Naawi Oodena gets first business
Oodena Gas & Convenience, the first business at site of former Kapyong Barracks, is now open.
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Globe and Mail
27 minutes ago
- Globe and Mail
Better Fintech Stock: Upstart vs. SoFi Technologies
Key Points Upstart's growth is accelerating again as interest rates decline. SoFi will benefit from lower rates and resumed student loan payments. The pricier stock is still the better long-term pick. 10 stocks we like better than Upstart › Upstart (NASDAQ: UPST) and SoFi Technologies (NASDAQ: SOFI) are both growing fintech companies. Upstart's online lending marketplace uses AI to crunch non-traditional data points to approve a wider range of loans than traditional credit-scoring services. SoFi is challenging traditional banks as a one-stop digital shop for myriad financial services. Upstart went public via a traditional IPO at $20 on Dec. 16, 2020, and it now trades at $63. SoFi went public by merging with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) on June 1, 2021. Its stock opened at $21.97, but it now trades at roughly $23. Let's see why investors embraced Upstart but shunned SoFi -- and if that trend will continue. Upstart's growth is warming up again Upstart's platform approves loans for banks, credit unions, and auto dealerships. Instead of reviewing traditional data like an applicant's FICO score, credit history, or annual income, it uses its AI algorithms to analyze non-traditional data points -- which can include previous jobs, standardized test scores, and GPA -- to approve a broader range of loans for younger and lower-income applicants with limited credit histories. It fully automates most of those approvals. Upstart's growth can be measured through its originated loans, conversion rate (the ratio of total inquiries leading to approved loans), and contribution margin (the ratio of its fees it retains as revenue). Here's how it fared over the past five years. Metric 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 Originated loans growth 40% 338% (5%) (59%) 28% Conversion rate 15% 24% 14% 10% 16.5% Contribution margin 46% 50% 49% 63% 60% Revenue growth 42% 264% (1%) (39%) 24% Data source: Upstart. In 2022 and 2023, Upstart's growth decelerated as soaring rates chilled the market's demand for new loans. Many lenders also cautiously reined in their own offerings. But as Upstart's top-line growth slowed down, its contribution margin improved as it automated more loans and locked in a higher mix of "super prime" borrowers to boost its take rate for each loan. In 2024, its growth accelerated again as interest rates declined. From 2024 to 2027, analysts expect its revenue and adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) to grow at a CAGR of 36% and 245%, respectively. Those are robust growth rates for a stock that trades at just 22 times next year's adjusted EBITDA. SoFi's growth is still cooling off SoFi provides a wide range of loans, insurance policies, estate planning services, credit cards, banking services, and stock trading tools. It obtained a U.S. bank charter in 2022, and it operates as a digital-only direct bank that doesn't run any brick-and-mortar branches. That streamlined approach enabled SoFi to expand at a much faster rate than traditional banks, as seen in its growth in members, total financial products in use, and total revenue over the past four years. Its adjusted EBITDA margin also expanded from 3% in 2021 to 26% in 2024. Metric 2021 2022 2023 2024 Members 2.5 million 5.2 million 7.5 million 10.1 million Products in use 1.9 million 7.9 million 11.1 million 14.7 million Revenue growth 74% 60% 35% 26% Data source: SoFi Technologies. However, the temporary suspension of student loan payments from 2020 to 2023, rising interest rates, and other macro headwinds throttled SoFi's growth. It also faces tougher competition from "neobanks" like Chime and Robinhood Markets, dedicated lending platforms like Upstart, and expanding fintech giants like PayPal. On the bright side, two of those headwinds are dissipating. The freeze on SoFi's student loan payments has ended, and interest rates will likely keep declining. From 2024 to 2027, analysts expect SoFi's revenue and adjusted EBITDA to grow at a CAGR of 25% and 37%, respectively. That bright outlook implies that while SoFi's hypergrowth days might be over, it should continue to grow at an impressive rate as it gains even more members, expands its ecosystem with fresh features, and profits from the expansion of its fintech subsidiary Galileo, which it acquired in 2020 and now serves nearly 160 million accounts on its own. Like Upstart, SoFi's stock also looks cheap relative to its growth potential at 19 times next year's adjusted EBITDA. The winner: Upstart Upstart and SoFi are both promising fintech stocks. But if I had to choose one over the other, I'd buy Upstart because it's growing faster, experiencing accelerating growth (instead of just stabilizing growth), and faces fewer direct competitors. SoFi still has to prove it can maintain its edge against its growing list of competitors. Should you invest $1,000 in Upstart right now? Before you buy stock in Upstart, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and Upstart wasn't one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $668,155!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $1,106,071!* Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor's total average return is 1,070% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 184% for the S&P 500. Don't miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join Stock Advisor. See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of August 13, 2025
CBC
28 minutes ago
- CBC
Air Canada says it will resume flights Sunday after Ottawa intervenes in strike
Air Canada says it plans to resume flights on Sunday after the federal government stepped in and ordered binding arbitration to end a flight attendants' strike the day before. The Montreal-based airline says the first flights will resume this evening, but that it will take several days before its operations return to normal. Air Canada says it has been directed by the Canada Industrial Relations Board to resume operations and have flight attendants continue their duties by 2 p.m. ET. The federal government ordered the airline and its flight attendants just yesterday, ending a strike and lockout after less than 12 hours. The Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), which represents the flight attendants, has accused federal Jobs Minister Patty Hajdu of caving to Air Canada's demands. The CUPE, which represents more than 10,000 Air Canada flight attendants, announced its members were heading to the picket lines after being unable to reach an eleventh-hour deal with the airline, while Air Canada locked out its agents about 30 minutes later due to the strike action.
