Cutting Through the Noise
January 17, 2013
My wife dragged me to a spinning class last weekend. It was a humbling event for my quads, hamstrings and calves. They’re still cursing me. Nevertheless, it was an inspiring experience. The lights were low and the music high. Everyone in the room was focused intensely on the instructor’s cues and was content to turn the tension dial to self-inflict a higher level of pain (and gain). I quickly learned...
Read MoreJanuary 15, 2013
We’ve said it many times, but 2012 was another reminder that market returns don’t often match up with what we’re seeing in the headlines. In many respects, the economic news in 2012 was ugly. The U.S. grappled with the fiscal cliff, mounting debt and political bickering. The sovereign debt and unemployment issues is Europe lingered, China was dealing with slowing growth, and weak commodity prices were...
Read MoreJanuary 14, 2013
From our Quarterly Report: In the Q4 brief last year, my goal for our clients was “another unremarkable year”. We had come through a tough period in the markets in good shape, but with interest rates even lower and the economic and political outlook...
Read MoreJanuary 3, 2013
Turns out the world didn’t end in 2012. A good thing, really, as Tom and I had a lot to write about. With over 120 posts, our updates, explanations, advice, observations, opinions, musings, rants and ramblings were well received, despite the odd scathing...
Read MoreDecember 27, 2012
The Investor Education Fund (a non-profit organization funded by the Ontario Securities Commission) has a cool interactive chart on their website that shows the historical returns – from 1935 to 2012 – of various stock markets, bonds and T-Bills, along with...
Read MoreDecember 17, 2012
It’s been another year of troubling economic headlines, slow growth and political stalemate. Yet, unless Santa gets run over by a reindeer, many global stock markets will finish the year with nice gains. Even the bond market, with its naughty yields, has gained ground in 2012. As the year comes to a close, we’re gratified with the strides we’ve made and the returns our clients have achieved. It’s been a productive...
Read MoreNovember 30, 2012
The year-end distributions for all our funds (with the exception of the Savings Fund) will be declared on December 14th and paid on December 17th. The Savings Fund will pay its regularly-scheduled monthly distribution on December 31st. As a reminder, distributions...
Read MoreNovember 29, 2012
At the annual Morningstar Canadian Investment Awards last night in Toronto, the Steadyhand Income Fund was recognized as the Best Canadian Balanced Fund. We’re a modest bunch at Steadyhand when it comes to awards and recognition, most of the...
Read MoreNovember 28, 2012
Connor, Clark & Lunn, the manager of our Savings Fund and Income Fund, produces an outlook every month on the economy and capital markets. Their recent commentary on Canada is particularly clear, candid, and sobering. CC&L’s views on the US and...
Read MoreNovember 26, 2012
The federal government announced today that the annual contribution limit for the TFSA is being increased from $5,000 to $5,500, starting in 2013. A feature of the TFSA is that the annual contribution limit is indexed to inflation, in $500 increments. 2013 will be...
Read MoreNovember 22, 2012
I saw the new Bond flick, Skyfall, the other day and walked away with a smile on my face, knowing that the British Secret Intelligence Service (also known as MI6) is still well positioned to save the world from evil villains and vixens. Being immersed in this industry for the past decade and a half, I’ve developed a bad habit of relating all things to investing, including 007. When Bond was sipping his famous vodka martini in...
Read MoreNovember 16, 2012
You’ve likely heard the term fiscal cliff lately. A catchy, if not chilling phrase, but what does it mean? Put simply, it refers to the combination of (1) billions of dollars of tax increases and (2) widespread spending cuts to government programs, all set to take effect on...
Read MoreNovember 15, 2012
It just got a little greener in Seattle. Bloomberg reported last week that Microsoft recently raised $2.25 billion by issuing 5, 10 and 30-year bonds. And they did it on the cheap. The 5-year notes were issued at 0.875%, the 10-year bonds at 2.125%, and the 30-year...
Read MoreNovember 7, 2012
We introduced Emmylou back in March. As a reminder, she’s a fifty-something Winnipegger with a love for yoga, travel and the occasional pale ale. Emmylou has been a Steadyhand client for eight months now. She holds the Founders Fund across her three accounts (RRSP, Tax-Free Savings Account and Investment Account) and her portfolio has gained about 3.5% since she signed on at the end of February. With autumn briskly announcing itself in the Peg, Emmylou recently got...
Read MoreNovember 5, 2012
“It’s been a long, hard slog for [global] value stocks lately. I’d say we’re long overdue for a value recovery ...” These words from AllianceBernstein (a global asset management firm) echo the sentiment of our global manager, Edinburgh Partners. In a recent article...
Read MoreOctober 30, 2012
I had lunch last week at the Fairmont with Nassim Taleb, prominent financial author and professor at the Polytechnic Institute of New York University (there were a few hundred other people there too; it was an event put on by the Vancouver CFA Society). Taleb’s...
Read MoreOctober 25, 2012
This post should've been published two weeks ago, but I neglected to add it to my 'To Do List' this quarter. My bad. Without further ado, here's an excerpt from Bradley's Brief: The third quarter was another good one. Stock markets were up and our clients continued...
Read MoreOctober 19, 2012
Another timeless sketch from Carl Richards. Richards is an American fee-based financial planner and author. His sketches appear in the New York Times Bucks Blog and he writes a column for Morningstar (USA). Through simple drawings, he makes complex financial concepts easy to understand. We admire that.
Read MoreOctober 17, 2012
“Small Caps will Outperform Soon.” I read this headline yesterday and it reminded me how different our approach to investing is than most other managers. The accompanying article suggested that investors’ appetite for risk is coming back and commodity...
Read MoreOctober 12, 2012
This week Morningstar Canada, a leading provider of independent investment research, updated its Stewardship Grades for 2012. The grades were first introduced in Canada in 2010 (they’ve been published in the U.S. since 2004) as a means of capturing some...
Read MoreOctober 10, 2012
Markets had a good quarter, with resource stocks rebounding. The Canadian market (S&P/TSX Composite Index) gained 7%, while the MSCI World Index rose 3% (in Canadian dollar terms). Japan was the laggard, as the market declined slightly. There were some positive developments in Europe regarding the region's debt problems, with the European Central Bank (ECB) stepping up efforts to tackle fiscal...
Read MoreSeptember 26, 2012
Forbes magazine came up with a list of the 15 most outrageous ETFs last year. The winners included the Market Vectors Mongolia ETF, the PowerShares Lux Nano Tech ETF and the HealthShares Dermatology and Wound Care ETF. We thought we’d...
Read MoreSeptember 20, 2012
Hard to believe, but we’ve been blogging for 6 years now. Time flies when you’re having fun. We use our blog as an outlet for our opinions, advice to investors, stance on industry issues, and the odd piece of wit (depending on your definition). One of the key objectives of our firm is to help make our clients better investors, and the blog is one of the tools we use in this pursuit. We're encouraged that more and more...
Read MoreSeptember 18, 2012
My wife and I love wine. While we try to support local Okanagan producers as much as possible, we’ve found that our neighbors in Washington also make some great juice, and at good prices. We hit the road last month to explore Washington wine country with Walla Walla as our base camp. Here are a few random observations from our trip. Driving through the Columbia Valley, we had our first...
Read MoreSeptember 13, 2012
We’ve had a few questions lately on the fee for the Founders Fund. The all-in fee for the fund is 1.34% (or less if your consolidated assets with Steadyhand exceed $100,000). The fee includes all of the fund’s operating expenses and taxes, as well as all...
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