This is what Steve Jobs said to Pepsi executive John Sculley, convincing him to join Apple at the time (1983):
“Do you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life, or do you want to come with me and change the world?”
It’s the truth.
I ❤️ new tech & software. Innovation is exciting, and makes my life better / easier / more fun. Drinking more soda-pop, though, just makes me fatter 😛
We all know about the FAANG (U.S.), and BAT (China) Tech Superstocks, but what about Canada? We’re often overlooked, and that would be a mistake…
Canada, and Canadians (+ abroad) have been pioneers of some of the world’s most important technological innovations ever throughout history:
– Electric Lightbulb; Henry Woodward (1874)
– Telephone; Alexander Graham Bell (1876)
– Telephone Handset; Cyrille Duquet (1878)
– Electric Car Heater, and Oven; Thomas Ahearn (1892)
– Wireless Radio; Reginald A. Fessenden (1900)
– Medicinal Insulin; Frederick Banting, Charles Best and James Collip (1922)
– Snowblower; Arthur Sicard (1925)
– Television Camera; F.C.P. Henroteau (1934)
– Snowmobile; Joseph-Armand Bombardier (1937)
– Walkie-talkie; Donald L. Hings and Alfred J. Gross (1937)
– Anti-gravity Suit; Wilbur Rounding Franks (1940)
– Pager; Alfred J. Gross (1949)
– Cardiac Pacemaker; John Hopps (1950)
– Computer Trackball; Tom Cranston (1952)
– Electric Wheelchair; George Klein (1953)
– Alkaline Battery; Lewis Urry (1954)
– Instant Replay; George Retzlaff (1955)
– IMAX; Graeme Ferguson, Roman Kroitor, and Robert Kerr (1967)
– Prosthetic Hand; Helmut Lucas (1971)
– Canadarm; George Klein, and others (1981)
– Archie (first search engine); Alan Emtage, Bill Heelan, J. Peter Deutsch (1988)
– Java Programming Language; James Gosling (1991)
– 56k Modem; Dr. Brent Townshend (1996)
– BlackBerry Smartphone/Messaging; Mike Lazaridis (1996)
Where would the world be without these inventors, and their inventions?
Life would suck..
Seriously.
But wait… I haven’t even mentioned the Canadians behind some of today’s biggest tech companies in the world:
– Uber; Garrett Camp
– Slack Technologies; Stewart Butterfield
– Alibaba; Joseph Tsai
I’m not making this up. Honest.
But I’ll admit; Canada has also had some of the biggest public stock blow-ups in the technology sector; Nortel, and BlackBerry among the most notable in recent history. Lots of tears 😢 + broken hearts 💔. However, that shouldn’t scare you. It’s the nature of innovation. “Innovate or die“, as the saying goes. So let’s focus on the Canadian technology & software companies that are building big things today ,and into the future.
I’ve curated my favourite Canadian Technology & Software Superstocks (see below), most of which originally appeared in my list of “Capital Compounders” (est. 2017). You won’t find any Canadian tech/software micro-capcompanies in this list, but you will if you join Patreon. There’s already 150+ members who have access to the Future 60 MicroCaps that I track and update (> 70% are technology/software stocks), and you can also download my new research report on Lighstspeed POS (LSPD) from Patreon.
*drum-roll*
Here they are…
Canada’s Technology & Software Superstocks:
| Company | Ticker | Market Cap | YTD Return |
| Shopify | SHOP | $48.2B | 132.0% |
| Lightspeed POS | LSPD | $3.0B | 91.0% |
| Constellation Software | CSU | $27.1B | 47.3% |
| Ceridian HCM* | CDAY | $9.5B | 40.5% |
| CAE | CAE | $9.6B | 40.4% |
| Descartes Systems | DSG | $4.1B | 36.2% |
| Open Text | OTEX | $15.5B | 29.0% |
| People Corporation | PEO.v | $536.0M | 25.6% |
| CGI | GIB.A | $25.0B | 25.2% |
| Kinaxis | KXS | $2.2B | 24.8% |
| Calian Group | CGY | $260.4M | 11.6% |
| Enghouse Systems | ENGH | $1.9B | 5.0% |
| Tecsys | TCS | $164.2M | 3.6% |
| Photon Control | PHO | $120.3M | -5.2% |
| Stars Group | TSGI | $6.2B | -7.8% |
| Sylogist | SYZ.v | $272.4M | -8.2% |
| Tucows | TC | $699.7M | -19.9% |
*Ceridian HCM (CDAY) is a U.S. company, but is also listed in Canada (TSX), and has significant Canadian influence
/// Challenge: can you come up with an acronym ala “FAANG” / “BAT” based on this list of Canadian Technology & Software Superstocks?
