Markets may be deep in the summer slowdown, but there has been little sign of investors taking August off.
In the August 2026 edition of The Market This Month, Canadian Securities Exchange Director of Listings Development Anna Serin and Stonecastle Investment Management portfolio manager Bruce Campbell examine changing expectations for U.S. interest rates, widening market leadership and renewed momentum across commodities.
Expectations around the Federal Reserve have shifted significantly, with investors now considering the possibility of interest-rate hikes before year-end as inflation remains sticky and economic growth holds up. At the same time, market leadership is broadening beyond technology, with financials and industrials strengthening and precious metals beginning to regain momentum following their earlier pullback.
This article is a journalistic opinion piece which has been written based on independent research. It is intended to inform investors and should not be taken as a recommendation or financial advice.
The discussion also turns to Canada’s resource sector, where strong summer financing activity and a wave of new CSE listings suggest capital remains available for compelling mining and exploration stories. Campbell says the combination of resilient earnings, moderating inflation and continued economic growth could create a constructive backdrop for commodities, technology, financials and other risk-on assets heading into the fall.
Watch the video above, or read the full transcript below.
Is the stage set for a stronger fall?
The following transcript has been edited for clarity and readability without materially shortening the conversation.
Anna Serin:
Hello, everyone, and welcome to the August edition of The Market This Month. I’m Anna Serin, Director of Listings Development with the Canadian Securities Exchange, and we’ve got a lot to unpack this month because markets certainly didn’t take the summer off.
While August is often thought of as a quieter month, this year has delivered anything but. Investors are weighing a Federal Reserve that continues to hold interest rates steady, ongoing geopolitical tensions that have kept energy markets on edge, and an economic backdrop that’s leaving many asking the same question: Are we finally setting up for a stronger second half of the year?
One of the biggest themes we’re watching is another shift in market leadership. The sector rotation we discussed last month is already evolving. As expectations for inflation and economic growth continue to change, we’re seeing renewed interest in commodities, while energy markets remain volatile as global events continue to influence oil prices almost daily.
If interest rates begin to stabilize, as many expect, it could provide the catalyst that resource investors have been waiting for.
Here at the Canadian Securities Exchange, it’s also been another exceptionally active month. We were pleased to welcome nine new issuers to the exchange: Lynx Resources, Northern Discovery Metals, Centenario Gold Corp., Abitibi Greenstone Gold Corp., Generation Uranium, Axiom Minerals Corp., Karis Mining Inc., New Auras Metals Corp., and Secure3D Holdings Inc.
It’s encouraging to see this continued momentum across the mining sector, alongside innovative technology companies choosing the CSE as their public market.
Capital-raising activity also remains strong. Canadian Copper announced a $44 million project financing with OR Royalties. Evolve Royalties secured a $50 million credit facility with the Bank of Montreal, and Replenish Nutrients completed a $7.5 million strategic equity investment with SRC Agri Minerals.
We also saw significant financings completed by Nuran Wireless, Allied Critical Metals, Critical One Energy, Greenbridge Industries, Leef Brands, Redwood AI, and the Precision Peptide Company, among many others, highlighting continued investor appetite for quality companies across a range of sectors.
The message continues to be consistent. While headlines remain focused on macroeconomic uncertainty, capital is still finding companies with strong assets, compelling growth stories and experienced management teams.
Today, Bruce and I will discuss what the Fed’s latest decision means for markets, whether commodities are ready to take the lead, how sector rotation is evolving, and where investors may find the best opportunities as we head into what is traditionally one of the busiest periods of the year for capital markets.
Joining me once again is my co-host, Bruce Campbell, portfolio manager at Stonecastle Investment Management.
Bruce, thank you for joining me. We’re talking here in August of 2026, a smoky time of year for us in B.C. I hope the air quality where you are is okay. Are you okay in Kelowna?
Bruce Campbell:
We are certainly smoky. I mean, the entire province seems like it’s smoky. I think there’s over 100 fires right now, so it’s quite the battle that’s happening out there.
Anna Serin:
Absolutely. Well, I hope everyone around you is safe, and hopefully we get these fires under control.
We’re going to jump right into it. We’re going to talk about something we haven’t talked about in a long time: the Fed and interest rates. I feel like there was a period of time, Bruce, where all we talked about was interest rates going up and down, inflation and all of those things. What are we seeing this summer?