Globe and Mail
an hour ago
- Globe and Mail
3 Tech Stocks That Could Go Parabolic
Key Points IonQ has the opportunity to be the big winner in quantum computing. SoundHound AI is looking to be a leader in voice and agentic AI. AppLovin has a huge opportunity to expand its AI adtech to areas other than gaming apps. 10 stocks we like better than IonQ › When it comes to investing, there are times when you're going to want to swing big. Not all these investments will pan out, but if one hits, your portfolio will greatly benefit. Just remember that these types of riskier picks should only account for part of an overall diversified portfolio. Let's look at three growth stocks that have the potential to go parabolic. 1. IonQ IonQ (NYSE: IONQ) is moving quantum computing from theory into the real world. The company is already delivering systems to commercial, government, and academic customers while working toward fault-tolerant machines that can run at scale. That's the breakthrough the industry needs to achieve mainstream success. IonQ is working from a position of strength. Following a recent equity offering, the company now has $1.6 billion in cash (as of July 9, 2025), making it one of the best-capitalized players in the field. In addition, the company is spending its money wisely by making key acquisitions to both expand its talent base and add new capabilities, such as space-based quantum networks. Its partnership with AstraZeneca, Amazon, and Nvidia, is working to demonstrate a quantum-accelerated computational chemistry workflow. This collaboration involves integrating IonQ's quantum processing unit with Nvidia's CUDA-Q platform, powered by Amazon's AWS infrastructure. It's showing early signs of success, with AstraZeneca seeing a 20-fold speed-up in drug development workflows. It has also recently formed a quantum networking division, making a move to become a leader in this space, as well. If quantum computing fulfills its promise, the market could be enormous. IonQ's combination of financial strength, key partnerships, and technology leadership puts it in a prime position to be one of the biggest winners in the space. 2. SoundHound AI SoundHound AI (NASDAQ: SOUN) is looking to carve out a leadership position in conversational and agentic artificial intelligence (AI). Its acquisition of Amelia last year gave it access to the company's advanced conversational intelligence, which it then combined with its "speech-to-meaning" and "deep meaning understanding" tech. The result is Amelia 7.0, a voice-first agentic AI platform that allows customers to create AI agents with little to no coding. These agents can complete tasks independently, which greatly expands the valuation proposition of SoundHound's platform. It's also added real-time AI visual recognition to its tech stack, making its platform even more powerful. SoundHound has long had a strong foothold in the automotive and restaurant sectors, where it continues to see strong success. Meanwhile, the Amelia acquisition gave it a solid foundation in other industry verticals, including financial services and healthcare, which are now major priorities. The strength of the combination was on full display in Q2, as SoundHound's revenue soared 217% year over year to $42.7 million, far outpacing expectations. It also raised its full-year guidance due to accelerating demand, and expects to reach adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) profitability by the end of 2025. This is still an early-stage, high-risk investment, but the market potential for voice-powered and multimodal agentic AI is huge. If SoundHound can become a leader in this space, the stock has tremendous upside from here. 3. AppLovin AppLovin (NASDAQ: APP) has been one of the market's most explosive growth stories, with its shares up more than 400% over the past year. However, its outperformance could be far from done. Following the sale of its legacy gaming app portfolio, AppLovin is now a pure-play adtech platform. Its secret sauce is its AI engine, Axon 2.0, which optimizes ad targeting, bidding, and placement, driving strong results for its gaming app clients. It sees the gaming app market alone growing at a 20% to 30% annual pace for the foreseeable future. However, it has more growth drivers ahead. It's currently testing its platform with e-commerce and web-based ads, expanding beyond just gaming apps. It also plans to open its platform to advertisers outside the U.S. and launch a self-serve ads manager next year. Management believes this will be the foundation for its next leg of growth, expanding its customer base and use cases well beyond gaming. While short-sellers have taken shots at the company, AppLovin has continued to deliver strong revenue, earnings, and free cash flow growth quarter after quarter. If Axon 2.0 proves as effective outside gaming apps as it has within them, the stock could continue its vertical ascent. Should you invest $1,000 in IonQ right now? Before you buy stock in IonQ, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and IonQ wasn't one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $668,155!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $1,106,071!* Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor's total average return is 1,070% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 184% for the S&P 500. Don't miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join Stock Advisor. See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of August 13, 2025 Geoffrey Seiler has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Amazon, AppLovin, and Nvidia. The Motley Fool recommends AstraZeneca Plc. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
