Weekly "Focus" and the World of Artificial Intelligence

Thanks again to everyone who was able to join us this week for our webinar on Artificial Intelligence. We were joined by Malcolm White and Jeremy Yeung, portfolio managers with BMO Global Asset Management who are experts on the subject. The replay can be viewed by clicking HERE.

 

It seems every day there is an interesting announcement regarding artificial intelligence and this week we learned of Stargate, potentially a US$500 billion joint venture to build out AI infrastructure in the US. Two of the leading companies in this project are Oracle* and Microsoft* through its relationship with OpenAI. The build out will undoubtedly depend on securing the “Blackwell chip” from Nvidia, which happens to be the largest holding in the BMO Global Innovators fund managed by Malcolm and Jeremy. The shares of all three companies are off to a strong start, outpacing the broader US stock market which is higher by more than 3% to start 2025 (i).

 

	Price Return 2025	Price Return 2024	Dividend Yield
Microsoft (MSFT)	+5.4%	+12.1%	0.7%
Nvidia (NVDA)	+7.2%	+171.2%	0.0%
Oracle (ORCL)	+11.0%	+58.1%	0.9%

Source: FactSet, Values as of January 23, 2025

 

This week’s "Focus" from our economics team is attached.

 

Have a great weekend,

 

Brad

Senior Portfolio Manager and Senior Investment Advisor