The Globe and Mail reports in its Friday, Oct. 24, edition that Scotia Capital analyst Phil Hardie is now forecasting an average total return of almost 30 per cent for Canadian diversified financial companies in his coverage universe over the next 12 months, seeing "a growing range of attractive opportunities." The Globe's David Leeder writes in the Eye On Equities column that Mr. Hardie says in a note: "We view the weakness across several 'quality compounders' as a buying opportunity and are adopting more of a growth bias as we head into 2026. Our preference for stocks with relatively low valuations that offer attractive returns with upside driven by a combination of earnings, book value, or NAV growth and dividends has yielded solid results. The recent market rally has left several 'quality compounders' behind, creating what we view as a good buying opportunity. The market tone is likely favouring the value-cyclical trade, however we are looking a bit further ahead and taking more of an out of consensus opportunistic approach." Mr. Hardie continues to rate Element Fleet Management "sector outperform." He hiked his share target to $42 from $40. Analysts on average target the shares at $43.26.