Canada posted a $5.4B goods surplus in September, with a 0.2% rise in exports…

… driven by energy and mineral products, which carried the 5.6% decline in other categories - likely reflecting normalization after some tariff front-running.

The resources move drove a 0.7% increase in US exports, growing the trade surplus with our southern neighbour to $12.3B…

… alongside a 0.3% decline in total imports…

… as a second straight month of heavy automotive declines on the back of unplanned production stoppages in the US weighed down other categories…

… like computers and computer peripherals, which are up 53% YTD versus 2025 thanks to data center demand for GPUs.

Canada’s 2026 budget is here and it shaped up largely as expected - with the windfall from higher oil prices going back out the door to keep deficit projections flat…

… driving an increase in federal debt-to-GDP, which Ottawa forecasts will peak in 2028-29 before improving (we’ll see).

There’s a few areas getting attention like defence, where total investment is expected to exceed $700B over the next five years - but new spending commitments of $11B were well short of last year’s $84B…

… as well as immigration, where targets for temporary and permanent residents were held flat to the Spring Update - with the addition of a PR grant to 200K current temporary residents.

Given there’s 523 pages to go through, we’ll take some time with it and come back with anything interesting we see at the sector or company level.

Gildan (GIL) dropped 19% on the back of a Q3 miss, with $60M of the shortfall tied to product availability and $100M tied to sales mix and weak demand…

… which looks set to continue into Q4, forcing the company to cut its 2026 outlook and withdraw its 2028 targets.

The soft demand backdrop is topical, given a short report in June alleged that channel stuffing was being masked through off balance sheet receivables financing…

… which creates an artificially low days sales outstanding. Adjusting for factoring, DSO would sit at nearly 130 days - signalling a weaker consumer backdrop...

… which is showing up in the multiple, as investors front-run negative estimates revisions and wait for next year’s investor day to reset expectations.

Propel Holdings (PRL) jumped 15% Wednesday on its record Q3, which delivered $201M of revenue (up 32% Y/Y) on a 121% revenue yield - above the target range of 116-120%…

… with $261M of origination activity taking total loan/advance balances to $690M. Management expects that figure to be up ~24% versus last year…

… supporting growth in the core business, but nowhere near the trajectory PRL is seeing in its lending-as-a-service platform - which is tracking towards 10% of revenue…

… and should drive margin expansion over time, given the capital-light model nets the company a fee for its white-labelled solution (no balance sheet risk). With that, the top end of EBITDA guidance is in play (~$178M)…

… and ROE could improve from here…

… potentially driving a multiple re-rate, given its current valuation likely has some goeasy scar tissue baked in - even though they operate distinct business models.

North American Construction (NOA) sank 17% on its Q3, which beat on revenue…

… but missed big on profit, with losses in its Fargo JV and margin compression in Australia forcing management to cut the full-year EBITDA guide by ~$15M.

Australia showed up in the backlog too, with a lost project driving the sequential decline - but with an $8B bid pipeline…

… the company has plenty of opportunity to right-size, with a 15-20% margin target for 2027 supporting leverage reduction…

… and potential multiple expansion if they can execute, with NOA’s current valuation sitting below the long-term average.

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