Plus: bubbles, bubbles everywhere October 27, 2025 Sign Up | View online IN THIS ISSUE 8 min read 🎥 Netflix flexes ⏰ Founders wait (and wait) ❤️‍🩹 Divorce dollars Let’s hope you’re not going through a split as ugly as Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep’s in Kramer vs. Kramer, but if you are, we’ve got advice on how to financially break up below. | Columbia Pictures THE WEEK IN MARKETS Bubbles, bubbles everywhere Here’s a neat trick if you want to give yourself a tiny heart attack: go to Google Trends and type in “AI bubble,” “credit bubble,” or “tech bubble,” and you’ll get all-time high results for each of them. Everyone’s talking about bubbles right now, and no wonder — it’s rational to look askance at surging prices and fret about how long it can continue. The thing is, as Wall Street Journal veteran columnist James Mackintosh points out, bubbles aren’t rare, and they often inflate for years before they pop. For instance, journalists — and, famously, the U.S. Fed Chair — started “calling” the ’90s tech bubble in 1996, but it inflated for another four years before it burst. Why? Because excitement is infectious. Or, as the saying goes, fundamentals follow price: all that euphoria encourages business and consumer spending, which in turn boosts profits and justifies rising valuations. Which brings us back to heart attacks, because, see, both things can be true: you can be right to worry about bubbles, bubbles everywhere — and wrong to sit them out. THE CHART OF THE WEEK WHAT HAPPENED LAST WEEK IMPORTANT A tale of two cities provincial approaches to AI data centres. Canada already has about 300 of them, and lots more are coming, bringing jobs and money but likely also soaring energy bills. Last week, to safeguard its power grid, B.C. tabled legislation that prioritizes other energy projects over AI and will ban all new crypto-mining projects. Neighbour Alberta is taking a very different tack, chasing $100 billion in data-centre contracts — a list of projects so long that combined they could exceed the province’s current energy capacity. We’ll see which plan pans out! Trump did not like Ontario’s anti-tariff ad. In recent weeks, American sports fans have been peppered with TV ads paid for by the Ontario government and featuring former U.S. president and GOP godhead Ronald Reagan blasting tariffs in a 1987 radio broadcast — a cheeky if slightly trolling bit of psyops that gave President Trump fresh pretext to call off trade talks with Canada (again) and to hike tariffs (again). Trump called the footage “fake” (it’s not) and accused Canada of trying to “interfere” with an upcoming U.S. Supreme Court decision that could dismantle his tariffs. “Are hurt feelings also now a national emergency?” one tax-policy wonk tweeted in response. INTERESTING Netflix flirts with buying Warner Bros., but why? Netflix is eyeing a bid for parts of Warner Bros. Discovery, including its giant IP library and film studio (but not its money-bleeding cable TV networks, like CNN). Netflix has the cash to burn — Q3 revenue rose by 17% YoY — but, as The Ankler’s Sean McNulty points out, it won the streaming wars in part by eschewing mergers and acquisitions, like the ones that weakened WBD. “Sure, the IP would be great,” McNulty writes, especially if Netflix grabbed HBO. But why not use the cash to instead air more record-setting NFL games, say? Hollywood insider Matt Belloni has a counter theory: Netflix is just driving up the price for the only other serious bidder — David Ellison’s Skydance. —Sarah Rieger FROM OUR SPONSOR THE FOMO INDEX by Stacey Woods IMPORTANT 📞 Report finds the CRA gives callers incorrect tax information 83% of the time. So skip the call and just pay 17% of what you owe. Source 🤖 Leaked documents reveal Amazon’s ultimate goal is to automate 75% of the company. They’ll still keep some humans around to lay each other off. Source 🥜 Research shows feeding babies peanuts has prevented many thousands of kids from developing allergies. Peanut spokesman Mr. Peanut demands apology. Source 🏖️ New app lets you fake vacation photos. Now you can check “see the world” off your bucket-list app. Source CRASH & BURN TO THE MOON 🧘 Lululemon heads off counterfeiters by trademarking the phrase “Lululemon dupes.” Buyers, beware: you might not be getting authentic Lululemon knockoffs. Source 💰 Amazon ordered to pay $20K to B.C. customer who claims package never arrived. Will demand a picture of them cashing the cheque. Source 🚽 Kohler introduces a toilet camera that will photograph and analyze your output. But you’ll have to do all the printing and framing yourself. Source ☕️ Starbucks experiments with AI technology that might one day predict your order. Version 2.0 will even finish writing your screenplay. Source WHO CARES THE BIG IMPORTANT STORY Q&A A Canadian Money Expert Is Getting Divorced. It Taught Her a Lot About the Costs of Splitting Up Some of the most consequential money decisions you’ll make in life don’t, at first glance, have much to do with money at all — like where you choose to live, or at which age you have kids, or who you partner up with, or who you decide