A year ago, each of these three stocks looked unremarkable: Nutrien (TSX: NTR) was grinding through farm economics, Fortis (TSX: FTS) was battling rate concerns, and Brookfield Asset Management (TSX: BAM) was telling a story the market kept questioning.
With the benefit of hindsight, you can see which stocks shrugged off scary headlines, hit their targets anyway, and kept rewarding shareholders while everyone else debated the next macro twist. “Boring” winners often show their edge over 12 months, as consistency stands out when the market spends the year changing its mind. Here’s what happened with these stocks.
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NTR
Nutrien can look boring until you remember that the world still needs crops, and crops still need nutrients. It produces potash, nitrogen, and phosphate, and it runs a massive retail network selling inputs and services to farmers. Over the last year, the narrative has stayed tied to farm economics and fertilizer affordability. Even when grain prices pressured farmers, Nutrien pointed to the need to replenish soils after big harvests and to potash staying relatively affordable.
The earnings picture showed real momentum. For full-year 2025, Nutrien generated net earnings of $2.3 billion and adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) of $6.05 billion. In the fourth quarter it posted net earnings of $0.58 billion, or $1.18 per diluted share, with adjusted EBITDA of $1.28 billion and adjusted earnings per share (EPS) of $0.83. It also guided to 2026 potash sales volumes of 14.1 to 14.8 million tonnes, and retail adjusted EBITDA of $1.75 to $1.95 billion, which signals management expects solid demand and better retail profitability.
A year later, Nutrien did what boring stocks are supposed to do. It kept feeding the world, kept generating cash, and kept guiding higher. The farmer economics worry was real, but the business proved more resilient than the narrative.
FTS
Fortis is the definition of a “boring” compounder, and it has stayed that way for a reason. It owns regulated utilities across North America, which means it earns allowed returns while it invests in wires, substations, and grid reliability. Over the last year, investors have worried about rates and financing costs, yet Fortis kept growing the rate base steadily, translating that into steady earnings and dividend growth.
In the fourth quarter of 2025, Fortis delivered net earnings of $422 million, or $0.83 per share, and it reported adjusted EPS of $3.53 for full-year 2025. The forward plan also looked reassuring, with a $28.8 billion five-year capital plan expected to grow midyear rate base from $42.4 billion in 2025 to $57.9 billion by 2030, supporting dividend growth guidance of 4% to 6% annually through 2030. The Canadian stock trades around 23 times trailing earnings, so you pay for stability.
A year later, Fortis did what it always does: ignored the rate anxiety, grew the rate base, and raised the dividend. The $28.8 billion capital plan means coming years should look a lot like the last one — which is exactly the point.
BAM
Brookfield Asset Management looks boring only if you ignore how it makes money. It collects fees for managing long-duration pools of capital, and it tends to thrive when big institutions want infrastructure, credit, and real assets that can hold up across cycles. Over the last year, Brookfield kept leaning into themes that feel durable even when trade, inflation, or politics get noisy, including the build-out of digital infrastructure and power-heavy assets tied to the artificial intelligence (AI) boom.
The 2025 results showed why the market keeps trusting it. It reported fee-related earnings of $867 million in the fourth quarter, up 28% year over year, and distributable earnings of $767 million, up 18% year over year. For the full year, fee-related earnings reached $3 billion, and it raised a record $112 billion in capital in 2025, with assets under management at about $1.2 trillion by year-end.
Bottom line
The common thread in these stories isn’t excitement, it’s resilience. Nutrien fed the world through farm economics pressure. Fortis grew its rate base through rate anxiety. Brookfield raised a record capital haul through macro noise.
If you invest $7,000 in each stock today, here’s how much income you could make:
If you want “boring” stocks that can keep winning, these are the kinds of businesses that make the next year look less intimidating — even if the headlines keep trying to do the opposite.
