Our Views

At our investment meeting this week, one of my colleagues shared the news that he had received a call late the night before from a prospective client confirming his decision to hire us to manage his portfolio. While that itself is not news we’re thankful to say, what was interesting was the ... Keep Reading "How to protect your investments from a market downturn" >

Equity mutual funds are getting a late Christmas gift this month: they are finally able to drop return data from 2008 from the calculation of their five-year performance numbers. Why is that important? In 2008, global equity markets fell between 30-54% (as if we need reminding!). Given that ... Keep Reading "Risk management is a hard sell!" >

Yesterday’s Globe and Mail included an interesting article by Boyd Erman on the impact of “convexity” on bond prices. That is, the measure of the sensitivity of the price of a bond to changes in interest rates. As advisors, we try to avoid jargon like volatility, duration, correlation and ... Keep Reading "Convexity and bonds" >

Record warm temperatures made for a comfortable Canadian winter this year. But they’ve caused a chill in the energy market. Particularly natural gas prices which dropped to a 15 year low. What’s the cure? “Low gas prices” is the standard response from industry experts. Low prices spur demand ... Keep Reading "When will natural gas prices turn?" >

Last week a friend of mine asked us for help with his portfolio. His portfolio hadn’t made any money in eight years and he hasn’t made RRSP contributions for the past two years because he’s been so unhappy with the performance. He’s already switched financial advisors once (in 2008). Right now ... Keep Reading "How (not) to choose a financial advisor" >

Yesterday marked what could be a watershed moment for investors in Europe as Germany managed to sell €3.9 billion worth of six months bonds at a negative interest rate. Marginally negative, but it demonstrates that investors are so worried about the economy in Europe that they are willing to ... Keep Reading "How safe are GICs?" >