Global spending on the military remains on an upward trajectory, reaching an all-time high in 2025. With rising geopolitical tensions and dozens of armed conflicts occurring around the world, military spending will very likely continue to rise.

Global military spending in 2025 reached $2.9 trillion U.S.—the highest level ever recorded, and up 47% from five years ago. This was also the 11th consecutive annual increase.

This month, we highlight two new funds—the first is a broad commodity producers ETF from Global X, while the second is an actively managed North American equity ETF from National Bank.

Sweden was traditionally known as a high-tax environment where the government provided state-run schools, hospitals, and care homes. Driven by economic stagnation and a severe banking crisis in the 1990s, the country implemented sweeping economic overhauls. These reforms successfully reduced state spending, revitalized the private sector, and positioned Sweden as a premier European hub for innovation.

Sweden has integrated private enterprise into core welfare sectors. Nearly half of primary healthcare clinics are now privately owned. Additionally, one-third of public high schools are run by private, often publicly traded companies funded through state vouchers.

Sweden used to be known for its comprehensive welfare system, considerable involvement of government in the economy and high taxes. But the country has drastically reduced the role of the government over the past two decades by cutting back on social welfare payments and partly privatizing education and healthcare.

As a result, business has flourished, providing a large number of newly listed companies and producing more billionaires per capita than the U.S. (see box on page 66 for more details).

Here’s an ETF that provides exposure to Sweden’s top publicly listed companies. It’s for investors who want to tap the country’s attractive long-term prospects.

Preferred shares are equities that pay fixed dividends without offering investors voting rights. Still, those payments are made before dividends to common shareholders.While investors are attracted to “preferreds” for income, those shares are sensitive to the movement of interest rates and their prices can be volatile.

Here are two ETFs that focus on preferred shares issued by Canadian companies, and one that invests in U.S. prefs.The supplement on page 70 describes in more detail the characteristics of preferred shares.

Vanguard FTSE DEVELOPED All Cap Ex North America ETF $48.13 (Toronto symbol VIU; TSINetwork ETF Rating: Aggressive; Market cap: $10.7 billion) invests in publicly listed companies outside of North America. This fund can be used to complement the equity portfolios of Canadian investors that are normally concentrated on Canadian and U.S. stocks.

The ETF passively tracks the FTSE Developed All Cap Ex North America Index. The index includes large, medium, and small companies listed on the public markets in developed countries. Stocks are weighted based on their market values.

Direxion Daily Semiconductor Bull 3x ETF $180.65 (New York symbol SOXL) aims to use a combination of derivatives and debt to offer daily returns that correspond to three times the daily gains of the ICE Semiconductor Index. If SOXL is successful in meeting its investment objective, its price should gain (or lose) roughly three times that of the semiconductor index.

Institutional investors, particularly hedge funds, carry out around 60% of all trading in leveraged and inverse-leveraged investments. They generally use them as part of complicated multi-investment trading plays. They also trade frequently, and in large quantities.

Inevitably, investments like these will go down more readily than they will go up. That’s because investors have to absorb the costs of borrowing, entering into agreements with counterparties, etc., on top of the 0.72% MER.

Global military spending reached an all-time high of $2.9 trillion U.S. in 2026, spurred by major regional wars and large-scale investments by China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, the U.K. and Ukraine. NATO members are also increasing their military target spending, and the U.S. administration has proposed a record military budget for 2027. That spending might slow in the coming years as governments are forced to re-examine their military budgets in the wake of massive debt burdens. Still, rising military tensions should keep spending at high levels.

Here are two ETFs that provide exposure to companies that benefit from military spending (see also the supplement on page 69).

A: Bio-Rad Laboratories Inc., $296.07, symbol BIO on New York (Shares outstanding: 26.8 million; Market cap: $7.9 billion; www.bio-rad.com), is a multinational manufacturer and worldwide distributor of its own life science research and clinical diagnostics products.

Those products and systems are used to separate complex chemical and biological materials and to identify, analyze and purify their components. Bio-Rad’s customers operate in life sciences research, healthcare, analytical chemistry and other markets.

A: Neo Performance Materials Inc., $31.89, symbol NEO on Toronto (Shares outstanding: 46.0 million; Market cap: $1.5 billion; www.neomaterials.com), is a global rare earth and advanced materials company. It makes advanced industrial materials, rare earth magnetic powders and magnets, specialty chemicals, metals, and alloys. These materials are used in many everyday products as well as emerging technologies industries.

Founded in 1994, Neo serves automotive, manufacturing, semiconductor, advanced electronics, and specialty chemical industries.