Your Q2 update 📈 A bumpy climb

Investors needed a good pair of hiking shoes — or perhaps cleats — to scale the peaks and valleys of the past few months.

📉 The Strait of Hormuz closed and reopened several times, causing the energy market to compulsively hit the refresh button on its news feed.

📈 SpaceX’s market debut led a tech and AI frenzy that made Elon Musk’s net worth so large, our calculators ran out of zeroes.

⚽️ As with any World Cup, there can only be one winner, and this quarter’s title has to go to Taiwan and South Korea, feeding a global demand for semiconductors. (OK, make that two winners.)

Investor insight | Ups and (draw)downs

Drawdown (n.) / draw • down / A drop in the value of an investment or index from its high to its lowest point before recovering.

We all love it when our investments go up, but markets have their own ideas. Even a year with record-breaking gains can encounter declines along the way.

Consider 2020, when the pandemic sent markets down 33.79% over a few months. In one of the shortest bear markets ever, the S&P 500 emerged from hibernation at the end of the year 18.4% fatter.¹

More recently, the market hit a rough patch in 2025, dropping nearly 19% between February and April. But it bounced back, finishing the year up 17.9%. ¹

These short-term dips are called drawdowns, and they’re not uncommon.

Such volatility can still be unsettling, though, which is one reason some Canadians keep money on the sidelines.

But caution can have its drawbacks too. Investors who wait for the right time can miss out on potential gains over time.

Zoom in | Portfolio performance

Equity markets rallied on strong corporate earnings growth, the continued buzz around AI-related companies, and a fragile peace agreement between the U.S. and Iran.

Tangerine portfolios with more U.S. equity exposure made the most of the momentum. The Socially Responsible Investing portfolios in particular had a strong showing, thanks to a lift from U.S. tech and less exposure to underperforming energy companies.

­See historical performance here

Zoom out | Global performance

IPO (n. acronym) / Initial Public Offering / When a private company “goes public” by selling shares to the public for the first time.

The U.S. tech sector had a stellar quarter, fueled by accelerating investment in AI-related infrastructure. Investor enthusiasm was further boosted by the highly anticipated SpaceX IPO.

It wasn’t just the MANGOS (see chart below), but many other stocks enjoying the fruits of AI. Semiconductors, data centres, cloud computing and other AI-linked businesses were up 39.3%, giving U.S. equities a solid boost of 16.4%. ¹

The other 10 sectors? They mostly rode the bench, trailing the S&P 500 index. ¹

In Asia, semiconductors were fully in demand, lifting Taiwan’s and South Korea’s markets by 43% and 63%, respectively. ¹

One caution: surging demand has made computer chips harder to come by, pushing prices up — even Apple has started raising hardware prices.

The Big Question

At a recent Reddit Ask Me Anything (AMA), Michael Allen, Head of Advice at Tangerine Investments, answered a question many investors ask.

Q: Why would I go with Tangerine over another financial institution?

A: Good question. There are a lot of options in Canada. We take a prudent approach to investment management, offering advice when you need it, low fees (less than 1%), and a strong historical track record of investment management success. The markets have gone through several downturns, yet our investment strategy has not changed.

👉 Read more about what sets us apart