As Canada and the United States begin the roll-out of a game-changing vaccine against COVID-19, BMO hosted a panel with in-house and external experts to discuss the implications from a health, markets and macroeconomic perspective, including where we are now, when a new normal might begin and what it will look like. The panel was moderated by Chief Investment Strategist Brian Belski, and featured medical commentary from Dr. John Whyte, Chief Medical Officer, WebMD, and Dr. Allison McGeer, Senior Clinician-Scientist, Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute, Sinai Health. BMO experts, Deputy Chief Economist Michael Gregory and Margaret Kerins, Head of FICC Macro Strategy, discussed the economic and fixed income and equity market outlook for Canada and the United States.

To access our full disclosures, please visit: https://researchglobal0.bmocapitalmarkets.com/public-disclosure/ 

COVID-19 has caused an abrupt channel shift from in-store to grocery e-commerce as consumers act to minimize risk at a minimal incremental fee. As a result, online grocery sales during the pandemic have reportedly doubled in the U.K. and China, tripled in Canada, and grown 5x to 6x in the U.S.

BMO has conducted a proprietary survey of 1,000 Canadians to find out how their grocery shopping habits have shifted as a result of COVID-19 and, more importantly, how they intend to grocery shop going forward. Join our Consumer Analyst, Peter Sklar, for key findings from our survey and its implications for the Canadian grocers. Some questions we explored in our recent reports “Outlook for Canadian Grocery E-Commerce and COVID-19 Impacts,” “Online Engagement Metrics for Empire's Highly Anticipated Voilà.ca Launch,” and this podcast include:

- How many Canadians shop for groceries online?

- How much of the online shift will “stick” post-COVID-19?

- Click-or-collect or delivery?

- Brand switching during COVID-19?

- Reasons for changes in consumer grocery shopping during COVID-19?

- How are Loblaw, Empire, and Metro positioned for changes as a result of COVID-19?

Please see our reports here:

Outlook for Canadian Grocery E-Commerce and COVID-19 Impacts: https://researchglobal0.bmocapitalmarkets.com/research/153372ff-9ce8-4e45-9d09-1aa36df8f762/

Online Engagement Metrics for Empire's Highly Anticipated Voilà.ca Launch: https://researchglobal0.bmocapitalmarkets.com/research/874a03a0-3b6b-4e68-85f8-32ae9fda63e7/

To access our full disclosures, please visit: https://researchglobal0.bmocapitalmarkets.com/public-disclosure/

Unprecedented, unrivaled, unparalleled, and incomparable are all adjectives that can be used to described life in 2020, let alone equity markets in the U.S. and Canada. In the following podcast, we provide our outlook for both markets – how 2021 represents another year of the unprecedented bull in the U.S. and how Canada remains an undiscovered value proposition.

Please view our report "2021 Market Outlook: The Year Ahead for the US and Canada" here: https://researchglobal0.bmocapitalmarkets.com/research/1ae2d469-f6fc-44c0-ba5a-619f56ec26c8/

To access our full disclosures, please visit: https://researchglobal0.bmocapitalmarkets.com/public-disclosure/

The COVID-19 pandemic is a catalyst for innovations in the retail sector, and we believe that landlords can play a significant role in the new normal. Retailers have raced to refine and rejig their stores and distribution facilities, with the spotlight moving to a new category of functional spaces: dark stores and ghost kitchens. Our discussion today takes a deep dive into these potential uses for retail space and follows the release of our recent thematic report, “Trick or Treat: Dark Stores and Ghost Kitchens,” and a related interview on BNN Bloomberg.

