Plus: Nvidia vs. the AI doubters November 24, 2025 Sign Up | View online IN THIS ISSUE 8 min read 📽️ Box-office bombs 🎨 Churchill oils ➰ Tariff loopholes Don’t despair, Glen Powell, Emma Stone, Dwayne Johnson, and Jared Leto! Everyone else’s fall movies flopped too! | Paramount Pictures, Focus Features, Walt Disney Pictures, A24 THE WEEK IN MARKETS Is this the sound of a bubble popping? Well, folks, it looks like the chips are finally hitting the fan. Not even a stronger-than-expected forecast from Nvidia, the world’s most valuable company in the global economy’s most critical industry, was enough to satisfy investors who have gotten really worried really fast that AI will never deliver enough profit to justify such stratospheric valuations. Hence, at one point Thursday, the S&P 500 was down 3%. Imagine if Nvidia had missed! (CEO Jensen Huang did: “If we were off by just a hair, if it looked even a little bit creaky, the whole world would’ve fallen apart,” he reportedly told employees.) And yet … the markets bounced back on Friday, putting the S&P 500 down a not-awful 2% on the week. (The TSX was flat.) Despite a rough November, and despite some real pain for the most bid-up AI companies — Oracle, CoreWeave, Palantir — the major stock indexes are still higher than they were in early October, meaning most normal folks’ portfolios haven’t budged. Still, lots of people are now wondering: are we about to barrel off a cliff? Or have too many The Big Short rewatches conditioned us to expect catastrophe? This could be the week we find out. THE CHART OF THE WEEK FOUR INTERESTING THINGS LAST WEEK (AND ONE WILD STAT) Investment scammers are preying on Gen Z. Hey, long time no talk — got a minute? Last year, Canadians aged 18 to 24 fell for so-called “pig butchers” — scammers who slowly build personal relationships with victims, or “fatten the pig,” before fleecing them — at a higher rate than seniors, according to a survey of financial regulators. It’s the first time in the survey’s 20-year history that young victims have surpassed the oldest. Blame it on a bleak job market for Zoomers and their ballooning credit-card debt. “Is it really AI, or did you just want to fire me?” Companies have cited AI to justify more than 48,000 U.S. job cuts so far this year, with 60% of them coming in October alone. (Canadian tech workers aren’t faring any better.) And, sure, maybe it really is because of AI efficiencies … or maybe, as Odd Lots host Joe Weisenthal recently speculated, AI has shifted from a third-rail subject to an investor-palatable way for companies to rebrand mass layoffs that have nothing to do with AI — and far more to do with post-pandemic overhiring. Job listings that include salary ranges = higher-paying jobs. As much as 3.6% higher, according to a new study by a top U.S. research firm, in part because companies are wary of getting shamed for posting lowball salaries — though, as the literary magazine n+1 recently learned, you can’t please everyone. Hang on — Hudson’s Bay had an art collection? Sure did! As it winds down operations, HBC put 27 paintings from its centuries-old collection up for auction last week. The big prize: a 1935 oil-on-canvas by Winston Churchill (not of Churchill, by Churchill), which sold for $1.3 million, more than double its estimated value. Corporate art collections are mostly a prestige play and a nice tax write-off, but you’d be surprised by some of the places (Hallmark, for instance) that have amassed legitimately impressive ones. Montreal’s home-construction pace is incroyable. Housing starts are down 36% this year over last in Vancouver and down 42% in Toronto — but up 104% in Montreal. Why? How? Apparently an injection of funding and thriftier prefab kits is driving a multiunit housing boom. We should try that in Vancouver and Toronto! —Srivindhya Kolluru FROM OUR SPONSOR THE FOMO INDEX by Stacey Woods IMPORTANT 🧸 AI-powered teddy bear pulled from shelves after it teaches kids about bondage, knives, and lighting matches. Everyone knows that’s YouTube’s job. Source 🚙 The Toyota RAV4 is named Canada’s most-stolen vehicle. Canada: where even the crooks are practical. Source ⚡️ Jeff Bezos is starting an AI company called “Project Prometheus.” That whole liver-pecked-out-for-giving-humans-fire part of the myth must’ve escaped him. Source 🍞 Your chance to claim a slice of the Loblaw bread-price-fixing settlement is about to expire. The puns, however, will stay freshly baked in. Source CRASH & BURN TO THE MOON 📆 Forty percent of young Canadians confused by food-expiration dates. Say it’s judgy to tell a pork chop when it’s “best before.” Source 🐟 Trump tells McDonald’s execs that the Filet-O-Fish needs “more tartar sauce.” First make America great, then we can talk about fish sandwiches. Source 📱 Apple’s new $230 iPhone Pocket is already sold out. “I’m free and right here,” says your own pocket. Source 🖥️ Study finds Boomers, Gen Xers invent better passwords than Gen Z. Now if they could just remember which notepad they wrote them on … Source WHO CARES THE BIG IMPORTANT STORY Q&A The U.S. Supreme Court Might Rule Against Trump on Tariffs. That Doesn’t Mean Tariffs Are Going Away You probably didn’t jump out of bed this morning and think, Boy, I’d love to learn something about the U.S. Supreme Court today! But we’re here to say that you probably should, because right now the Court is considering a case that could have giant implications for Canada. The case is about whether President Trump’s sweeping tariffs — including the painful ones he put on about 15% of our exports — should be allowed to remain in place. The Court heard oral arguments in the case earlier this month and will likely issue a ruling soon. To help us understand the potential outcomes, we called Timothy Meyer, a professor at Duke University School of Law who has studied and written about tariffs extensively. During oral arguments, most of the nine justices