Blog: Cutting Through the Noise

Finding a Better Balance

Excerpt from Tom Bradley's blog on May 10, 2012

In recent presentations, we’ve been discussing a slide that shows the industry diversification of the Founders Fund versus the S&P/TSX Composite Index. We’ve been doing this admittedly ‘apples to oranges’ comparison because it highlights what the portfolios...

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Income Gone Wild

Excerpt from Scott Ronalds's blog on March 5, 2012

Tom’s Globe article on the weekend focused on Income Gone Wild (Dividends Obsession Distracts Investors From Big Picture). He opines that investors’ intense focus on dividends and income is distracting them from what really matters...

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Performance Assessment: More Drum Banging

Excerpt from Scott Ronalds's blog on February 27, 2012

We’ve been banging the drum on the issue of performance assessment for good reason. Most investors don’t know how their portfolio has performed, and most firms don’t want to tell them. This reality was expanded upon in a recent article by Larry...

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Balanced Income Portfolio: A Performance Assessment

Excerpt from Scott Ronalds's blog on January 26, 2012

Last week we published a report on how to assess your portfolio’s performance (How is My Portfolio Doing?). Today we’re releasing a supplementary report that uses the framework to assess the performance of the Steadyhand Balanced Income Portfolio...

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How is Your Portfolio Doing? Version 2.0

Excerpt from Scott Ronalds's blog on January 18, 2012

Early last year we published a report on how to assess your portfolio’s performance. The paper laid out a framework for evaluating your investments, focusing on five areas: gathering the facts, reviewing the market environment, analyzing the numbers...

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Not Another Top 10 List

Excerpt from Scott Ronalds's blog on January 5, 2012

As we start a fresh new year, there’s no shortage of Top 10 Lists (we’re guilty, too). They can get annoying and repetitive, even for a David Letterman fan. But some are worthy of passing on, even posting on the fridge. Here’s one you should staple to the front...

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Stuck Like Glue

Excerpt from Tom Bradley's blog on September 21, 2011

I was talking with a client last week about portfolio re-balancing and the challenges of volatile markets. I often tell the story of Bob Hager’s shaking hand to illustrate how hard it is to do the right thing when markets are down, but his story is just as good at bringing the...

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To Hedge Or Not To Hedge

Excerpt from Tom Bradley's blog on August 26, 2011

It was announced this week that Vanguard will start in Canada with 6 ETFs. In response to the news, blogger Michael James expressed disappointment that the 2 foreign equity funds would be hedged back into Canadian dollars. I wholeheartedly agree with his view.

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Tom on BNN: Approximately Right

Excerpt from Scott Ronalds's blog on August 25, 2011

Tom was on BNN this morning discussing how we think about asset allocation and portfolio positioning in volatile markets. It’s all about being ‘approximately right’ rather than exactly wrong. In other words, you’re never going to pick the top or bottom of...

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What Now? Part II

Excerpt from Tom Bradley's blog on August 10, 2011

What are the stock market declines telling us (other than we’re temporarily poorer)? Are they signaling the end of the world as we know it or, as a veteran value manager suggested to me yesterday, are we entering “opportunity-laden times?” In my view...

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Slow Growth, Debt Burdened ... What Now?

Excerpt from Tom Bradley's blog on August 5, 2011

The Grip, which is our tool for expressing our overall portfolio strategy, was a new feature in the June Quarterly Report, but the cautious stance it signaled was not. Since January, we’ve recommended that clients be positioned conservatively and where...

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Canadians Are Cash Rich

Excerpt from Tom Bradley's blog on April 27, 2011

In this space, we’ve talked often about the conundrum cash-rich investors face. If they’ve been out of the market, or are sitting on a high proportion of cash, what do they do? This week there were some comments from Earl (the Pearl) Bederman at Investor...

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