For investors, news about the Strait of Hormuz isn’t just “noise.” The waterway is effectively closed. Since late February, Iran’s response to U.S. and Israeli strikes has brought tanker traffic through the world’s most critical shipping chokepoint to near zero, disrupting roughly 20% of the world’s daily oil supply and triggering the largest trade shock since the 1970s energy crisis. Major carriers have suspended operations. Rerouting around Africa adds two weeks and significant cost to every affected shipment. Fertilizer prices have surged 50%.
For Canadian investors looking past the immediate headline chaos, the question is which TSX stocks are structurally positioned to benefit when global supply chains not only shift but also break — and then get rebuilt closer to home.
Source: Getty Images
ATS: The Automation Play That Gets More Valuable When Shipping Lanes Break
ATS (TSX:ATS) designs and builds automation systems, equipment, and software that help manufacturers increase output, improve quality, and reduce labour bottlenecks. When global shipping was merely expensive and slow, automation was a productivity investment. When shipping lanes are functionally closed and rerouting adds two weeks to every Asian shipment, automation becomes a survival tool. The economics of making things closer to the customer improve dramatically when the alternative is waiting months for a container that may or may not arrive.
Over the past year, ATS has been living in the real-world middle ground that long-term investors should actually like — some end-markets cautious, the broader structural theme intact. Manufacturers still need productivity, traceability, and resilience. ATS has kept leaning on its backlog and diversified customer base to smooth out the lumps that come with capital-spending cycles. In fiscal Q3 2026, it reported revenue of approximately $753.9 million, adjusted EBITDA of approximately $130.3 million, and adjusted EPS of approximately $0.32. Orders came in around $856 million and backlog sat around $2.2 billion — a bridge between today’s cautious headlines and tomorrow’s revenue. If ATS keeps converting that backlog into margin-stable earnings, it can rerate quickly when industrial confidence turns. A supply chain crisis of this scale tends to accelerate that turn.
Finning International: The Equipment Dealer That Keeps Projects Moving When the Plan Changes
Finning International (TSX:FTT) is the largest Caterpillar dealer in the world, selling and servicing heavy equipment across Western Canada, parts of South America, and the U.K. and Ireland. When supply chains break down, governments and companies don’t respond by cancelling projects forever — they respond by building, mining, expanding port capacity, rerouting freight, and upgrading infrastructure. Finning sits in the middle of that real-economy response, and it gets paid again and again through parts and service after the initial equipment sale.
The recurring service revenue is the key. In a crisis environment, the cost of equipment downtime rises sharply and customers remember who kept their fleets running when timelines were tight. In Q4 2025, Finning reported EBIT of approximately $187 million and adjusted EBIT of approximately $209 million, with net income from continuing operations of approximately $115 million and adjusted EPS of approximately $1.00. For full-year 2025, total revenue came in at approximately $10.6 billion, adjusted EPS at approximately $4.12, and free cash flow at approximately $546 million.
The risks here are worth naming directly. Some of Finning’s customers operate in mining and agriculture — sectors facing sharply higher input costs as fertilizer prices surge and energy logistics get more expensive. That pressure can delay capital equipment decisions even when infrastructure buildout is accelerating elsewhere. The bull case is that the infrastructure and resource investment response to this crisis is large enough to more than offset the near-term headwind. The disciplined capital return program — buybacks and dividends sustained through the cycle — is the signal that management believes that, too.
Bottom line
For Canadian investors who want exposure to the real-economy response to a genuine supply chain crisis, ATS and Finning offer two different angles on the same thesis. ATS gives you the automation and manufacturing productivity play — the “make it closer, make it faster, make it more reliable” trend that becomes more urgent every day the Hormuz disruption continues. Finning gives you the equipment and after-sale service play — the business that keeps projects moving when the plan changes midstream.
The supply chain shift isn’t coming. It’s here. The question is whether your portfolio is positioned for the rebuild.
