The Financial Post reports in its Thursday edition that going into 2026, Fitch had a "deteriorating" outlook for the Canadian banking sector as the country grappled with declining economic growth and trade-tension uncertainties. The Post's Naimul Karim writes, however, that outlook was upgraded to neutral last month after the Big Six posted higher-than-expected profits during the first half of 2026. The change in Fitch's outlook reflects how resilient Canada's economy has been, which has helped the Big Six banks comfortably beat analysts' earnings expectations and push their share prices even higher. BMO shares rose 40.2 per cent in the first half of 2026, followed by TD at 33.3 per cent and CIBC at 30.3 per cent. National Bank, RBC and Scotiabank followed, with gains of 28.9 per cent, 25.5 per cent and 21.7 per cent, respectively. The resiliency shown by Canadian households also surprised Shalabh Garg, analyst at Veritas Investment Research. He expected to see a spike at the big banks in impaired losses, but that didn't happen. Despite the Big Six's solid first half, questions remain about whether their stocks are overvalued since a key metric that measures valuations suggests they are trading at or near 20-year highs.