Cutting Through the Noise
August 29, 2013
Confusing. Frustrating. Ugly. These were the words we used in our Quarterly Report to describe global stock markets in the summer of 2011. It was a challenging time for investors, as the World Index declined 16% in Q3/2011 and the U.S. market dropped...
Read MoreAugust 20, 2013
I saw the movie Jobs last night in spite of a number of poor reviews. Just like Apple’s first prototype, I’d say it was just O.K. The flick ended, however, with one of Apple’s great commercials (spoiler alert), the 1997 ‘Think different’ ad: Here’s to the crazy...
Read MoreJuly 30, 2013
My wife made the mistake last year of telling my niece and nephews that we’d take them to Playland as soon as the youngest was tall enough to go on the rides. Well, Finn cracked the 48-inch mark recently and has been judicious in his daily reminders of our promise. With amusement park season in full swing, we were on the hook the other weekend for a day of fear, laughs, tears, lineups, mini donuts and stomach aches. Everyone’s heard the analogies about investing...
Read MoreJuly 25, 2013
An essential element to being a better investor is being realistic about the predictability of markets. As taken from our latest paper, ‘Five Essential Elements to Being a Better Investor’: You not only need to be realistic about your own forecasting...
Read MoreJuly 15, 2013
It was an active spring in the capital markets, characterized by a spike in volatility, a run-up in bond yields and a dive in gold and mining stocks. Canadian markets had a rough quarter: the bond market (DEX Universe Bond Index) fell 2.4% - its worst quarterly decline in nearly two decades - and the stock market (S&P/TSX Composite Index) lost 4.1%. Global markets fared better, on balance, with many...
Read MoreJuly 11, 2013
From our Quarterly Report: 2013 has been a year of environmental disasters in Canada, but from an investment point of view, it’s been pretty good so far. You might be surprised to hear me say that because interest rates have moved up and June was a...
Read MoreJune 27, 2013
Along with his Steadyhand assets, Bruce has an RESP and small Investment Account with a discount broker. He takes an aggressive approach with the latter by holding a few small technology companies (recall that he works in the industry), knowing that it’s a minor part of his portfolio and he can afford to take a few flyers. Bruce likes to roll the dice in this account, well aware that they could come up craps more often than not. One of his bets recently paid off, however. Bruce...
Read MoreJune 25, 2013
Google Reader, the popular RSS application that allows you to subscribe to and read blogs, is calling it quits. The service will be shut down on July 1st. Google cited “declining usage” as the main reason why it’s being turfed. If you’re like me and are a fan of...
Read MoreJune 17, 2013
June 11, 2013
We’ve had a cautious view on government bonds for several quarters, as yields are unsustainably low. Our current thinking hasn’t changed. We feel bonds are expensive and have been advising clients to keep them to a minimum in relation to their long-term asset mix. The yield on 10-year Government of Canada bonds has risen over the last six weeks, from under 1.7% in early May to 2.2% yesterday. This is a sharp...
Read MoreJune 4, 2013
It’s spot prawn season on the west coast. The boats are pulling into Granville Island daily (mere blocks from Steadyhand headquarters) and selling their bounty directly to the public. It’s awesome. They’re live, fresh, sweet and local. And you buy them right from the boat. There’s no middlemen. No commissions. No administrative fees. No packaging charges. No transaction costs. For $12-15 a pound, you...
Read MoreMay 23, 2013
Prepare for extremes. This is an essential element to being a better investor, and is particularly topical on a day when the Japanese market is down 7%. Tom expanded on the five essential elements to being a better investor on BNN this morning. You can...
Read MoreApril 19, 2013
We held our annual strategy session on Wednesday afternoon. Every year we lock ourselves in a room for 4-5 hours (or more), tune out the outside world, review the current state of our business and hash around ideas, thoughts and strategies on the...
Read MoreApril 16, 2013
It was a strong start to the year for stocks around the globe, with the MSCI World Index gaining 10% (in Canadian dollar terms). U.S. and Japanese stocks were among the top performers, while Canada was one of the weaker performing markets (up 3%) as a result of its heavy weighting in gold and mining stocks. Bonds also had a positive quarter, albeit a much more modest one, led by a strengthening in corporate...
Read MoreApril 11, 2013
From our Quarterly Report: “The Dow hit a new high. How much further can the market go? … Alcoa is the first major corporation to report quarterly earnings and will set the tone for what’s to come … the technical indicators are telling us … time for a pullback ...
Read MoreMarch 27, 2013
We’ve had a lot of calls lately from investors looking to purchase our funds through discount brokers. The questions often relate to availability, fees and fund codes. There seems to be some misinformation on the topic, so we felt it was a good time to...
Read MoreMarch 26, 2013
It’s stingy times for income investors. Government of Canada bonds are yielding less than 2% (5-year maturities are at 1.3% and 10-year maturities at 1.8%) and high quality corporate bonds are only 1-1.5% higher. Dividend-paying stocks are paying...
Read MoreMarch 21, 2013
Quick background: CGOV Asset Management is the manager of our Equity Fund. The firm has a distinct investment process, one facet of which is that they won’t own more than 25 stocks. We love this discipline as it ensures they focus on their best ideas and...
Read MoreMarch 19, 2013
The latest edition of The Economist has a special report on America’s competitiveness, titled Cheer Up. It examines the areas which are the “source of the most hand-wringing” among observers: innovation, energy, education, immigration, infrastructure...
Read MoreFebruary 26, 2013
Exchange traded funds (ETFs) are now a fixture on the investment landscape and are among the fastest growing investment products. There’s good reason for their rise in popularity: they’re simple, low cost, transparent and provide market-like returns. But ... they’re not for everyone. In a newly updated paper, we compare the experience of an ETF investor (Jake) to that of a Steadyhand client (Julie). There are notable...
Read MoreFebruary 21, 2013
The Canadian clients of Ally Financial got news this week that the sale of the firm to RBC has been completed, the interest rate on their high-interest savings accounts is being reduced from 1.8% to 1.2%, and their accounts will be closed on April 30th, as reported...
Read MoreFebruary 15, 2013
We wrapped up our cross-country client presentations this month after visiting five cities. If you weren’t able to attend one of our sessions, or are looking to revisit some of the themes we touched on, we’ve produced a summary of the event that hits on the...
Read MoreFebruary 12, 2013
The Asia Pacific is the fastest growing economic region in the world. Not surprisingly, many multinational companies are increasingly focusing on selling their goods and services in countries such as China, Indonesia, Singapore, Vietnam, and the...
Read MoreJanuary 31, 2013
Investors have had a real love for income and dividends over the past several years. And for good reason – bonds and high dividend-paying stocks have been stalwart performers. But the quest for yield may be leading to imbalanced portfolios. Investors who...
Read MoreJanuary 28, 2013
It’s that time of year: holiday bills, new diets, bleak weather, and RRSP contributions. Not exactly exciting stuff. Bruce is a little more jazzed than many investors though. He reviewed his account statement last week and found that his portfolio at Steadyhand was up nearly 12% last year (since starting with us two years ago, his portfolio has gained approx. 6.5% per year). “Grinning ear to ear”, he noted in an email. While we love his enthusiasm, we reminded him that many...
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