Wealthsimple

August 24, 2026

In This Issue

8 min read

Crypto comebacks

Trade-war tough talk

Job-hopping hoopla

You work in a low-growth industry and your boss is a doofus … but your crush is the receptionist. So, stay or go? We weigh the pros and cons of job switching below. | Chris Haston/NBC

The Week in Markets

The debasement trade is back, baby!

Gold: up 5% — one of its best weeks of 2026. Beleaguered Bitcoin: up 27% — its best week in nearly two years. Traditionally sleepy Canadian and U.S. government bond yields: soaring to their highest level in nearly 20 years. What does it all mean? The debasement trade is back, baby! And the debasement trade is — sorry, what again? OK: people and institutions tend to put a good portion of their portfolio in safe investments they believe will hold value over time, and normally that means government bonds. But for myriad reasons — inflation, soaring national debts — people are feeling like maybe governments aren’t so dependable anymore, so they’re shifting money into hard assets (like gold and crypto). That, or they’re buying some of the US$244 billion in bonds issued by AI hyperscalers this year.

The root psychology at work here is that the global order feels like it’s shifting under our feet, leaving investors scrambling to figure out where the safe harbours are now and where they’ll be in the near future. Put more simply, they’re trying to figure out what money is now. The answer? It’s complicated.

TSX:	-0.4% (+15.1% YTD)

S&P 500:	-1.7% (+11.6% YTD)

What’s up: Moderna (+130%) was rewarded by investors — see below! — after its moonshot cancer drug showed promise in late-stage trials and underscored how consequential this year has been for cancer treatment.
What’s down: Walmart (-10%), a consumer-spending bellwether, slumped on weak sales growth as inflation-fatigued shoppers avoided big-box stores.

One Chart That Explains Everything

Superlatives of the Week

Loudest fighting words from formerly friendly neighbours: Mark Carney! Coming in hot! After weeks of negotiations, Canada and the U.S. came this close on a CUSMA renewal deal, but then the talks collapsed, prompting Carney to declare that Canada wouldn’t be bullied into a “bad deal” and that it was effectively attacked by the U.S. OK!

What happened? According to Carney, the U.S. larded the deal with last-minute nonstarters, including (1) influence over Canada’s free-trade agreements with other countries, and (2) demands related to Canada’s official use of the French language. The U.S., for its part, says Canada walked away from “the best deal.” So now what? The White House has imposed a 50% tariff on some $20 billion worth of Canadian goods, affecting about 5% of our U.S. exports, including some dairy products and wooden furniture. Canada plans to retaliate after Labour Day. RBC doubts the tariffs will derail the economy, but they’ll hurt targeted industries — and U.S. trade rep Jamieson Greer said there are no new talks planned as of now.

Least persuasive indicator of the robot apocalypse: Unitree, the world’s largest humanoid maker, made one heck of a stock-market debut when its shares soared 460% on Wednesday, giving it a US$50 billion valuation. Analysts predict the global humanoid market could swell to US$5 trillion by 2050 — but even Unitree’s CEO cautioned that the bots are still a decade away from their “ChatGPT moment,” while other major players, like the U.S.’s Figure AI, have “few to nonexistent” customers. Sure, the Terminator-like bots excel at kicking children in the chest, but they’ve found few practical uses, whereas industrial bots are, to paraphrase Harper’s, invisible but actually useful. Fine, but can a factory bot do this?

—Jenna Benchetrit

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by Stacey Woods

Important

New ChatGPT feature tracks your every keystroke to learn everything about you. You’d think your search for “preparation h near me” would be all it needs.
Source

Google buys old Spirit Airlines emails and Teams chats to train AI. Wants to make sure AI doesn’t forget how to screw things up and bore people.
Source

Canada finally gets a Lululemon resale shop. Maybe you can sell your Big Ass Bag at a small ass loss.
Source

Turkish president reciprocates Carney’s NATO summit gift of maple syrup with a .357 Magnum and some ammo. A simple “I don’t eat pancakes” would have sufficed.
Source

Crash & Burn

To the Moon

Columbia House is finally shutting down. Not much left for them after the death of the record, the 8-track, the cassette, the CD, and the penny.
Source

Woman arrested for allegedly throwing eggs at Edmonton marathoners. She tried to eggsplain it away as a running yolk, but she cracked and now it’s eggravated assault.
Source

Spotify co-founder opening body-scanning clinic in NYC. At the end of the year, you get Your Lung Nodules Wrapped.
Source

London Public Library wants your old yearbooks. Turn them in if you A) really did have a great summer and B) are absolutely sure you’re not going to keep in touch.
Source

Who Cares?

