Jean-François (JF) Tardif · founder of Timelo Investment Management (2012), formerly of Sprott. A Canadian long/short small- and mid-cap manager with a commodity bent, known for idiosyncratic ideas, catalyst-driven positions and a standing options hedge.
New pro pick: a sub-$1bn lumber & building-products consolidator at 8.5x earnings / 6x EBITDA that has done nothing for five years while the balance sheet was repaired — free cash every quarter, a proven M&A track record, and the next acquisition as the catalyst; a housing recovery is upside he explicitly is not paying for.
New pro pick: a drive-thru coffee chain compounding ~20%+ (17% store-count growth plus 5-8% same-store sales, food only now being introduced) that imploded to 42x earnings — cheap against Cava at 92x and Shake Shack at 52x, and against Starbucks at 34x with no growth; at 20% growth the multiple halves to ~21x in three and a half years.
Owns a small position: a near-monopoly in flight simulation with an impressive new CEO/CFO rebuilding every part of the business. Earnings probably flat for two years through the restructuring, so he is not sized up yet, but pilot training is growing and legally mandatory and the defence side benefits from European and Canadian military spending.
Last year's pro pick, +54% and still held: a government/defence services, training and staffing business re-rated from 10x to ~14x earnings, with Canadian and European military spending driving years of growth ahead and management publicly hunting more acquisitions.
New pro pick: a multi-decade compounder in commercial real-estate brokerage, property management and engineering, down 42% on AI-disruption fear while earnings and estimates went up — 12x earnings (near its cheapest ever) for an ~8% free-cash-flow yield that funds more acquisitions; he is 'personally skeptical' AI replaces the business, and a commercial-property recovery is a free kicker.
Proxy row for gold equities: gold stocks are 'extremely cheap' versus copper stocks on price/NAV, cash flow and PE, and gold is his preferred long side of the long-gold/short-copper pair — expressed through small, catalyst-rich juniors rather than the majors.
GO Residential REIT (TSX: GO.U — acquirer of H&R's residential portfolio)
Owns it indirectly through the H&R take-under: the New-York-listed residential REIT buying H&R's residential portfolio 'itself looks pretty cheap here' — and buying H&R below deal value is a way of getting GO shares cheaper still.
Bought more into the take-under after selling down last year at $12 on other guests' advice: at ~$9.75 against a ~$12 headline deal value he sees little risk either way — if the deal passes you make money and receive cheap GO Residential units, if it fails he thinks the stock recovers. He expects to vote against the deal, calls it a 'take under', and flags the perceived conflict of interest in management buying part of the assets (pointing readers to TD's report).
One of his biggest recent buys and his highest-conviction gold long: a sub-$300m Ontario gold junior whose engineering, ore and metallurgy have already been vetted by investors he follows (Michael Gentile, Pierre Beaudoin), which is exactly how he prefers to express gold — small, catalyst-rich, and with a board and management he can reach.
Not owned yet but 'looks promising' — he spoke to the VP development the week before: copper-nickel production from one area today with a second, third, fourth and fifth to follow, $100m from a smart operating-miner investor plus the Dundee group on the register, and exactly the pile of catalysts he buys.
Last year's pro pick, $11 to ~$35 and still held: earnings went from $2 to $3 and could hit $4 sooner than his original three-to-five-year call — US compression capacity nearly doubling, the biggest service player in Australia on LNG-to-Asia volumes, Canadian pipelines and LNG Canada Phase 2 — at 13-14x that is a $50 stock, plus net cash and a disciplined acquisitive founder-CEO as a free kicker.
Owned: net cash, actually profitable at ~10x earnings (25-30c US next year on a ~$3 stock), the lowest-cost producer in Canada with a just-completed BC expansion, market-share recovery at home and a growing position in Germany's exploding import market — and with US, Canadian and European assets, the best takeover candidate in the sector.
Aurora Cannabis — named only as the target Curaleaf has moved to acquire; cited as evidence the cannabis sector has consolidation action again, no view on the stock.
Mentioned only as the acquirer moving on Aurora Cannabis — cited as evidence there is takeover action in the cannabis sector, no view on the stock itself.
Prefers it to Champion Iron long term as the less risky way to own iron ore, because roughly half the income is royalty rather than operating, plus a nice dividend and a small equity interest in the mine — but he is not involved in either name right now.
Named only as the strongest form of the AI bull case he concedes is 'not wrong' — booming memory earnings today — before arguing that the ~$1.7trn of AI spending behind it is unsustainable.
Named approvingly as the precedent for what H&R could have done instead: the mall business spun out with a new ex-Bay Street analyst CEO (Alex Avery) 'has done a great job with it' — he suggests spinning out another division under young management rather than selling into a take-under.
The valuation anchor for the Dutch Bros pick: 34 times earnings and not growing, which is why he thinks 42x for a 20%-plus grower is the cheaper stock.
A great, extremely well-managed company with a pristine balance sheet — the Caterpillar dealer plus an AI-linked division investors are excited about — but the multiple has expanded too far: he does not own it, and he volunteers that he is not short it either.
Named as the analog for the AI fear on Colliers' engineering platform — his answer is the CAD precedent: computers and design software were supposed to end engineering firms and instead the work grew and grew, so AI will make projects 'better and bigger', not obsolete.
