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(Bloomberg) — US President Donald Trump’s tariffs, threats of annexation and assorted insults have infuriated Canadians, leading them to sell off American real estate and boycott products. The nation’s investors seemingly never got the memo.
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Canadian investors have injected C$124 billion ($89.7 billion) into US stocks in 2025, even as Trump’s trade war disrupted the two countries’ longstanding, largely tariff-free relationship, according to data compiled by Warren Lovely at National Bank of Canada Financial Markets. That’s on track for the largest yearly inflow since at least the 1990s.
Canadian investors can’t seem to resist the lure of the US market, which has outperformed the domestic benchmark in each of the past two years. Pinpointing the exact reason for this year’s enthusiasm — when the relations between the two countries have grown more tense — is a tricky proposition. But optimism over an artificial intelligence frenzy that’s pushed US tech titans to multiple records looms large.
“It’s a lot of performance chasing,” said Greg Taylor, chief investment officer at Vancouver-based PenderFund Capital Management Ltd. He pointed to years of US market outperformance, thanks to the rise of AI and inflows into mega-cap tech stocks.
This year, Canadian shares have proven the better bet. Canada’s benchmark index has outperformed its US peer, with the S&P/TSX Composite Index climbing almost 15%, compared with a 10% gain in the S&P 500 Index.
Still, locals have “seemingly failed to employ a ‘buy Canadian’ (or ‘sell American’) philosophy in their own portfolio dealings,” Lovely, managing director at the firm, wrote in a note to clients last week. He was describing the trend he has tracked over the course of 2025, a time when US liquor has been pulled off Canadian store shelves and cross-border tourism has dwindled. Lovely called the figures “rather stunning.”
The buying spree contradicts a poll…
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