Freight trains across Canada ground to a halt on Thursday after negotiations between the country’s two major railway companies and the union representing their workers broke down — spelling trouble for the economy, supply chain and commuters.
But investors took solace in the fact that the stocks of Canadian National Railway Co. (CN) and Canadian Pacific Kansas City Ltd. (CPKC) were hardly affected as the companies simultaneously locked out more than 9,000 workers and shut their networks after multiple rounds of talks with the Teamsters union failed to yield a new agreement.
By the time markets closed on Thursday, shares of CN were up 0.58%, while shares of CPKC were up 0.84%.
“They’re outperforming the market in general today, so I think that a lot of the bad news is already priced in,” said Nick Piquard, chief options strategist with Hamilton ETFs in Toronto, in an interview Thursday.
Hamilton ETFs invests in both railway companies through the Hamilton Utilities Yield Maximizer ETF (TSX: UMAX).
“This is going to have a big impact on the economy. It doesn’t just impact CN Rail and CP[KC] themselves, but it impacts all the customers and commuters and whatnot. So, obviously, everyone wants to see this resolved,” he said.
But Piquard expressed no major concerns about the lockout affecting the fund. UMAX consists of several holdings across various sectors, so even if CPKC and CN were to perform poorly, the impact of the work stoppage would not be significant, he said. The companies carry 7.4% and 7.0% weight in the fund, respectively.
“We have telecoms, we have pipelines, we have power generation [stocks], so it’s widely diversified,” he said.
Laura Lau, senior vice-president and chief investment officer with Toronto-based Brompton Funds Ltd., echoed those remarks.
Brompton’s Sustainable Power & Infrastructure Split Corp. (TSX: PWI) holds CPKC at 3.4% weight.
“It’s not a big part of the fund, so that’s why we’re not that concerned. But it will bring down economic growth in Canada,” Lau said in an interview Thursday.
The rail companies said they were forced into the lockout to avoid strikes at short notice, Reuters reported.
Lau noted there have been work stoppages at railways in Canada before, but never at two major railway companies at once. For that reason, she expected a “better chance of some kind of government intervention.”
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has called on both sides to work out a deal. On Thursday, he said the government would soon announce how it plans to tackle the nationwide freight rail stoppage, which is expected to cause economic damage in the billions of dollars.
Moody’s warned the work stoppage could cost the Canadian economy $341 million per day, with agriculture, forestry and manufacturing among the hardest-hit sectors.
“Canada is approaching an economic precipice and time is dwindling,” Moody’s said in a note on Wednesday, hours before the railway companies locked out workers.
With files from The Canadian Press