In the early 1980’s the prime lending rate peaked at over 20%. Since then the trend in the main benchmark rate in Canada and other developed economies has generally been down, leading to strong price returns in bonds over that period. With some fairly memorable bumps along the way stocks have also performed quite strongly […]
Investor sentiment surveys measure the percentage of investors that are positive about the future of stock market returns (bullish) versus those that are negative (bearish). The most commonly followed metric is the Yale investor sentiment survey which splits investors into two distinct groups: 1) institutional investors (pension funds, endowments, etc) and 2) individual investors. For […]
Wouldn’t it be just so easy if it were true? Well, if you believe the academic research, this odd anomaly does seem to hold up historically. There are a number of supposed stock market anomalies based on seasonality – The January Effect, the Monday effect, the Holiday Effect, the End of the Month Effect. These […]
Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) can be a great tool for individual investors. Unfortunately we can’t say that they categorically are good for investors because ETFs now come is so many varieties, shapes and sizes. This is a minefield of risk for the do-it-yourself investor. ETFs can provide very low cost access to a broadly and […]
Welcome to the Chalten Investment Review for Q1 2016. If you’re just checking your portfolio now for the first time since the beginning of the year, I’m sorry; you’ve missed all the fun! A few days ago the headline across many financial media outlets read, “Biggest quarterly comeback for the Dow since 1933”. No doubt […]
“Not to fear, we have found a manager based in our very own Canada that is able to consistently beat the pack” S&P has done a brilliant job over the last few years of shining the light on the fund management industry by publishing it’s SPIVA Scorecards which report on the performance of actively managed mutual funds […]
What does the data tell us about how to invest successfully? If you scour the world of peer reviewed academic studies over the last few decades (don’t worry you don’t have to because we and many others have) you’ll learn that the evidence clearly points to keeping costs low and keeping holdings very diversified. Unfortunately […]
Believe it or not, financial forecasts from the analyst community and media are not designed to help you trade better or invest more wisely. They are designed to encourage you to trade more and invest more actively. Banks make more money when their clients trade more, not better. Financial media outlets make more money when […]
Index investing means taking an automated or rules-based approach to constructing and managing a portfolio compared to active investing which relies on a portfolio manager’s judgement to manage the portfolio. There are many ways to implement an index approach. Most index funds follow a commercially published index like the S&P/TSX 60 in Canada or the S&P500 in the US. The […]
It seems these days that every time the Federal Market Open Committee (the branch of the Federal Reserve in the US the sets monetary policy) meets, the entire world sits waiting on the edge of their seat. It’s almost like we’ve come to believe that monetary policy is the only thing left driving stock returns […]