The Financial Post reports in its Friday edition that it was a special year for Montreal-based National Bank of Canada, given that the country's sixth-largest lender beat analysts' expectations every quarter in the fiscal year, topped its all-time share price high and made headlines with its bid to take over Canadian Western Bank (CWB). The Post's Naimul Karim writes that as of the second week of December, National Bank had the second-best year-to-date share price increase among the Big Six lenders, behind only CIBC. "I think the most important thing is we stuck to the plan," National Bank chief executive officer Laurent Ferreira told the Post. "We have in place a strategy that we believe is resilient, that performs really well through cycles, and that has been focused on areas of expertise and strength that we have across the bank -- and we've been very disciplined in that execution over all. But we didn't do anything differently." As for the economy in general, "We've seen a slowdown over all in the second half of 2024. We expect that to continue in the first half of 2025. We are still in an environment where rates are restrictive. You still have monetary policy that is evolving, but rates are still high."