Bruce Campbell:
We’ve had a bit of a reprieve from the Fed talk, haven’t we? But what we’re seeing is that the new Fed chair came in in June, and really the market changed its view on what was going to happen with interest rates as he came in and basically had his first meeting.
Prior to that, we thought that interest rates were going to be lowered at some point this year, and now investors’ expectation is that we could see a hike, or maybe even two, before the end of the year.
There are really a couple of factors that I think are driving that. One is that we’ve seen inflation really be sticky and not come down to the degree that the Fed wants to see. They’d like to see below two per cent, and we’re in the threes right now.
The second is strong economic growth. Of course, they want to have interest rates at a level where, when we do see an economic slowdown, they can lower rates to stimulate the economy. I think they’re trying to put what the reference is, effectively, a bullet in their gun so they can use it down the road when they need to.
But it has been a fairly significant change in investor belief or investor expectation about what would happen with rates this year.
Anna Serin:
And is this, in your view, a good thing that interest rates might be going up? Does this show some strength and maybe potentially rallying in the market?
Bruce Campbell:
I think all investors want to see interest rates go down. When we had zero per cent interest rates, it was quite the time for markets — probably a little bit exuberant.
If it makes sense from an economic standpoint, the market so far has digested this fairly well. We saw after the Fed meeting in June that it was the start of the market volatility that lasted through July. Now it seems that the market is kind of shrugging that off. They’re coming to terms with the fact that rates might go up.
That is a good thing, given that it will allow potentially inflation to be curbed. The second thing is that it allows them to have more tools available when the economy does slow down, because inevitably it will at some point, and then they can start to lower interest rates to stimulate growth.
Anna Serin:
Gotcha. And when do we find out if there’s a potential hike?
Bruce Campbell:
There are a few meetings left in the year. The next one is, I believe, in September, if I remember correctly.
The concern is that now we’re starting to get into politics because there’s the midterm election in the U.S. and whether or not they would raise interest rates just before that election in November. So we’ll have to wait and see.
The new Fed chair seems like he’s pretty hard-fast on not being political in any way or not having any political influence in any way, so perhaps he does hike it.
It’ll probably depend a little bit on the data as well. That’s one of the things the Fed always says: it’s data-dependent. Whether or not we start to see some inflation moderation between now and then would also have an impact.
Anna Serin:
All right. Well, we’ll wait and see. I guess it’s something we’ll be talking about in September.
We did talk about sector rotation last month, but it seems like it’s shifting again. Tell us what you’re seeing there.
Bruce Campbell:
We continue to see a fair bit of rotation. If we go back to July — prior to July, even if you look into June — this year was really dominated by technology and semiconductors in the U.S.
We had that move up in commodities in Canada — and globally — but a lot of the Canadian commodity stocks had moved up really strongly into the first quarter and then sold off.
Now we’re starting to see a rotation. I’m not saying that the semiconductors are dead, but they certainly had a fairly significant drawdown in July, and they’ve started to rebound here in the beginning part of August.
We’re also starting to see other areas of technology. The software sector, which had been really beaten up, is now starting to move.
But what’s interesting is that it looks like a lot of the commodities, especially precious metal commodities, had dropped down, have based, and now they’re starting to reaccelerate again.
If we had an environment where inflation was more moderate and we also saw an environment where interest rates were more moderate, then that could be another time for the gold stocks and the precious metals companies to start to accelerate.
At the same time, we see copper at a fairly high level, and that’s really to do with economics, and we’re starting to see some of those copper companies really accelerate.
The third big trend that we continue to see is there seems to be real follow-through with industrials and financials as well. Those are two sectors that have been doing well, but they’ve really started to accelerate lately.
Anna Serin:
That’s amazing. It sounds like this is all good priming for a good fall — to me, anyway. What do you think?
Bruce Campbell:
It really broadens things out. If you go back 12 months or 18 months, that was one of the things that the bears were constantly throwing up against the wall: we had this Mag Seven in the U.S., it was very narrow leadership, and the market couldn’t survive. It wouldn’t last.
One by one, we’ve kind of seen things diversify and broaden out. We saw that starting about a year ago, where the earnings numbers started to really increase across the board, not just in the Mag Seven.
Now we’re actually seeing new highs in the first part of August here in the S&P, in the equal-weight S&P, and also in the TSX.
Anna Serin:
I love it. It’s all good.
