While major North American stock markets are starting the year near record highs, their performance has been off to a bumpy start. However, CIBC’s chief market technician Sid Mokhtari believes the bull market remains intact and anticipates investors may see another year of double-digit gains. Mr. Mokhtari has a proven track record. In 2024, his stock screening process captured solid gains, delivering a 23.
8 per cent price return for the year, outperforming the 18 per cent return for the S&P/TSX Composite Index. Each month, he publishes ten stock recommendations based on his screening process. For January, his Top 10 best ideas are: ARC Resources ( Last Friday, The Globe and Mail spoke with Mr. Mokhtari. He provided his technical road map on where he sees equity markets headed in the new year and discussed how investors may want position their portfolios.We are approaching 2025 with more of an active approach as opposed to passive because we’ve had very strong back-to-back years of advance for both the S&P 500 Index and the S&P/TSX Composite Index. We believe that 2025 is likely to be another good year, but it should have some volatility by historical measures. We had a Dow-theory buy signal in the fourth quarter of last year. In November, we did see new highs in the Dow Jones Industrial Average as well as the U.S. transportation index, and when the two confirm one another by making new all-time highs, we get a buy signal. By historical measures, a procyclical market behaviour begins to emerge following a Dow-theory buy signal and I think that’s what we’re going to be experiencing. The Dow-theory signal is a very late signal. It’s a signal that gets triggered, but it is faced with mean reversion as we go forward. That’s why I think we need to see a rotation that may begin to find preference for mid-caps and procyclicals in the U.