Investor confidence in 2025 was tested by United States tariffs and geopolitical shocks and buoyed by economic resilience and AI exuberance in what was a choppy but

robust year for markets

.

With the new year fast approaching, the Financial Post asked 10

investment professionals

to share

stocks they’re watching

in 2026.

Trican Well Service Ltd. (TCW)

Brian Madden, chief investment officer at First Avenue Investment Counsel Inc. 

The Calgary-based

oilfield services provider

reinstated its dividend in 2023, is “very cash generative” and has been “quite prolific” in doing share buybacks, Madden said. Since 2017, the company has repurchased about 51 per cent of outstanding shares.

“We see it as a good combination of current income via the dividend and growth opportunity,” he said. But make no mistake, it’s not a secular growth company. It is absolutely a cyclical business with not much pricing power.”

Under new leadership, the company’s share price has recovered from 2020 lows and Madden sees a few catalysts for further growth in 2026.

He said Trican’s $231-million “complementary” acquisition of fracturing and coiled tubing service provider Iron Horse Energy Services will help grow its earnings, expand its geographical footprint and give it more exposure to oil, fracking and drilling.

Madden thinks that rising demand for liquefied natural gas

—

to power such things as AI data centres and LNG Canada’s export facility in Kitimat, B.C.

—

will increase takeaway capacity and could spur more drilling, fracking and cementing activity that benefits Trican’s business.

AtkinsRéalis Group Inc. (ATRL)

Irene Fernando, managing director, senior portfolio manager and co-head of North American equities at RBC Global Asset Management

Two years after rebranding from SNC-Lavalin Group Inc., the

Montreal-based company

has emerged with a renewed focus on engineering services and zero debt and is actively adding new capabilities and scale through acquisitions.

“When you’re buying Atkins today, you’re buying a clean balance sheet with the opportunity to grow the core business and use that balance sheet as leverage to tack on M&A,” Fernando said.

The potential role of artificial intelligence in engineering is also an “active discussion” in the industry, she said, and could be an opportunity to make processes more efficient and create capacity for engineers to take on more projects and earn higher margins.

The nuclear power renaissance could also be a boon for AtkinsRéalis and its wholly owned subsidiary, Candu Energy Inc., which designs, builds and services nuclear reactors and is the exclusive licensee of CANDU technology from the federal government.

“If you look at Ontario alone, Atkins can make so much money just by winning contracts,” Fernando said.

Canadian National Railway Co. (CNR)

Cole Kachur, senior investment adviser and portfolio manager at Wellington-Altus Private Wealth Inc. 

“Economic bellwether stocks”

such as CNR

haven’t performed well this year amid the pervasive uncertainty surrounding U.S. tariffs and trade policies, Kachur said, but he thinks the company’s share price has bottomed out.

“From a technical perspective, it’s been turning the corner and now it’s starting to show flashes of the worst being behind us and moving back into an uptrend scenario,” he said.

Canada’s largest railway is more of a value name than a growth name and carries defensive characteristics, he said.

“Even if markets aren’t super strong, you’re picking up a little bit of return that’s kind of equal to at least a high interest rate right now in the form of dividend yield,” he said.

While it’s impossible to predict what trade will look like next year, Kachur said continued strength in the farming, mining and energy sectors would bode well for the stock’s outlook.

“A lot of the worst-case scenarios have already been priced in,” he said. “If they can report decent or expected earnings, the stock will react positively.”

WSP Global Inc. (WSP)

Brianne Gardner, co-founder and senior wealth manager at Velocity Investment Partners, Raymond James Ltd.

“The big story this year is

how active WSP

has become on strategic deals,” Gardner said.

The Montreal-based engineering firm has made 24 acquisitions over the past five years and has reportedly made an offer on U.S.-based Jacobs Solutions Inc., which shows the company is “playing offence and shaping the industry, not just competing in it,” she said.

With projects in more than 40 countries, WSP spreads its risk across dozens of sectors and regions and is positioned to benefit from government spending on large-scale infrastructure plays in areas including transportation, water systems, renewable energy and sustainable buildings.

The company’s backlog is up to 11 per cent, “which tells us clients are committing to long, multi-year projects rather than pulling back their investments,” Gardner said. “It is a stock that we would be adding now, especially because it has kind of pulled back recently. When you consistently integrate acquisitions, hold your margins and grow through every part of the cycle, investors are willing to pay up for that reliability.”

Roblox Corp. (RBLX)

Kyle Taylor, wealth adviser and portfolio manager at Tridelta Private Wealth 

The online platform is effectively “YouTube for gaming,” Taylor said, and lets users create, develop and monetize their own video games.

Roblox’s popularity (and its share price) took off during the COVID-19 pandemic. While the broader gaming ecosystem experienced a selloff coming out of peak pandemic times in 2022, Roblox has managed to continually grow its user base.

“Now that they’ve stabilized, they’ve seen really good growth, and I think they’ve proven they’re here to stay,” Taylor said.

The company has a lot of free cash flow and primarily makes money through the sale of its virtual currency, Robux. It is also starting to incorporate ads into its platform, which he said will “provide another lever of profitability” that isn’t valued in the stock today.

