Brian Madden’s Top Picks for April 8, 2026

Brian Madden, Chief Investment Officer, First Avenue Investment Counsel

Focus: North American equities

Top Picks: Trican Well Service, Booking Holdings, WSP Global

MARKET OUTLOOK:

War in Iran and the closure of the Straits of Hormuz have understandably rattled stock markets, with the S&P 500 and S&P TSX Composite coming within a hair’s breadth of a 10 per cent “correction” in March and the NASDAQ drawing down more deeply by 14 per cent off its late October peak, amidst ongoing concerns about AI disruption risk.

Our portfolios have remained mostly fully invested throughout, with garden variety culling of losers where incoming information negated our thesis, partial pruning of winners whose portfolio weights had grown outsized on recent strength, selective dip-buying – notably in the gold sector, and a few new opportunities introduced to our two equity mandates.

Why the “business as usual” posture in the face of such elevated geopolitical risk? Because while war - quite rightly – triggers outsized emotional response from investors and citizens alike, investing ought best be practiced unemotionally, guided by the knowledge that valuation and sentiment are contrarian indicators. When valuations are rich and confidence and risk appetite – measured objectively in various ways – are high, prospective returns are lower.

Conversely, when valuations, confidence and risk appetite are low, prospective returns are higher. To that point, we note that the drawdown in stocks in March occurred entirely in valuation and sentiment space, with fundamentals - as measured by 2026 consensus expected EPS rising by three per cent for the S&P 500 and 2.3 per cent for the S&P/TSX Composite.

Concurrently, implied volatility rose while margin debt declined from its January peaks, signaling more balanced sentiment and risk appetite.

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TOP PICKS:

Trican Well Service (TCW TSX)

Trican is Canada’s largest pressure pumper, fraccing and well completions company with a leading market share in the prolific Montney and Duvernay basins. Under new management since 2020, the company has structurally improved its margins and returns on invested capital through operating efficiencies (better equipment and personnel utilization) and equipment modernization which has enabled them to flex “some” pricing power on complex jobs in this industry. Apart from the very strategic and very accretive acquisition of Iron Horse Energy in July, the company generally reinvests cash flows into maintenance capital expenditures, buys back its shares prolifically (47 per cent of total outstanding shares retired since 2017) and since reinstating it’s dividend in 2023, has increased it three times – at a compound rate of 14 per cent annually. With a three per cent dividend yield, a discounted valuation of 11 times earnings and 5.5 times earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA), and with synergy opportunities of $15 to $20 million per year to realize via integration of Iron Horse and with leverage to a cyclical - or, perhaps structural - increase in well completions activity with the LNG export terminal now active and an increasingly resource and infrastructure friendly political backdrop we see compelling income and capital appreciation potential in the shares.

Booking Holdings (BKNG NYSE)

Booking is the global best-in-class online travel agency operating a three-sided ecosystem involving travelers, travel providers and a sophisticated internal payments and AI engine. Operating as agent or increasingly as merchant, and going to market under various banners including Booking.com, Agoda, Priceline, Kayak, and OpenTable, the company’s addressable market spans hotels, flights, car rentals and restaurant meals that we expect in aggregate will surpassUS $200 billion in value transacted this year. Booking earns commissions from travel partners that average 15 per cent of the transaction value, modest advertising revenues and interest on prepaid travel bookings when it acts as merchant in a transaction. With industry leading EBITDA margins just shy of 40 per cent, returns on invested capital north of 50 per cent, prolific free cash flow, an aggressive and longstanding share buyback program, Booking since 2024 has paid a modest dividend which it has twice increased by 10 per cent. It’s competitive edge stems from intelligent use of AI to reduce operating expenses and to enrich user experience, a pragmatic approach to partnering with third party customer/traffic origination platforms like Google, Meta and the large language model (LLM) developers and its “Genius” loyalty rewards program. A 35 per cent pullback in the stock since last summer - alongside other supposed “victims of AI-disruption” - has compressed the P/E multiple on Booking.com down towards its COVID lows just below 15 times, creating a “baby thrown out with the bathwater” opportunity in this secular growth company which has generated a 29 per cent compounded total shareholder return over the last twenty years.

WSP Global (WSP TSX)

WSP is a global diversified engineering company serving clients in transportation & infrastructure, earth & environment, property & building and power and energy end markets. With a robust backlog of over $17 billion in contracts, representing 1.2 times trailing 12 month revenues, the company has strong demand visibility and targets large addressable markets advantaged by secular growth and bolstered by tailwinds including a civil infrastructure deficit in its core markets, environmental/sustainability/climate change opportunities and the massive and ongoing build out of data centres globally and the related electrical infrastructure required to support them. Beyond this, WSP is an accomplished a proven consolidator of the globally fragmented engineering sector, having completed 19 acquisitions over the last five years, include the recent $3.3 billion acquisition of TRC Companies – their largest deal to date. The nearly 30 per cent drawdown in the stock since last fall – in our view – represents another misguided case of “baby thrown out with bathwater” as investors hunt for AI disruption candidates, with professional services companies frequently near the top of the hit list. Priced at 18.5 times earnings, and with earnings expected to grow at a compound pace of 16% per cent over the coming three years, we see a compelling blend of value and growth in the shares.

PAST PICKS: MARCH 21, 2025

Alimentation Couche-Tard (ATD TSX)

Then: $70.37

Now: $81.45

Return: 16%

Total Return: 17%

Vistra (VST NYSE)

Then: US$130.58

Now: US$158.00

Return: 21%

Total Return: 22%

KKR (KKR NYSE)

Then: US$116.50

Now: US$95.14

Return: -18%

Total Return: -18%

Total Return Average: 7%