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term but the reality is that nothing's changed.

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Central banks have increased their reserves but they're not buying as

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much as two years ago.

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Last year, we just saw the numbers, central banks bought a little less last

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year versus 2024 but there's still a trend.

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Now over the past six months it's been all retail money and institutional

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investors coming in.

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Now, the dynamic, look at Venezuela, the more

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land grab that we see or the more changes that were

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unexpected in the previous world order, this

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I think will keep people interested in gold.

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Also, I'd like to mention something. As you know, I've never been a big bull or

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a strong believer in cryptos but over the past couple

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of weeks, months, there's been articles about quantum

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computing being able to break in the codes for cryptos.

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It's very interesting that over the past month or so

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we've seen really cryptos being under pressure.

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Obviously, gold has decoupled like last year but I think that people realize

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maybe that to own something that is really tangible ...

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we've seen this queue of people going to buy silver and gold

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in the US, in the UK. I don't know how many coins now are sold out at Costco.

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It's a bit crazy. When you look at the rate of change, when gold reached

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5,000 it was, I think, something psychological which coincided

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also with the nomination of the new Fed chair who is, by the way,

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an investor. His whole career has been ...

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he was a banker, investment banker, then he went to work with Stanley

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Druckenmiller who is one of the most famous stock investors in

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the West. A bit less well known because he just runs his own

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family office since he left George Soros many years ago.

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Scott Bessent worked at Soros with Stanley Druckenmiller and

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he's in charge of the Treasury, and you've got now Mr. Warsh who

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will be heading the Fed.

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These two individuals understand the stock market inside out.

18:58.103 --> 19:02.141
That's very interesting that now you'll have two voices

19:02.141 --> 19:04.576
reporting to Mr. Trump in some ways.

19:04.576 --> 19:08.480
We'd like to believe that the Fed will remain quite independent.

19:08.480 --> 19:12.651
Mr. Warsh understands markets, we'll see if he's going to be a dove

19:12.651 --> 19:16.121
like some people pretend, or if he is going to be a bit hawkish.

19:16.121 --> 19:20.058
It's not crystal clear to me what will be the approach.

19:20.058 --> 19:23.996
I don't think, again, personal view, I would not be surprised if in the short

19:23.996 --> 19:28.400
term rates could go down a little bit more. At the same time the economy in the

19:28.400 --> 19:32.437
US, despite the fact that it's a K economy, the bottom 20

19:32.437 --> 19:36.608
percentile is still hurting, it's hard to get by, inflation is

19:36.608 --> 19:41.513
not disappearing. But the economy,

19:41.513 --> 19:45.450
CapEx, infrastructure, you know, these CapEx from the large

19:45.450 --> 19:49.421
four players for the data centres geared towards AI keeps

19:49.421 --> 19:53.125
going and represents 75% of the overall CapEx in the US.

19:53.125 --> 19:56.261
There's still on shoring.

19:56.261 --> 20:00.399
It's earning season as we speak so we see the backlog of major industrial

20:00.399 --> 20:04.536
companies starting to increase because it's been three years of complete

20:04.536 --> 20:08.807
stagnation. Those PMIs are starting to move

20:08.807 --> 20:13.178
but the stocks have already had quite a move since October already.

20:13.178 --> 20:17.282
You mentioned crypto. I want to ask you a little bit about AI and the

20:17.282 --> 20:20.085
discussions because all of the components that you've been discussing in many

20:20.085 --> 20:24.156
cases will be components of the AI build out, the commodity side

20:24.156 --> 20:27.926
of it, the energy side of it, certainly.

20:27.926 --> 20:31.163
Something that we've seen in markets has certainly been a reaction from

20:31.163 --> 20:35.300
software being displaced, essentially, by what

20:35.300 --> 20:37.402
AI can do for companies.

20:37.436 --> 20:39.538
I just want to kind of get your thoughts on that.

20:39.538 --> 20:43.575
For a long time software has been a very interesting place to invest but lots

20:43.575 --> 20:47.179
of investors are questioning that right now. What are your thoughts?

20:47.179 --> 20:51.350
It's a great question, very hard to have a

20:51.350 --> 20:55.387
clear cut answer or to have an answer on a timely manner.

