Analysts Name the Market Indicators That Matter Now — SkimNews
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- Ethan Currie (National Bank) is watching the crude oil futures curve, which shows markets do not expect oil to return to prewar levels anytime soon — a signal that supply disruption or geopolitical premiums are priced in for months, with direct implications for inflation.
- Marc Sheard (Vancity Investment Management) flags improving S&P 500 market breadth: only about 30% of index companies outperformed in each of the past three years, but the share has risen above 50% year-to-date in 2026, suggesting broader participation and less dependence on a narrow group of stocks.
- Sandy McPherson (City of Edmonton) is focused on the long end of the yield curve, where elevated long rates are allowing the fund to lock in materially better yields than two or three years ago as it rebalances out of equities into fixed income.
- Kim Shannon (Sionna Investment Managers) tracks inflation thresholds, noting that value investing has outperformed growth by 11% annualized when inflation is above 2.5%, and the iShares Canadian Value Index ETF has beaten the Canadian growth index by 13.8% since rates bottomed in summer 2020.
- Ken Chen (Global X) is reverting to hard production metrics like steel output and power generation, arguing these indicators were sidelined after the Cold War in favor of financial metrics but now tell a different story from GDP per capita and CPI — especially as AI capex drives copper, lithium, and power demand.
- Tiago Figueiredo (Desjardins) is tracking who is actually buying — foreign participation in government bonds, active vs. passive flows, and auction demand — and argues resilience spending will require more borrowing while investors demand greater compensation, which is one reason term premiums are rising.
- Greg Moore (Richter LLP) breaks from the rest, saying no indicator currently stands out and that his firm avoids tactical calls in favor of long-term discipline for clients.
Why it matters: Across Canadian pensions, money managers, and macro strategists, the shared emphasis on persistent inflation, elevated long-end yields, and the rising cost of financing a resilience-driven economy suggests fixed income has become meaningfully more attractive, value continues to lead growth, and old industrial metrics like steel and power generation are re-entering the analyst toolkit for the first time since the Cold War.
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