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This month’s collection of the best stocks to buy now includes two Canadian all-stars, a U.S. industrial titan, and plays on used cars and housing.
Foolishly yours,
Iain Butler
Advisor, Stock Advisor Canada
Best Buys Now #1
Major Drilling (TSX: MDI)
After a strong 2025 led by gold, the resource sector has drifted out of the spotlight this year. The underlying businesses, though, are doing fine.
We don’t usually recommend resource companies because so many of them depend on the price of whatever commodity they produce. Major Drilling (TSX: MDI) is different because it profits from drilling activity regardless of which metal is chased. Commodity prices matter, but less directly.
The company recently closed its fiscal 2026 with the best results in its 46-year history. Revenue came in at CA$889 million, up 22% from the year before. Q4 alone brought in CA$233.7 million, up 25% year over year, and EBITDA jumped 37% to CA$28 million. Net earnings hit CA$8.2 million in the quarter, compared with just CA$1 million a year earlier. The balance sheet flipped from CA$3.9 million in net debt to CA$20.6 million in net cash.
Gold prices are (still!) near record highs, and producers who skimped on reserves for most of the last decade are now spending on exploration again. Copper matters even more for the long run — the metal is essential in electrification, EVs, and AI infrastructure, and it faces a supply gap expected to widen through the 2030s. A new copper mine takes 10 to 15 years to reach production, so the drilling happening today shapes what gets mined a decade from now.
Major Drilling has the equipment and people to do that work at scale around the world. The deep, technically difficult jobs command premium pricing and require trained crews with purpose-built gear, which smaller competitors struggle to match. More than 60% of Major Drilling’s revenue comes from this specialized category, and that’s why its margins and customer relationships hold up better than at a typical drilling contractor.
The junior mining financing cycle, which indicates the demand for drilling, is the busiest it’s been in years. Junior miners raise money first and hire drillers six to 12 months later, so a lot of the capital raised in 2025 and early 2026 hasn’t shown up in Major Drilling’s results yet. Fiscal 2027 could top fiscal 2026’s record.
Claude Sonnet 4.6 was used for portions of this article.