The Big Important Story

Does Switching Jobs Actually Help You Get Ahead? Or Is It Just a Pain?

If you’ve found yourself adding “increasing shareholder value” to your list of hobbies on LinkedIn, odds are you’re looking for a new job. And if so, you’re among the 23% of Canadians who want to jump ship. The reasons are myriad: low pay, limited room to advance, the lingering embarrassment of sitting on a plate of potato salad at last year’s company picnic. OK, we made up that last one, but the fact remains: plenty of people are eyeing the exit. We looked at the freshest data to find out whether the hassle of switching jobs pays off.

First, will you make more money switching?

Last year, job stayers (at least in the U.S.) were enjoying higher wage growth than switchers, defying the truism that the fastest way to get a raise is to find a new job. Turns out, it was an anomaly. Bank of America tracked payroll deposits from 2019 through early 2026 and found that job switchers saw their after-tax pay grow by 8% from the year prior, compared with 5% for stayers. ADP data showed a similar gap in July.

Young switchers were the big winners. In the BoA report, Gen Z switchers posted more than four times the wage growth of Gen Z stayers, while millennial switchers gained at nearly twice the rate of their staying peers. Gen X and boomer switchers experienced flat or declining pay.

So what about Canadian switchers?

There’s no great source for switcher-versus-stayer wage data in Canada. So we asked TLDR readers about their job-hopping experience, and their responses were in line with the U.S. data: the majority got their biggest-percentage pay bumps — many as high as 50% — by switching early in their careers, and then many got another significant increase at around age 30, after which the switching premium shrank.

One hitch is that Canada’s job market isn’t as strong as America’s, so an 8% bump might be ambitious. But don’t let that dissuade you from going after a higher-paying job.

How does switching affect your earning power over your career?

Here’s an example: John Stayer and Frank Switcher are 22 and equally capable, and they both make $60,000 a year. Stayer takes a 2% annual raise throughout his career, while Switcher changes jobs four times between ages 22 and 35, earning an 8% pay hike each time, after which he gets a 2% annual raise.

By age 65, Switcher has a salary of $177,000 compared to Stayer’s $141,000 — but, more impressive, Switcher has made something like $924,000 more in cumulative earnings. And if Switcher invested his excess money along the way, he would have $3.3 million more than Stayer, assuming a 7% annual return. That’s all back-of-the-envelope math that doesn’t account for taxes or inflation. Still, switching early can clearly have long-term compounding effects.

Can staying beat switching?

Sometimes! Top earners who remain in their jobs often get bigger pay increases than switchers. And in periods of job-market weakness, sticking with a secure job can beat taking a riskier, higher-paid position that fizzles out and leaves you unemployed.

There are nonmonetary reasons for staying too, right?

That’s true! Maybe you have great relationships with your colleagues or your job brings you deep satisfaction or offers a lot of flexibility, or maybe your company is prestigious and gives you clout. Trading any of those for a raise could be a mistake.

What should you do if you want a new job?

Remember: not all job hunters are created equal. You have to give companies compelling reasons to hire you, and the workers that do are usually driven; jobs with big pay bumps won’t just fall into your lap. So go in with eyes wide open and try to make yourself a desirable hire before blasting out résumés. And if you’re going to switch, ensure it’s a good match and a strategic move.

—Abigail Covington

What are your most pressing money questions?

We want to know! Send them to us in the feedback module below, or shoot us an email at , and we just might answer a few of them in an upcoming issue…

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This week’s newsletter contributors: Brennan Doherty (writer), Devin Gordon (writer), David Walters (writer), Stacey Woods (writer), Jenna Benchetrit (writer), Ambrose Martos (fact checker), Ciara Rickard (copy editor), Maude Campbell (copy editor), Sara Black McCulloch (fact checker), Katie Noll (senior specialist, product engagement), Lauren Edwards (production coordinator), Matthew Karasz (markets editor), Jared Sullivan (senior editor), Peter Martin (senior editor), and Devin Friedman (editor-in-chief).

TWIM: Total returns shown in local currency, via TradingView.

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🦘 Job-hopping is good, actually