BMO clients can view our thematic report by visiting: https://researchglobal0.bmocapitalmarkets.com/research/6545e0b0-b93a-4a27-ac31-2affa42611db/

Watch the BNN Bloomberg interview by visiting: https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/video/we-are-still-fairly-cautious-of-retail-sector-bmo-capital-markets-analyst~2067021

To access our full disclosures, please visit: https://researchglobal0.bmocapitalmarkets.com/public-disclosure/

With the votes all but counted, Joe Biden has been named the next president-elect of the United States, but it will be some time before we know the final shape of Congress. BMO Capital Markets hosted a client call on Nov. 9 to discuss the likely outlook for investment under the new government and in the face of a worsening pandemic. What will a new stimulus package look like and what will it mean for the economy and the bond and equity markets? Speaking to the economy was our Deputy Chief Economist and Head of U.S. Economics Michael Gregory, while Margaret Kerins, Managing Director and Head of FICC Macro Strategy, discussed the outlook for rates and the bond market. BMOCM Chief Investment Strategist Brian Belski hosted the call and discussed the outlook for stock markets in the U.S. and Canada.

To access our full disclosures, please visit: https://researchglobal0.bmocapitalmarkets.com/public-disclosure/

With the U.S. Presidential election results still hanging in the balance, BMO Capital Markets hosted a client call to discuss investment strategy based on what we know so far. The call, hosted by BMO Capital Markets Chief Investment Strategist Brian Belski, also featured expert commentary from Margaret Kerins, Managing Director and Head of FICC Macro Strategy, and Michael Gregory, Deputy Chief Economist and Head of U.S. Economics.

Our experts urged caution around premature investment decisions ahead of the final results, and instead focused on what we do know, like the likelihood of a gridlocked Congress and what that will mean for stimulus, future leadership of the Fed, and the importance of equity markets to overall portfolios.

To access our full disclosures, please visit: https://researchglobal0.bmocapitalmarkets.com/public-disclosure/

Special Situations Analyst Stephen MacLeod and his Associate, Nevan Yochim, discuss recent developments in e-commerce. E-commerce growth has been, and is expected to continue, outpacing traditional bricks and mortar retail sales growth. While the shift towards e-commerce has been happening over many years, COVID-19 has accelerated the pace of adoption for companies and consumers alike. Stephen and Nevan discuss the role of physical stores in light of e-commerce adoption, identify three important characteristics that define “winning” retailers, outline potential risks, and touch on earnings implications for their retail and consumer product coverage universe.

To access our full disclosures, please visit:

https://researchglobal0.bmocapitalmarkets.com/public-disclosure/

BMO Capital Markets' Telco, Cable, and Media analyst Tim Casey discusses the implications and status of 5G deployment, the path to use cases, and milestones for investors to benchmark from a Canadian perspective.

BMO clients can view our two reports, “5G: It's a Marathon, but Still a Race”, and "5G’s Field of Dreams: If You Build It, Will They Come?" by visiting: 

https://researchglobal0.bmocapitalmarkets.com/research/42269e7b-5730-4529-9a37-2cb67e6b65f3/

and

https://researchglobal0.bmocapitalmarkets.com/research/ebd5bd4f-f5d2-45d4-bc4f-b7b164e2eef6/

To access our full disclosures, please visit: https://researchglobal0.bmocapitalmarkets.com/public-disclosure/

For the first time in recent history, retailers are choosing how many stores to open, not how many to close. In this podcast, we delve into our counter-intuitive claim that the pandemic created a (hopefully) once in a lifetime ”opportunity” for companies to focus on health, rather than growth - re-fashioning businesses for the future and using a “COVID-19 Cover” to ponder whether stronger is better achieved via smaller. At the risk of oversimplifying, we see two options: 1) store closures to cut costs and 2) reducing promotions to elevate the brand. Here, we dive deep to assess and quantify the impact from both, analyzing the nuance in pursuit of an optimal combination.

BMO Clients can view our report, "Did COVID Actually Save Retail? Deep Dive Into a Post Pandemic Path to Profits", by visiting: https://researchglobal0.bmocapitalmarkets.com/research/93ca27c5-1dcd-432b-b226-8ee9b7bf1638/

In this podcast, two senior BMO analysts – Colin Hamilton and Brian Quast – examine the new price environment for gold and how companies have responded. After an introduction to our current gold price outlook, we dive into a discussion of how companies can behave differently, both on an operational level, and on a corporate level. Leverage to higher gold prices is discussed along with capital discipline and capital returns to shareholders.

To access our full disclosures, please visit: https://researchglobal0.bmocapitalmarkets.com/public-disclosure/