“For the last two years, financial assets have been the primary driver of gains,” said Maria Solovieva, economist at Toronto-Dominion Bank, in the Financial Post.
Domestic equity markets “stole the show,” with the S&P/TSX composite index climbing 5.6 percent in the fourth quarter of 2025 and ending the year 28.2 percent higher than at the end of 2024 — the largest annual increase since 2009 — while the S&P 500 index ended the year 16.4 percent higher.
As a result, financial assets grew 2.5 percent, or $296.9bn, to reach $11.95tn in the fourth quarter, the paper said.
Statistics Canada data cited by the Financial Post show that “other financial assets” — stocks, bonds, investment funds and cash — account for 45 percent of household wealth and rose 10.4 percent year-over-year in the third quarter to $484,700 per household on average.
“Canada also benefited from the later-in-the-year rally in precious metals,” said Shelly Kaushik, senior economist at Bank of Montreal (BMO) Capital Markets, adding that Canadians hold a fair concentration of gold.