A Canadian portfolio manager said he thinks North American banks are in better shape than Europe’s in the wake of the Credit Suisse’s downfall and uncertainty about what’s next in the global financial sector.

However, Jean-Francois Tardif, founder of Timelo Investment Management, told BNN Bloomberg he’s still taking a cautious approach to investing with a recession potentially lurking.

“I think the next step is maybe a real recession,” Tardif said in a Monday television interview. He said he’s investing more in government bonds and less in equities as safer options, he said, as he expects most stocks will go down in an actual recession.

“If you believe there's a big recession coming up, generally speaking, being out of equity is probably the right thing to do.”

Tardif made the comments Monday as the world processed the weekend’s news that UBS would buy the troubled Swiss bank Credit Suisse at a marked-down price. The sale avoided a full collapse at Credit Suisse, but stoked fears about the health of banks around the globe. 

Canadian and U.S. banks appear to be healthier than those in Europe, Tardif argued, as European banks are weaker and have lower return on equity.

“I would worry more about Europe than North America,” he said.

Despite the recent global banking turmoil, including the closure of some U.S. banks, Tardif said the current situation is “nothing close to 2008,” when financial institutions were in greater crisis, and central banks and governments were slower to act.

“They seem to be acting a lot faster and the problem is a lot smaller,” he said, though he added he will be watching the yield curve – considered by many economists as a predictor of a looming recession – for signs of trouble.