seemed skeptical that the Trump administration has the power to unilaterally impose tariffs the way it has. What’s the administration’s general argument? The essence of the government’s theory is that the courts should defer to the president’s interpretation of this statute, called the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA, which gives the president largely unchecked powers to impose sanctions during a national emergency. Right. So, like, freezing terrorists’ bank accounts or sanctioning hostile nations. Yeah. The thing is, this statute doesn’t say anything about tariffs. The Trump administration says it doesn’t matter because tariffs are a foreign-affairs matter [and therefore within his authority]. But that’s never how the courts or Congress have understood tariffs. They’re taxes, and, as a rule, only Congress has the authority to impose taxes. Does Trump himself even buy his administration’s argument that tariffs aren’t really taxes? He has said the U.S. was poor before tariffs and now it’s rich thanks to the extra revenue. Which sure seems to suggest he views tariffs as a way to bring in money. Yeah, I don’t think the government has much shot on the theory that it advanced. I’d put the odds at two-to-one in favour of the challengers [a group of U.S. small businesses]. So if Trump loses, will the tariffs just go away for Canada? Probably not. The president has used a broad range of statutes to impose tariffs. The most significant one for Canada is what’s known as Section 232. There was a lot of litigation over it during Trump’s first term [mostly involving steel and aluminum tariffs]. This statute gives the president the power to impose tariffs on national-security grounds. But Section 232 and a few other statutes have limitations. I read about this: with Section 232, the government has to investigate whether there’s a real national-security threat — like whether copious quantities of drugs are, in fact, flowing over the Canadian border, as the president has alleged. Yeah. So from the president’s view, these other statutes are not as “good” as IEEPA because they’re not a complete blank cheque. Still, most people think if the Court rules against the president on IEEPA, he’s still going to be able to reimpose at least some tariffs with these other statutes. So for Canadian businesses, what’s the best-case scenario at this point? The Court rules that Congress has to explicitly authorize the imposition of tariffs in order for Trump to use them. That would mean IEEPA is off the table, and it could, after more litigation, end up meaning the same for Section 232, which, like IEEPA, doesn’t explicitly give the president the power to impose tariffs. What’s the worst case? The worst case is if the Trump government wins under IEEPA, because you can use IEEPA for anything without any investigation or process to slow you down. Under IEEPA, Trump could even tariff Canadian goods that are compliant with the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement. He has just chosen not to. Let’s say the Court rules against Trump on IEEPA. Do you think the U.S. government will have to refund the tariffs it has collected under that statute? My guess is that everyone who has paid these tariffs is going to try to get a refund, and there’s going to be a lot of litigation unless Congress steps in to simplify the refund process. It’s going to be complicated. This interview, conducted by Jared Sullivan, was edited for length and clarity. OTHER VERY GOOD READS 📉 How the 2008 Financial Crisis Broke Wall Street An ex-Goldman Sachs banker on what’s changed since the crash. | Against the Rules 🇨🇦 The Generation That Outgrew Quebec Nationalism Old tensions are resurfacing, but young people want none of it. | The Walrus 🇨🇳 China Is Not the Answer for Canadian Prosperity A case against deeper economic engagement with the PRC. | The Hub THE WISDOM OF SOCIAL THOUGHTS ON TODAY’S ISSUE? Love it Good So so This week’s newsletter contributors: Brennan Doherty (writer), Devin Gordon (writer), Srivindhya Kolluru (news writer), Stacey Woods (writer), Ambrose Martos (fact checker), Ciara Rickard (copy editor), Maude Campbell (copy editor), Sara Black McCulloch (fact checker), Mohini Tailor (lifecycle marketing manager), Eva Grace Clement Cruz (lifecycle marketing associate), Setareh Sarmadi (senior editorial producer), Matthew Karasz (markets editor), Jared Sullivan (senior editor), Peter Martin (senior editor), and Devin Friedman (editor-in-chief). Wealthsimple Media Inc. 80 Spadina Ave Suite 400 Toronto, ON, M5V 2J4 Have questions? Contact us. VIEW IN BROWSER PRIVACY POLICY UNSUBSCRIBE Compared with all Canadian order-executions-only investment dealers regulated by CIRO that offers Gold trading November 23, 2025. Wealthsimple's Gold trading fee is 1% on top of spot price as of November 23, 2025 Subject to change. Annualized rates, calculated daily, charged monthly. All investments involve risks. See wsim.co/fee-schedule for details. TLDR is offered by Wealthsimple Media Inc. and is for informational purposes only. Any views expressed are those of the individual author and/or of Wealthsimple Media Inc., not of Wealthsimple Financial Corp or any of its other subsidiaries or affiliates. The content in TLDR is not investment advice, a recommendation to buy or sell assets or securities, nor any other kind of professional advice. TLDR is not a research report and should not serve as the basis for making investment decisions. Wealthsimple Media Inc. does not endorse any third-party views referenced in this content. When you invest, your money is at risk and it is possible that you may lose some or all of your investment. Past performance is not a guarantee of future results. Historical returns, hypothetical returns, expected returns and images included in this content are for illustrative purposes only. Always research before investing. © 2025 Wealthsimple Media Inc.