Navigating Uncertainty: Global Small Caps, Process Innovation, and AI at Mawer | EP189

Germany's 10-year government bond, negative 0.5% during the pandemic, now yields 3.46%, while the UK's has climbed to 5.5% and Japan's to about 3%. International equity portfolio manager David Ragan examines what the rise in global rates means for how the team values companies. He explains why higher discount rates change the math on future cash flows, how a bank in Ireland became attractively priced once its post-crisis turnaround was overlooked, and why the team treats China's low risk-free rate as artificially depressed. Above all, he returns to a simple idea: the value of diversification.

Q3 2026 market update: Canadian investment-grade bonds returned roughly negative 3% while stock markets in many parts of the world ended September near record highs. Institutional portfolio manager Kevin Minas and investment counsellor Stu Morrow review the quarter, from oil above $100 a barrel and a more hawkish Fed to bond yields at multi-year highs. They discuss why hyperscalers borrowing over US$200 billion this year is crowding out other issuers, what a narrow AI-led rally means when more than half of the S&P 500 sits 20% below its peak, and whether the 60-40 portfolio still needs 40% in traditional bonds. The conversation closes on the quarter's asset allocation changes in the balanced strategy.

Canada-U.S. tariffs are back, and Canadian investors are asking what they mean for their portfolios. Canadian equity portfolio manager Vijay Viswanathan and fixed income portfolio manager Crista Caughlin break down the tariff picture and last month's Canada Investment Summit across stocks and bonds. They cover why the equity portfolio carries little trade-exposed revenue once exempt commodities like oil and potash are set aside, why unemployment matters more than tariffs for Canadian banks, and how a new business-investment tax deduction pulls the effective rate below the U.S. The conversation closes on a simple idea: what the summit needs now is shovels in the ground, not sound bites on TV.

Global credit is absorbing record corporate bond supply as the AI data centre build-out floods the market with debt, yet spreads remain at multi-decade tights. Global credit analysts Sandro Morassutti and Marty Lee revisit the risks the team flagged a year ago, AI-linked issuance, Fed credibility and independence, fiscal spending, and geopolitical risk, and explain why credit spreads have held while government yields have driven the move. They walk through term premium and the long end, why they favour short-dated high-quality credit, the modest duration they have added, and how they are positioned to act when a dislocation finally arrives.

Is AI compute demand durable? Emerging markets equity portfolio manager Wen Quan Cheong returns from a research trip across Taiwan and South Korea and examines AI chip demand, the semiconductor supply chain, and the companies with the strongest structural tailwinds. He breaks compute demand into training, alignment, and inference, explains why margins can widen further down the AI supply chain, and shares what TSMC, SK Hynix, and Samsung revealed about whether this capital cycle is different from the dot-com boom. He also explains how the team trimmed into a crowded AI trade, and makes the case for a non-AI idea: a port operator in the Philippines.