20:55.387 --> 20:59.858
Again, I think there's a roadmap or a direction of travel but

20:59.858 --> 21:03.895
in terms of sequence, hard to tell you the when and

21:03.895 --> 21:07.899
the what. Here, I'd like to share a personal discussion

21:07.899 --> 21:12.137
I had with an acquaintance of mine who's been

21:12.137 --> 21:17.042
involved in enterprise software his whole life, knows AI

21:17.042 --> 21:21.046
intimately. He started a new company about a year

21:21.046 --> 21:24.383
ago which is enterprise software but based on AI.

21:24.383 --> 21:28.453
Basically, this gentleman told me recently he could bring up

21:28.453 --> 21:32.491
a product that he's been showcasing and using,

21:32.491 --> 21:36.595
there's a core client using his new solution

21:36.595 --> 21:40.565
that was all AI built and therefore he told me, I can do a

21:40.565 --> 21:44.336
lot more faster thanks to AI.

21:44.336 --> 21:47.539
He could do this with, I think, half the number of engineers.

21:47.539 --> 21:51.610
I forgot in terms of amount of time

21:51.610 --> 21:53.945
but it was much faster.

21:53.945 --> 21:57.649
Here's the hook or the pitfall.

21:57.649 --> 22:02.020
Where he was misled, his client is super happy

22:02.020 --> 22:06.024
but he cuts back on software engineering but where he

22:06.024 --> 22:10.729
had to hire a lot more people was on the design part.

22:10.729 --> 22:14.700
It's easy to bring up a new solution, what's a generic solution,

22:14.700 --> 22:19.037
and then you need to adapt and tailor it to the need of your customer

22:19.037 --> 22:21.540
who might be in a totally different industry, different sector.

22:21.540 --> 22:25.410
You need to do that work.

22:25.410 --> 22:28.513
That's more labour intensive than expected.

22:28.513 --> 22:33.452
It's just to show here that, listen,

22:33.452 --> 22:37.522
it's been a carnage year-to-date, and started last year for this

22:37.556 --> 22:41.526
software sector mostly, well, not only enterprise

22:41.526 --> 22:45.464
software but all kind of software companies including info service type

22:45.464 --> 22:49.768
of software, we've seen Thomson Reuters and RELEX in

22:49.768 --> 22:53.805
Europe, we've seen some of the stock exchange that have a business model that

22:53.805 --> 22:57.843
is more based on info service as opposed to just

22:57.843 --> 23:01.813
commissions and trading, it has a lot of ramification.

23:01.813 --> 23:05.917
The example I just shared with you is I think that this

23:05.917 --> 23:09.855
is happening a little bit too fast because we've got

23:09.855 --> 23:13.925
the proof here that there's another aspect of a

23:13.925 --> 23:17.996
software solution that is based on tailoring it and

23:17.996 --> 23:21.967
making this tangible to the users, and that has

23:21.967 --> 23:24.035
nothing to do with AI per se.

23:24.035 --> 23:28.206
No, that's the layers and the nuance and the idiosyncratic

23:28.206 --> 23:31.943
way that you would take a look at companies and the theme and obviously the

23:31.943 --> 23:36.348
sort of shock to the market that is being endured by software right

23:36.348 --> 23:40.452
now. That kind of leads me to your ability to take a look at companies

23:40.452 --> 23:44.623
that would maybe be private at this point, probably tech companies that

23:44.623 --> 23:46.691
are private. You do do that.

23:46.691 --> 23:49.094
I know that you have a wide knowledge.

23:49.094 --> 23:53.832
You actually invest in the companies as well.

23:53.832 --> 23:57.803
We still do. Not in the case that I just mentioned to you, that's way too

23:57.803 --> 24:01.206
early.

24:01.206 --> 24:04.643
If we invest in some private companies we like them to already have some kind

24:04.643 --> 24:08.046
of revenue generation.

24:08.046 --> 24:12.217
We do own three to four companies, it's probably about 1% of the

24:12.217 --> 24:14.820
portfolio so it's nothing very risky.

24:14.820 --> 24:18.857
We try to mitigate the absolute risk again but we're super enthused

24:18.857 --> 24:22.894
about ... two of these companies

24:22.894 --> 24:25.697
actually right now are very interesting.

24:25.697 --> 24:27.466
They've seen their backlog growing.

24:27.466 --> 24:29.668
One of them is related to automation.

24:29.668 --> 24:34.139
I've talked about all these backlogs for these large industrial companies where

24:34.139 --> 24:36.908
it's increasing recently.

