A veteran market strategist says investors should expect a brief pause in the market rally as the year draws to a close, even as he maintains a bullish long-term outlook. His year-end target for the S&P 500 remains 7,000, implying modest gains from current levels.
BNN Bloomberg spoke with Brian Belski, CEO and chief investment officer at Humilis Investment Strategies, about his new firm, market forecasts and his latest investment themes. Belski also shared his views on gold, AI stocks and his current stock picks.
Key Takeaways
- Brian Belski maintains a year-end target of 7,000 for the S&P 500, signalling modest gains.
- He expects a short-term pause in the market after strong performance through 2025.
- The TSX may underperform U.S. indexes due to its heavy concentration in materials and energy.
- Belski advises investors to take profits in gold and rebalance toward diversified U.S. equities.
- He sees opportunity in Lululemon and Aritzia, calling them strong brands poised for recovery.
Read the full transcript below:
ANDREW: We’re still getting earnings this week across a swath of industries. Let’s get more from a veteran Wall Street and Bay Street analyst who has just started his own firm. We’re joined by Brian Belski, CEO and chief investment officer at Humilis Investment Strategies. Great to see you.
BRIAN: Good morning, Canada. It’s great to be back. Thanks for having us.
ANDREW: How long were you at BMO?
BRIAN: Thirteen years, seven months, three weeks, four days, 12 hours, 32 minutes — it was amazing. I’ve been doing this, believe it or not, for 36 years. So 35 and a half years, and BMO was my longest stay. It was an amazing time. I have great friends, great relationships. You know, this business is all about relationships.
Being a Minnesota kid who worked in New York for so long, when BMO came calling all those years ago, I thought it was a perfect fit for me from a cultural perspective — trying to build up the capital markets and U.S. presence for BMO while keeping that Midwest culture. I loved my time at BMO. I still love everybody there, and it was an amazing relationship.
ANDREW: What’s the Minnesota connection there, though?
BRIAN: I was born and raised in Minnesota. If you think about it, Minnesota should really be a province of Canada.
ANDREW: I’ve heard that said, yeah.
BRIAN: We grew up very similarly — the cultures are alike, and we kind of talk the same. It’s been an amazing run.
ANDREW: Tell us quickly, what will Humilis do? What’s your shop going to do?
BRIAN: My job at BMO for so many years was really three jobs — institutional strategy for the U.S., institutional strategy for Canada, and portfolio strategy for institutional clients. Those clients are very different from private wealth clients.
We’ve had the good fortune of running real-money portfolios for more than 20 years. We brought those core competencies — our process, our discipline — to BMO and built a strong portfolio advisory business within its infrastructure. We’re going to provide similar types of portfolios at Humilis, focused on Canadian and U.S. stocks.
ANDREW: The S&P 500 is around 6,850 today. You see it getting to 7,000 by the end of the year?
BRIAN: We do. When we wrote our year-ahead piece — and we’ve written 26 of them in our career — we said the bull case for the S&P 500 would be 7,000. That’s our official year-end target.
Markets are rarely linear for long. We’re heading into a period where a lot of people are playing catch-up, trying to be bullish. Our call has been steadfast and robust since 2009–10: the U.S. stock market is in a 25-year secular bull market. Canada’s come along for the ride, and 2025 has been an amazing example of that. On an absolute basis, Canada has actually outperformed the S&P 500.
We do think it’s time for a pause. We’ve talked a lot about that recently. We expect a bit of a pause in the market — and that’s okay. The more people who say they’re shorting AI and tech stocks after this big run, the more cautious we should be. Short sellers are very short term and can flip quickly, so be leery of making big calls on selling these great companies.
ANDREW: I gave a value for the S&P 500 as of yesterday — it’s down a bit from there. Brian, let’s show some charts for uranium, gold and tech as a copper proxy. We’ve seen a run-up in materials stocks, but nothing goes up forever.
BRIAN: Nothing goes up forever. The TSX is a very concentrated index in materials, energy and financials. When those three sectors outperform, it almost always beats the S&P 500, and that’s been the case this year.
We’re a bit concerned. We turned bullish on gold in late 2022, but we’re becoming a little more cautious. We’re not saying sell all your gold, but don’t buy after such a strong run. From an asset-allocation standpoint, we’d say be more balanced — hold more tech, consumer discretionary and financials, especially in Canada.
ANDREW: Do you think there’s a risk of an AI sell-off — a nasty one?
BRIAN: There’s always a risk of stocks going down. You have to protect yourself by owning other strategies — value, dividend growth — and that makes sense.
One thing we’ve fought our whole careers is the overuse of the word “bubble.” Just because stocks go up doesn’t mean it’s a bubble. It’s a bubble when frivolous things happen — when everyone’s making money and there’s a surge in IPOs, secondary offerings, or wild M&A. We’re not there yet.
Yes, valuations have risen, and we may see a pullback, but that doesn’t mean the bull market in AI is over. We think we’re in the third or fourth inning. Fundamentally, we’re starting to see dispersion — different companies are taking the lead, and it’s showing up in valuations and earnings growth.
ANDREW: You’ve got a couple of ideas for us — one is contrarian: Lululemon. The stock’s down about 50 per cent. You see potential for a turnaround?
BRIAN: We like to buy great brands that have stumbled operationally, and that’s Lululemon. It’s a great brand. We’ve seen other momentum trades this year in similar apparel names like Vuori and Alo, but we think they’ll come back to Lulu. We’re seeing operational improvements there. It’s a great Canadian company — listed in the U.S., of course — but that brand is here to stay.
ANDREW: It’s a global name. I was just in Ireland and saw people walking around in Lululemon and Aritzia. You see promise there too?
BRIAN: We love Aritzia. It’s one of the most under-owned Canadian stocks among private wealth institutions. It’s an amazing brand with great inventory management and smart U.S. expansion. They’ve added a bit of scarcity to the brand. If you’re worried about a Canadian recession, look at Aritzia’s chart over the past year — it tells the story.
ANDREW: Brian, thank you very much. All the best with the new venture.
BRIAN: Thank you.
ANDREW: That’s Brian Belski, CEO and chief investment officer at Humilis Investment Strategies.
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This BNN Bloomberg summary and transcript of the Nov. 4, 2025 interview with Brian Belski are published with the assistance of AI. Original research, interview questions and added context was created by BNN Bloomberg journalists. An editor also reviewed this material before it was published to ensure its accuracy and adherence with BNN Bloomberg editorial policies and standards.