BMO’s Belski Says Buy Insurers and Banks on Wealth Management

Investors should buy Canadian banks and insurers as companies such as Manulife Financial Corp. benefit from beefed up wealth-management activity and a switch from bonds to other assets, according to BMO Capital Markets.

While Canadian equities will underperform U.S. markets again this year as demand for commodities from emerging markets continues to lag, banks and insurers will outperform, Brian Belski, chief investment strategist at the Bank of Montreal unit, said yesterday in an interview at Bloomberg’s Toronto office.