Staying away but watching: iron ore is 'in the toilet' and that drew him in, but a big new African mine adds ~5% to world supply, he is bearish on the economy, and the founder has been selling shares — he wants to see iron ore bottom and turn before getting involved.
Global X Copper Miners ETF (copper equities — proxy row)
Proxy row for copper equities: he owns a little copper but also shorts some, because copper stocks trade at much higher price/NAV, price/cash-flow and PE multiples than gold stocks and will fall when AI capex rolls over the other side of the mountain — 'it's not if', maybe 2027 or 2028.
Avoids it: the traditional lending business is still fine but the used-auto lending push is where the problems came, it now trades above book, and he is bearish enough on the economy that he does not want to own a lender at all — 'lending money is easy, getting it back is a little harder'.
Holds puts on it as part of the hedge overlay: he cites Nvidia's own 70% growth guide as the reason ~$1.7trn of sector spending is coming, which he does not believe is sustainable — when spending goes down the other side of the mountain, 'those stocks would go down a lot'.
Passed on it despite being impressed by management's enthusiasm and the fast growth: insiders sell regularly, and following insider buying and selling closely is something Timelo does 'quite a bit' — that alone makes him uncomfortable, on top of his bearish view on lenders.
Short the index outright rather than naming single semis: he adds to the short if it rallies and covers half on a 10-15% drop, because the peak of AI capex is close and semis are heavy enough in the S&P 500 to drag the whole market down when spending rolls over.
The core of his hedge: puts on the S&P 500, bought into strength and sold into weakness, which takes the fund's net exposure well below zero. The carry is 'a very small cost every month' and the payoff is convex — 'faster the market goes down, better it is for options'.
Proxy row for the Canadian banks, which he would sell rather than hold: the most expensive on PE and price-to-book in multiple decades, with the trading, wealth-management and insurance earnings that got them there being far more cyclical than the market thinks. In a tax-free account it is 'a no-brainer' to harvest the gains and buy them back lower; he confirms Timelo is allowed to short them and does.
In one line: Net long a handful of cheap, growing, catalyst-rich businesses — most of the net long from gold and oil — and then taken below zero net exposure by an options overlay (S&P 500 and Nvidia puts bought into strength, sold into weakness) because the ~$1.7trn of AI capex implied by Nvidia's own growth guide is, in his view, at or near its peak: "in my mind it's not if."
The long side is one style, stated three times: "I love buying companies that are growing at a fire sale." Concretely — a business still growing and generating free cash flow whose share price has gone nowhere for three to five years, at a single-digit or de-rated multiple, with an identifiable but undated catalyst (usually the next acquisition). ADENTRA at 8.5x earnings / 6x EBITDA, Colliers at 12x after a 42% fall with earnings rising, Total Energy before it tripled.
The short side is an overlay, not a stock-picking exercise. Since 2021 he has deliberately cut the number of single-name shorts and replaced them with puts: "if we're wrong on the options it's a very small cost every month. But if we're right, and faster the market goes down, better it is for options, then potentially we could make a lot of money." The named shorts are indexes — the SOXX semiconductor index, S&P puts — plus Nvidia puts; individual shorts he describes by type ("larger companies, no growth, maybe some of them not well managed") and refuses to name.
Two screens recur in every answer. (1) Catalysts he can enumerate in advance — permitting, PEAs, final investment decisions, the second/third/fourth production area — which is why he prefers sub-$300m juniors to large producers: "I prefer the small ones where there's a lot of catalyst and I know who's on the board." (2) Insider selling as a veto — "we follow insider buying and selling very closely" at Timelo, and it is the stated reason he passed on Propel and is avoiding Champion Iron despite both being cheap.
He borrows technical diligence he cannot do himself. On mining juniors he screens for names already financed or joined by named specialists (Michael Gentile, "Cohen at Scotia," Lassonde) on the grounds that they have already validated the geology, ore and metallurgy — then applies his own catalyst and management screen on top.
Long gold equities versus copper equities — framed as valuation, not a metals forecast: gold stocks are "extremely cheap" versus copper on price/NAV, price/cash-flow and PE, and copper has been re-rated as an AI proxy that will de-rate with AI capex.
Canadian banks are his clearest sell: the most expensive in multi-decades on both PE and price-to-book, on trading, wealth-management and insurance earnings that are far more cyclical than the "banks are different now" case admits — "right now people are paying the highest premium they have ever paid. I just don't like your risk/reward." In a tax-free account, harvesting the gain is "a no-brainer."
Calm on tariffs, cautious on the economy. Tariff announcements are "pretty small relative to the GDP" while NAFTA governs most trade; only NAFTA disappearing entirely would be "a disaster for all our Canadian exporters" — unlikely, in his view. But he is "a little bearish on the economy," which functions as a standing sector veto (no lenders) rather than a market call.
Expensive is not the same as shortable. On Toromont, priced out of a company he admires, he volunteers "I'll reveal that we're not short it either" — quality, a clean balance sheet, excited buyers and a live acquisition pipeline are reasons not to bet against a rich stock.
Transcripts
One dated page per appearance — each has its stock table, talking points, and the saved transcript. Newest first.