You touched on commodities and energy, so let’s dive into that a little bit. Could stable interest rates and higher energy prices be the catalyst that finally gets commodities higher?
Bruce Campbell:
Certainly, it seems that that’s the case. Like I said, there was such a run-up in commodity prices, especially precious metals, and then a complete collapse.
We’ve seen that in some of the other areas. Uranium, for instance, has had a fairly down move in the last few months, and now you’re starting to see basing.
You’ve also seen gold, where it’s kind of bounced around that $4,000 level, bounced off that $4,000 level, and now it’s starting to perk up into the mid-$4,200 to $4,300 range.
Again, given the damage that’s been done to the gold stocks, that sector is really primed.
At the same time, we should expect to see drilling results from all the explorer companies coming out from their drilling programs. So it could provide for a fairly exciting fall if everything transpires the way it looks like it’s going to.
Anna Serin:
I don’t know the numbers for the duration of the summer, but just this past month, as I mentioned, we had nine new issuers. I believe eight of them are in the resource sector.
We talked about this last month and the month before as well. We’ve had a very healthy summer at the Canadian Securities Exchange in the mining sector, with new companies coming to market.
On top of that, we’ve also seen, as we’ve talked about over the past few months, really healthy, robust financings for issuers, which typically we don’t see for our resource-focused issuers in the middle of summer.
Normally, our resource-focused issuers are raising capital in the spring so that they can get up or down to the properties during the summer and do their drill programs.
Does that seem like a new environment for you, to see this kind of financing midsummer?
Bruce Campbell:
It’s certainly a healthy environment. Any time that you can bring money in and raise money, especially in the summer, it’s a really positive sign.
There have clearly been some big issues, and there have been lots of issues that were small that got upsized, which is great to see.
That’s again a result and a byproduct of a healthy market, when you can see that new money coming into the market and into those sectors, even at a time when there aren’t as many people in the office.
Anna Serin:
Absolutely. I wanted to ask you about the geopolitical landscape that keeps evolving. How much of this story with the U.S. and Iran do you think is affecting potential commodity prices?
Bruce Campbell:
It’s had a big impact on certain spot commodity prices. Things have moved up and down, but also just the volatility.
Any time that you have that volatility and it tends to be almost binary, investors tend to get a little bit complacent and just sit back in cash and watch while they wait for stability.
But once you see trends emerging, there’s so much money sitting on the sidelines that investors then jump on those trends. They can move really quickly and create return in a very short period of time.
I think that’s what’s happening. I think that rotation we just talked about is happening in multiple different areas that can drive returns.
Anna Serin:
Absolutely. Let’s talk about looking ahead. You’ve touched on what we might see in the fall, but the next time you and I sit down and chat will be the beginning of September, which is traditionally a very busy time in the markets in general.
September, October and November, we see a lot of movement. What are your thoughts as we go into the fall? I hate saying that, by the way, because I’m hoping it takes us a very long time to get to September, but what are your thoughts going into the fall for the markets?
Bruce Campbell:
We’re quite constructive on the period from September right through year-end and into January, and there are a number of reasons for that.
One is, if you look at earnings and the underlying earnings trends of the market, that broadening started a year ago when we started to see the Q2 numbers reported. That’s when the market really broadened out, and we started to see movement across market capitalizations and sectors.
We think that’s going to continue based on the forecasts that companies see right now. They have a couple of quarters of visibility, and they’re saying that those numbers still look very strong. So we should see strong earnings numbers going into the next two quarters.
At the same time, we look at a number of different economic growth numbers and inflation numbers. While inflation hasn’t calmed the way we would like, it has certainly moderated, and we think that’s going to be the case unless we were to see some spike in oil that really pushed it to the next level. That seems to be under control.
Then economic growth looks like it’s going to continue. So we’re setting ourselves up for a very nice environment where a lot of asset classes that are more risk-on — commodities, technology, financials — should have strong performance going into the fall.
Anna Serin:
Well, that’s pretty exciting stuff to hear. It seems like there is a lot going on, but the markets are still trucking along this summer, and hopefully we have a great fall ahead of us.
Bruce, thank you so much. It’s always a pleasure to chat with you, and I look forward to seeing you in September. I hope that you have a very long and slow August.
Bruce Campbell:
Thank you. Yeah, exactly.
Anna Serin:
We’ll talk soon.
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