By Tom Bradley

We had a meeting last week to kick start preparations for our winter client tour, ‘Where to from here’. The discussion came around to performance reporting.

When we start the tour in Winnipeg on January 27th, the 5-year returns will no longer include 2008 and as a result, will be ridiculously good. Our balanced portfolios were up around 8% (per year) for the 5-years ending September 30th and by year-end, we’ll have dropped off a horrendous quarter (Q4/08) and added a pretty good one (touch wood).

We were talking about focusing the presentation on our longest numbers (from April, 2007) so they cover a full cycle, including the big down (2008) and big up (2009 to present). But during the brainstorming session, Scott suggested that for interest, we run the numbers for our funds and portfolios starting at the stock market peak – i.e. the worst possible comparison. We picked June 30, 2008, as a good approximation of the peak for North American markets (recognizing that global markets peaked earlier).

The results surprised us.

To illustrate this in another way, $100,000 invested according to the mix of funds in our 60/40 Portfolio would have grown to $142,000 over the time period referenced.

To view our funds’ full performance history since inception, click here.

(Our apologies to readers who have never skied Whistler. The title of this post refers to one of our favourite runs.)

Management fees and expenses all may be associated with mutual fund investments. Please read the prospectus before investing. Mutual funds are not guaranteed, their values change frequently and past performance may not be repeated. The indicated rates of return are the historical annual compounded total returns including changes in unit value and reinvestment of all distributions and do not take into account sales, redemption, distribution or optional charges or income taxes payable by any securityholder that would have reduced returns.