24:36.908 --> 24:40.946
Some of these company's, they're unicorn, it's just a question of

24:40.946 --> 24:45.183
time. We saw actually just two days ago out

24:45.183 --> 24:49.921
of Quebec City there's a company that was purchased for

24:49.921 --> 24:54.125
$2 billion Canadian by ASSAB, a large

24:54.125 --> 24:56.495
US industrial company.

24:56.495 --> 25:00.799
Too bad that we lost that company but we

25:00.799 --> 25:05.403
have that. I want people to remember long term diversification

25:05.403 --> 25:09.508
will always pay off. It's one thing to chase the metals and the

25:09.508 --> 25:14.446
gold and the oil or the energy or infrastructure, we

25:14.446 --> 25:18.517
have to remind ourselves that technology despite AI, there'll

25:18.517 --> 25:22.220
be new winners out there and we have to be on the lookout for these.

25:22.220 --> 25:26.324
That's why we do that extra homework to keep an

25:26.324 --> 25:29.060
eye on some of these private companies.

25:29.060 --> 25:33.164
It's fascinating. And I think Charles Danis had a conversation with

25:33.164 --> 25:35.300
you in French just before this.

25:35.300 --> 25:39.804
This was actually a question that he was asking of you offline, we

25:39.804 --> 25:44.142
were talking about it, the idea that probably a lot of investors last

25:44.142 --> 25:48.246
year would have done very well just owning the TSX.

25:48.246 --> 25:51.016
That worked pretty well for a lot of investors.

25:51.016 --> 25:53.084
I guess the difference between ...

25:53.084 --> 25:57.589
there's a carry on of what went on last year and some of the themes

25:57.589 --> 26:01.726
but what's a bit different and nuanced and, frankly, requires a more

26:01.726 --> 26:04.596
active approach because last year you really could have owned the index,

26:04.596 --> 26:07.832
actually.

26:07.832 --> 26:11.870
Last year it's bittersweet, right?

26:11.870 --> 26:15.907
For any active fund manager like ourselves, when

26:15.907 --> 26:20.078
you're up in absolute by 24, 25% but your index

26:20.078 --> 26:25.116
is up 30, 32%, whatever it finished at,

26:25.116 --> 26:28.286
you're super happy in absolute terms.

26:28.286 --> 26:32.290
You might think that Christmas there'll be nice gifts under a tree

26:32.290 --> 26:36.494
but you still have this pressure or this sense of you're

26:36.494 --> 26:40.432
not completely fulfilled or satisfied because you

26:40.432 --> 26:43.802
could not beat the benchmark. The perfect year is when you're up in absolute in

26:43.835 --> 26:48.273
a nice way and when you beat the benchmark.

26:48.273 --> 26:51.009
That's not what happened last year, unfortunately. It was extremely hard to

26:51.009 --> 26:54.679
beat the benchmark for all the reasons I've mentioned, the Junior Gold and the

26:54.679 --> 26:56.615
metals just started to run.

26:56.615 --> 26:59.417
The Canadian banks also did better than expected.

26:59.417 --> 27:01.286
We've talked about this in the past, Pamela.

27:01.286 --> 27:05.690
I think since the financial crisis of

27:05.690 --> 27:09.894
'08, 09 the US large money centres, banks, and the Canadian banks,

27:09.894 --> 27:13.632
have really cut back on the subprime type of loans.

27:13.632 --> 27:17.902
In Canada it changes the nature of the risk profile for these

27:17.936 --> 27:22.107
Canadian banks because back in the days, previous cycles, again, that's why we

27:22.107 --> 27:26.177
always need to look at history but we need to adjust our models

27:26.177 --> 27:28.513
for the future because cycles are very different.

27:28.513 --> 27:31.916
No recession since '09.

27:31.916 --> 27:36.187
The Canadian banks cut back on subprime and now when you've got unemployment

27:36.187 --> 27:40.525
at 7%-ish, back in the day's that's when you would

27:40.525 --> 27:43.662
start to see defaults on mortgages and different loans.

27:43.662 --> 27:47.732
We've barely seen this so far.

27:47.732 --> 27:50.769
That's been a bit of a surprise and that's where we probably lacked a little

27:50.769 --> 27:53.104
bit last year.

27:53.104 --> 27:55.607
In absolute terms it was an amazing year.