not to partner up with. Alyssa Davies knows something about that last bit. She recently left her marriage of almost nine years. And since Davies is also a personal-finance pro who has been featured on CNBC and MarketWatch, we thought she was the perfect person to teach us about the costs — and benefits — of splitting up. Did being a personal-finance writer prepare you for your separation? It was a best-case scenario: my ex-husband and I always had separate emergency funds, so I had that. On the emotional side of things, I understood that it’s OK to take a financial loss; it happens sometimes. I think the fear of loss keeps some people in unhealthy relationships. What were some of the big expenses of your separation? I wanted a fresh start, and that required a lot of money up front. I withdrew $5,000 from my TFSA to cover a deposit on a new rental and buy furniture; I have kids, so it felt urgent to have a home ready to live in. I’m also still paying for half of my other property, so that’s another $1,000 to $2,000 every month. I could have taken that $5,000 from my emergency fund, but I wanted to keep that safety buffer, and there was no tax or penalty for the TFSA withdrawal. Next I consulted with a lawyer, which cost $300 for 50 minutes. Had I moved forward, I would have had to pay a $3,000 retainer. But my ex and I agreed to go through mediation instead, which has cost $1,500 so far. We finished our agreement in four hours, which is fast. [In Canada, a contested divorce, with disputes over kids or finances, usually runs between $15,000 and $35,000.] What were some expenses you didn’t anticipate? I’ve spent $500 on therapy, which is almost a required expense. I’ve lost a lot of weight because of stress, so I spent about $600 on new clothes. How did you handle dividing accounts and handling payments, especially around children? Our banking was all mixed up; we dealt with that with the mediator. [Under the Family Law Act, all assets acquired during a relationship, whether held in separate or joint accounts, need to be divided.] We had to decide who would take on which credit card and who would cover day-to-day expenses we had shared. As for children, there are two types of expenses. First are the ones you both benefit from — like extracurriculars, child care, winter coats. You split those equitably, by income. Child-support payments are separate; those are determined by the government, based on your previous year’s tax returns. [You can calculate your payment using this formula.] Speaking of taxes, what have you done there? I met with my accountant. One big thing we did right away — well, at the 90-day mark of being split — was notify the CRA. Being separated impacts Canada Child Benefit payments, so you let them know how often you have your kids. [Parents get a larger or smaller benefit based on how much time a child is in their custody.] Do you think people in bad relationships sometimes fall into a sunk-cost fallacy, thinking, “Oh, I’ve already spent too much time with this person to break up?” Yes. A lot of my clients have financial anxiety, and that can cause paralysis. What’s been surprising about my divorce is that, even though it set me back financially, other parts of my life feel easier. That’s one upside people don’t consider. What advice would you give someone going through a split? Lean on your community and don’t be afraid to ask for help. As for investing, it’s all about consistency. If you can’t save as much as before, that’s OK, but save something so the habit stays. I can’t invest as much as I did before. But this season won’t last forever, and I’ll be able to up my contributions in the future. This interview, which was edited for length and clarity, was conducted by Sarah Rieger. OTHER VERY GOOD READS 🍺 When Your Landlord Is a Frat Toronto frats are renting to non-students to make money. It’s getting messy. | The Local 🏭 Is the U.S. Building the Wrong Factories? How Japan and Korea got rich by making consumer goods. | Shear Force 🌭 Can the Golden Age of Costco Last? The beloved discounter is grappling with what’s next. | The New Yorker* *Article is paywalled, which, yeah, is kind of annoying. But we think good journalism is worth paying for. THE WISDOM OF SOCIAL FWIW, that’s one gold golf-ball-sized chunk for everyone on Earth… THOUGHTS ON TODAY’S ISSUE? Love it Good So so This week’s newsletter contributors: Brennan Doherty (writer), Devin Gordon (writer), Stacey Woods (writer), Sarah Rieger (news writer), Ambrose Martos (fact checker), Ciara Rickard (copy editor), Maude Campbell (copy editor), Sara Black McCulloch (fact checker), Mohini Tailor (lifecycle marketing manager), Eva Grace Clement Cruz (lifecycle marketing associate), Setareh Sarmadi (senior editorial producer), Matthew Karasz (markets editor), Jared Sullivan (senior editor), Peter Martin (senior editor), and Devin Friedman (editor-in-chief). Wealthsimple Media Inc. 80 Spadina Ave Suite 400 Toronto, ON, M5V 2J4 VIEW IN BROWSER PRIVACY POLICY UNSUBSCRIBE TLDR is offered by Wealthsimple Media Inc. and is for informational purposes only. 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