“The one drawback is that for most of its life, it has been paying sizable fees to Apple and Google for being on their app stores,” he said. “But they’re moving more of their purchases to their own platform, which should help profits.”

Alphabet Inc. (GOOGL)

Danielle Martin, senior wealth adviser and portfolio manager with the Martin Group at Scotia Wealth Management 

The

parent company of Google

outperformed its Magnificent Seven peers this year, and its established track record and ability to roll out new products and services to an existing user base give it a leading advantage, Martin said.

“The company is very diversified and has growth in many different sectors,” including web-based search, advertisements, software applications, mobile operating systems, consumer content enterprise solutions and hardware products. “And with the launch of Gemini 3, it really puts them at the forefront of the development of AI,” she said.

The company’s proprietary artificial intelligence model is “the most advanced model that’s been announced and tested, and the competitors seem to agree,” she said.

Alphabet expects to spend more than US$90 billion this year on capital expenditures, mostly AI infrastructure and data centres. Next year, Martin said, it could hit US$100 billion due to its high cash flow.

“We feel that the intrinsic value right now is fairly priced,” she said. “We feel it’s going to outperform its asset class.”

FirstService Corp. (FSV)

Derek Warren, vice-president and portfolio manager at Lincluden Investment Management Ltd. 

Fewer natural disasters in 2025 have weighed on the share price of

the Canadian company

, which offers property management, maintenance, restoration and home improvement services for residential and commercial clients.

“Because we had a couple of storm-heavy years, the street put in forward earnings that were perhaps a little high,” Warren said. “As those have come down now, people are lowering their targets and reducing their expectations.”

However, he said FirstService continues to grow its earnings in other divisions. He sees the potential for double-digit cash flow growth as the company continues to acquire smaller companies in property management, roofing, painting, home inspections, restoration and renovations.

“They’ve raised their dividend, they’ve added additional communities that they’re taking care of, they continue to grow, and therefore I think this sell-off … that could reverse,” he said. “And if that does, you’re getting a nice, over 30 per cent return from what is a stable, well-run company.”

Maple Leaf Foods Inc. (MFI)

Jeff Pollock, chief executive and portfolio manager at Schneider & Pollock Wealth Management Inc.

Pollock said the

Canadian consumer packaged meats company

is starting to benefit from two major developments: cost savings from new production facilities in Winnipeg and London and the strategic spin-off of its pork business that was completed on Oct. 1.

“They’re receiving about 10 per cent free cash flow right now, which is a very large number, and I think they’ll use that and give it back to shareholders,” he said.

The company declared a special cash dividend in early December on top of its regular payout, and Pollock expects a share buyback program and more special dividend announcements to come in 2026.

“They’re a dividend aristocrat,” he said. “They’ve increased their dividend every year since 2015. So, I think that will continue.”

Pollock said Maple Leaf Foods is “deeply undervalued,” trading at just seven times its 2026 adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) compared to an average of 10 times for U.S.-based peers such as Hormel Foods Corp. and Tyson Foods Inc., setting the stage for a major valuation expansion in 2026.

Eli Lilly and Co. (LLY)

Stan Wong, senior wealth adviser and portfolio manager with the Stan Wong Group at Scotia Wealth Management 

Wong said the health-care sector provides a unique combination of defensive stability and growth potential. For 2026, he predicts

Eli Lilly’s

strong fundamentals, leadership in the weight loss drug space and limited competition will make it a standout stock.

The global pharmaceutical firm has strong free cash flow and is “very disciplined with their capital allocation,” Wong said, so it can invest in growth and return value to shareholders.

“Beyond the weight loss and diabetes markets, they have a very diverse pipeline in oncology, immunology and neurosciences,” he said. “There are multiple growth avenues that Eli Lilly provides. It really reduces reliance on any single product.”

In November, Eli Lilly’s share price got a boost after it announced a deal with the U.S. government to lower prices and expand access to two of its medications, Zepbound and orforglipron. Wong said the agreement will give the company more access in the Medicare space and increase its market share.

“If you look at the stock from a technical perspective, it has recently broken out to new all-time highs and that signals more investor confidence,” he said.

Prudential PLC (PRU.L)

Jeff Elliott, portfolio manager and head of global equity at BMO Global Asset Management 

Trading on the London Stock Exchange, the British multinational insurance and asset management company is unique because of its positioning in emerging markets, Elliott said.

Prudential demerged its United Kingdom and European savings and investments arm into a separate company in 2019 and now focuses on major Asian markets, including China, Hong Kong, India and Singapore.

“It’s hard to get exposure to the Asian market in this way

,

” Elliott said. “We feel like there’s a lot of growth in Asia, in life insurance in particular, because there’s low penetration right now. Even though the stock has done well, there’s a long way to go with it.”

He said the stock is attractively valued and generates a lot of free cash flow. He expects a recently announced share buyback program will drive earnings per share (EPS) accretion and said the initial public offering of its asset management business in India will “unlock value” for the company.

“It’s pure-play Asian life insurance, and that’s an attractive market for us,” Elliott said.

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• Email: jswitzer@postmedia.com