27:55.607 --> 27:59.611
Again, we were positioned for some of these large moves but we

27:59.611 --> 28:03.615
choose to manage risk in absolute turns and that's, in turns, when we have a

28:03.615 --> 28:07.585
negative year when the market is down usually we tend

28:07.585 --> 28:11.222
to fare a lot better. I think that's part of the approach.

28:11.256 --> 28:15.160
We like to have our unitholders to sleep well at night.

28:15.160 --> 28:18.697
It's a fund that continues to perform well over the long term with much less

28:18.697 --> 28:20.665
volatility.

28:20.665 --> 28:24.469
Some of the in-depth knowledge that you have of the companies and often

28:24.469 --> 28:28.840
watching with the research you have at your hands

28:28.840 --> 28:32.944
of what can be overdone, that's obviously where you go hunting and

28:32.944 --> 28:35.714
looking for opportunities.

28:35.714 --> 28:39.484
The software example today, and maybe even gold, I don't know, are

28:39.484 --> 28:43.655
opportunities where there's extreme moves obviously in the market but you have

28:43.655 --> 28:47.258
a much more nimble approach to things.

28:47.258 --> 28:50.895
Listen, the research is part of our DNA.

28:50.895 --> 28:54.566
Our analysts work day and night.

28:54.566 --> 28:57.936
We've seen it during COVID, we've seen it recently.

28:57.936 --> 29:02.841
There was this threat from Washington from Mr. Trump to decertify

29:02.841 --> 29:05.844
certain planes made in Canada.

29:05.844 --> 29:10.148
Well, let me tell you, as soon as we saw the news I called my analyst.

29:10.148 --> 29:12.117
I think that was at 7:00 p.m.

29:12.117 --> 29:14.385
He was at home. We had a conversation.

29:14.385 --> 29:18.656
I could hear his kids playing in the background.

29:18.656 --> 29:22.861
You reach out to the company, had a note published the same evening

29:22.861 --> 29:24.963
before we go to bed.

29:24.963 --> 29:29.400
I knew exactly what to expect the

29:29.400 --> 29:33.238
next day, that we own it or that we don't own it, there's always an

29:33.238 --> 29:37.442
opportunity. In the morning we had another follow-up

29:37.442 --> 29:41.446
together and I double checked with the traders what was the outlook in

29:41.446 --> 29:45.350
terms of demand for the stock or not.

29:45.350 --> 29:48.219
It played out quite nicely. It was a very interesting day.

29:48.219 --> 29:52.257
Legally speaking, we found out a day later that

29:52.257 --> 29:56.795
it would be really hard for a president to decertify a plane just

29:56.795 --> 30:01.733
without having the infrastructure involved.

30:01.733 --> 30:05.904
It's really captivating to see what's going on because there's always

30:05.904 --> 30:09.974
something coming out from left field that we've not seen.

30:09.974 --> 30:14.145
It's part of the turmoil that started a year ago and we're getting used to it.

30:14.145 --> 30:18.716
I think COVID prepared us in some ways to expect the unexpected.

30:18.716 --> 30:21.753
Your experience and the steady hand, there's something to that particularly

30:21.753 --> 30:25.890
when markets drop and your fund sort of sales

30:25.890 --> 30:29.260
through with a keel that's a bit more stable.

30:29.260 --> 30:33.264
Max Lemieux, we want to thank you for joining us today, sharing your time and

30:33.264 --> 30:35.900
telling investors what you're looking at for this year.

30:35.900 --> 30:37.702
Thank you.

30:37.702 --> 30:38.703
Thank you.

30:38.703 --> 30:42.640
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30:42.640 --> 30:46.778
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We'll end today's show with a short disclaimer.

31:16.307 --> 31:20.144
The views and opinions expressed on this podcast are those of the participants,

31:20.144 --> 31:24.082
and do not necessarily reflect those of Fidelity Investments Canada ULC or

31:24.082 --> 31:28.086
its affiliates. This podcast is for informational purposes only, and should not

31:28.086 --> 31:30.622
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31:30.622 --> 31:32.924
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31:32.924 --> 31:37.262
Or an endorsement, recommendation, or sponsorship of any entity or securities

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31:45.637 --> 31:49.474
Fees, expenses, and commissions are all associated with fund investments.

31:49.474 --> 31:51.776
Thanks again. We'll see you next time.