Plus: a stock-market unwinding is underway November 17, 2025 Sign Up | View online IN THIS ISSUE 8 min read 🇨🇦 Spooky separatists 🚦 Traffic trend lines 👜 Big Birkin bag bets Turns out this scene featuring Mr. Incredible in morning traffic was shot on location in Winnipeg. | The Walt Disney Company THE WEEK IN MARKETS All of 2025’s hottest assets go cold at once It’s not a crash, it’s not a sell-off, it’s not even much of a dip — so what are we calling this now multi-week gloominess? It’s an unwinding. Meaning: if you zoom in on who’s been losing (as opposed to how much), all the stocks, especially AI stocks, that were killing it for investors earlier in the year have reversed course, at least temporarily. The narrative is that investors have, at long last, exhausted their optimism for AI. The issue with that simple narrative is that all of early of early 2025’s darlings are down, including gold, penny shares, and crypto. What they have in common is (or was) their trendiness: retail investors crowded in and prices shot up fast. Probably too fast. Does this mean AI will never pay off? Or that a recession is coming? Maybe it just means we got a little carried away there, and the markets are taking a beat to, you know, unwind. THE CHART OF THE WEEK FOUR INTERESTING THINGS FROM LAST WEEK (AND ONE SCARY THINK PIECE) Enbridge is sending even more oil south. The oil giant announced that it’s spending $1.4 billion to expand its Mainline and Flanagan South pipelines and deliver an extra 250,000 barrels a day to the U.S., increasing Canada’s total output by about 5%. The news comes amid recent calls for Canadian oil companies to tap other markets, given how the U.S. is being a bit, let’s say, prickly right now. Enbridge, though, isn’t sold. The U.S. is “where we’ve got the world’s biggest refining complex and who wants more of our Canadian oil,” an executive told reporters. You’re probably giving Uber and Lyft an extra $3.50 per ride. Only 16% of Uber and Lyft users comparison shop before booking a ride, according to a new study by a top research firm. The other 84% are gifting the platforms an additional US$300-million-plus in annual revenue in New York City alone — an average of US$3.50 per ride. Québec’s separatist party is spooking the bond market. With a provincial election looming in the next year or so, Parti Québécois’ widening lead — along with its promise to trigger a secession referendum — is causing some traders to think twice about investing in the province. We know this because 30-year Québec bonds are trading six basis points wider than similar government bonds in Ontario. That spread isn’t huge, but it’s the widest it has been in nearly a decade. There’s little support for secession right now in Québec, but it’s a historically volatile issue, and if PQ puts it on the ballot, sentiments could shift. Sam Altman gets serious about over-punctuation. It’s one of the most reliable — maybe the most reliable — ways to spot AI-generated writing: an excess of em dashes. You know, these things: —. For a while, OpenAI users have been asking — pleading — with their chatbots to stop spamming their text — to no avail. Last week, though, OpenAI’s Sam Altman announced that the bug had been squashed. Now can he please do something about ChatGPT’s overuse of antithesis? It’s not just em dashes, Sam — it’s so much more. The “casino economy” essay that’s got fintech talking. In “The Monks in the Casino,” journalist Derek Thompson examins why so many young men are engaging in risky, anti-social behaviour online, be it sports gambling, gooning, or betting with prediction markets. His theory: the economy and tech have made solitude frictionless, while traditional life goals, like owning a home or raising children, seem unattainable and/or scary. The result: “a generation of monks in a casino.” —Srivindhya Kolluru FROM OUR SPONSOR THE FOMO INDEX by Stacey Woods IMPORTANT 🎶 Survey shows 97% of people can’t tell if a song is AI. They assume it’s made by soulless humans. Source 🍝 OpenTable is taking note of your dining behaviour and sharing it with restaurants. Suddenly getting on the phone to make a reservation doesn’t seem that terrifying. Source 👜 A new hedge fund lets you invest in Birkin bags. Just don’t go matchy-matchy with your Gucci-loafer bonds. Source 🥔 New buttery-tasting potato variety launches across Canada. Potato-industry watchers can’t believe their eyes. Source CRASH & BURN TO THE MOON 🤖 Elon Musk suggests Optimus robots might eventually follow criminals around to stop crime. (He’s not factoring in future crime — Optimus roboticide.) Source 🚍 Man took Hamilton bus with passengers on a joyride and made most of the stops. Bus driver inspired to take similar joyride. Source 🧙 Wicked Witch’s hat from The Wizard of Oz up for auction. (Oh, sorry: Wizard of Oz is like the Boomer Wicked.) Source 💰 Ontario man named