“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 […]
In Friday’s Morningstar article “Sequoia Fund Symbolizes What Was, But No Longer Is”, John Rekenthaler chronicles the recent woes of the legendary Sequoia Fund and suggests it may symbolize the end of an investing era – things have changed since the time Sequoia launched forty years ago: Index funds are more prevalent and fewer managers can demonstrate exception […]
Or as Lisa Abramowica and Rani Molla put it in their April 5 Bloomberg Gadfly piece, “Dude, Where’s My Yield?” The picture tells the story – 10 year government bond yields are lower than 2% in many developed countries that have half-decent sovereign credit ratings. Japan and Switzerland’s 10-year bonds have negative yield! To search for […]
As proud Canadians, nothing gets us going more than a good Canada vs. USA discussion. When you live in the shadow of something so big it’s hard not to be a little defensive sometimes. These days, I’m a little sensitive about hockey – so many taunts coming in from friends south of the border trying to […]
It’s hard to feel good looking at media commentary on the performance of stocks in 2015 and 2016 – here’s a sample: Canada’s year of ‘serial disappointments’ leave investors reeling – Financial Post 5 reasons why the market meltdown matters to all Canadians – Global News Sell everything ahead of stock market crash, say RBS economists […]
Earlier this week we wrote about the home bias many Canadians have when it comes to their investments (see Only two resolutions for Canadian investors in 2016). This home bias turned against investors in 2015 as the underperformance of the energy sector and the loonie teamed up for a double whammy hit to investors’ portfolios. […]