If I Could Only Buy and Hold a Single Stock, This Would Be It

If I could put every dollar I have into a single stock and leave it alone for the next decade, it would be Thomson Reuters (TSX:TRI).

This Toronto-based content and technology company is not flashy and does not trade on hype. But it sits at the intersection of artificial intelligence, professional services, and irreplaceable data.

Valued at a market cap of $57 billion, this large-cap Canadian stock is down 56% from all-time highs.

Is this TSX tech stock a good buy?

Most Canadians still think of Thomson Reuters as a news wire and legal database business.

However, over the past six years, CEO Steve Hasker and outgoing CFO Mike Eastwood have transformed the company into something much more valuable.

• In 2019, total organic revenue growth was 4%, and EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization) margins sat at 31.5%.
• For 2026, the company is guiding to 7.5% to 8% total organic growth, nearly 9.5% for its three core segments, and EBITDA margins exceeding 40%.
• Free cash flow could almost double from US$1.1 billion in 2019 to US$2.1 billion in 2026.

The Canadian stock has an AI moat

Thomson Reuters has a widening AI moat.

• TRI’s legal AI product, CoCounsel, has crossed one million users.
• Its Westlaw Advantage product, launched in August 2025, is performing well above expectations.
• And a brand new version of CoCounsel, currently in alpha with a couple of hundred customers, moves into beta on April 20 and is set for general release in the summer of 2026.
• Thomson Reuters aims to target fiduciary-grade professionals, including lawyers, taxmen, and auditors, thereby narrowing the competitive field significantly.

Hasker outlined four specific advantages the company brings to that market.

• The first is its massive proprietary data repositories that competitors are unable to replicate.
• The second is 4,500 trained domain experts who validate AI outputs before they reach customers.
• The third is an ironclad data privacy guarantee, meaning client inputs never become part of AI training data.
• The fourth is round-the-clock expert support that no startup can match at scale.

“AI cannot be trusted to check AI,” Hasker noted at the conference. This statement explains why Thomson Reuters occupies a durable competitive position that general-purpose AI models cannot easily threaten.

A growing dividend payout

Thomson Reuters has raised its dividend 10% annually for five straight years. In fact, the TSX dividend stock has raised its annual payout from US$1.01 per share in 2006 to US$2.62 per share in 2026, indicating a yield of 2.7%.

It recently executed a US$1.2 billion share buyback and still has ample firepower for strategic acquisitions in segments such as indirect tax, electronic invoicing, and fraud and compliance, all of which Hasker identified as double-digit growth opportunities.

The Tax, Audit, and Accounting Professionals segment is guiding to 11%–13% organic growth for 2026. A labour shortage in the profession is creating tailwinds, as firms lean harder on Thomson Reuters products to do more work with fewer people.

The Foolish takeaway

Thomson Reuters is a compounding machine with a defensible AI strategy, a growing dividend, and a balance sheet that gives management real options.

Analysts tracking the Canadian dividend stock forecast free cash flow to expand from US$1.95 billion in 2025 to US$2.87 billion in 2029.

If TRI stock is priced at 25 times forward FCF, which is below its 10-year average of 37 times, it could surge over 70% within the next three years. If we account for dividends, cumulative returns could be closer to 80%.

The post If I Could Only Buy and Hold a Single Stock, This Would Be It appeared first on The Motley Fool Canada.

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More reading

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• This Canadian Stock Down 50% Is Nearly Perfect for Long-Term Investors

Fool contributor Aditya Raghunath has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends Thomson Reuters. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.