after Johnny Cash wins lottery. “Way to blow it, Mom,” says man named after Johnny Paycheck. Source WHO CARES THE BIG IMPORTANT STORY FINANCE 101 Five Super-Simple Rules for Investing Right Now One of the best parts of writing this newsletter is when readers reach out to us with money questions. We answered three reader questions in September. But we recently got one so simple and important that we couldn’t resist getting into it this week: Where do I even begin investing? I’ve paid off my debts and built an emergency fund. Now what? Look, we know a lot of our readers are seasoned investors, and you might find this stuff too elementary. If that’s the case: sorry! But also consider spreading some wisdom and disseminating these five time-tested investing rules to someone who might need them. Rule 1. Start ASAP! There’s a saying you might have heard: time in the market beats timing the market. That’s generally true thanks to compound returns. How it works: you invest a little money, then reinvest your earnings, then reinvest the earnings from that. And, with enough time, your returns on your returns become really significant. But you have to start early to get the full benefit. For instance, if you invest $500 a month and get a solid 7% return, over 30 years, you’ll end up with about $585,000, with $404K in returns and $180K in contributions. Not bad! But invest the same amount over 45 years — the length of most careers — and you’ll end up with $1.7 million. And $1.5 million of that will be returns and $270K will be contributions. Rule 2. Set realistic goals! A lot of people start investing without knowing what the heck they’re saving for. This risks not saving enough, or saving too much and living such an austere life you drive your loved ones bonkers. So jot down some goals and add up how much everything will likely cost, then work backward to figure out what you need to invest each month. Here’s a bare-bones investment calculator to help, and here’s one specifically for retirement. But if you want a benchmark for retirement, try to save 1x your salary by age 30, 3x by age 40, and 6x by age 50. Those targets are far from foolproof, but having even a loose goal beats having none. Rule 3. Focus on the long term! Say this out loud to yourself: I. Cannot. Get. Rich. Fast. And if you know someone who did by trading, trust that their success was likely thanks to dumb luck; trying to pick stock-market winners is notoriously tough. The most reliable way to reach your savings goals is with patience: buy a diverse basket of assets, then just hold them as you invest steadily. Rule 4. Buy a bunch of different stuff! We said you should invest in a diverse basket of assets. What does that mean? Most financial advisors will say your portfolio should have equity bias, aka a large share of stocks and/or ETFs. That’s because stocks have historically outperformed other assets. But you also want to diversify — that is, hold a mix of stuff to avoid big concentrated losses. One way to do it is to buy globally diversified low-cost index funds. Bonds will help you diversify further. Here are allocation models by risk appetite, but one quick way to ballpark your stock/bond breakdown is to subtract your age from 120. The difference is your equity share. So if you’re 35, your portfolio should be roughly 85% equity and 15% bonds or other low-volatility assets. Rule 5. Manage your emotions! Brace yourself: your stocks will fall. Maybe not tomorrow, maybe not next week, but a downturn is coming eventually. And when it arrives, bear in mind that individual investors who panic sell to avoid losses tend to lose more money compared to those who stay put, because the former often delay reinvesting and miss the market recovery. One way to prevent panic: hold some cash. For some people, 5% of their portfolio is enough to stay calm; for others, it’s a bit more. Be honest with yourself about how nervous you get and allocate accordingly. Read more: A Six-Step Financial Plan for Every Human (or at Least Every Canadian) OTHER VERY GOOD READS 🎻 The DIY Maestro How a millionaire bought his way into conducting the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. | Toronto Life ✌️ Warren Buffett Bids Farewell In his final Thanksgiving letter, the Oracle of Omaha says he’s going quiet, sort of. | Read the letter 🚙 Why BYD Can’t Do for China What Ford Did for America The EV giant’s global success hasn’t translated into soft power for China. | Rest of World 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 (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 For more information about sending international transfer with Wise, visit here. Wise is a trademark of Wise Payments Limited, used under licence. TLDR is offered by Wealthsimple Media Inc. and is for informational purposes only. 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