Cutting Through the Noise
November 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...
Read MoreAugust 30, 2012
Scotiabank announced yesterday that it has reached an agreement to buy ING Bank of Canada for $3.1 billion. ING (Canada) put itself up for sale earlier this summer because its parent, Dutch-based ING Groep NV, is looking for funds to repay government...
Read MoreAugust 27, 2012
Bacon is everywhere these days. It’s in chocolate, ice cream, jam, scented candles and even toothpaste. Fast food chains, while no strangers to bacon, are jumping on the bandwagon by introducing such items as bacon sundaes (Burger King) and milkshakes...
Read MoreAugust 13, 2012
I went for pizza the other week at a small restaurant in a seedy, though gentrifying part of town. The menu was written on a chalkboard and consisted of only 5 or 6 options. The wine was served in jars. The seating was communal. Nothing on the menu...
Read MoreJuly 30, 2012
A great, 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 MoreJuly 25, 2012
We’ve been vocal about our aversion towards federal government bonds. We noted in our Q2 Report that the Government of Canada 10-year benchmark bond yield dropped below 1.6% in June, and 10-year U.S. Treasury yields sit below 1.5%. Both Canadian and U.S...
Read MoreJuly 23, 2012
It’s been a few months since we last checked in with Bruce. Things are good on the work and home fronts, and his portfolio is holding steady in a bumpy market (as of June 30th, he’s up about 3.5% year-to-date). The family took a two week holiday to California in the spring, which included stops at Disneyland for the kids and a few wineries in Santa Barbara for the adults, before settling in Palm Springs. The sun and cheap merlot had a lasting impact. Bruce has long wanted a...
Read MoreJuly 12, 2012
Stock markets around the globe declined in the second quarter as investors focused on the ongoing debt saga in Europe. Bonds fared well as the yield on the Government of Canada benchmark 10-year bond dropped by roughly 0.4% and fell below 1.65% in early June to reach a new low (when yields fall, bond prices rise). Our funds held their ground for the most part and have provided strong...
Read MoreJuly 11, 2012
From our Quarterly Report: To generate returns in excess of the risk-free rate (GICs and government bonds), Steadyhand portfolios take four types of risk: interest rate, credit, liquidity and equity risk. If you think about portfolio construction as the process...
Read MoreJune 19, 2012
There are many headline-grabbing risks in today’s investment climate: Greece and the teetering European financial system; slowing growth in China; debt issues and the pending fiscal cliff in the U.S. Investors can’t be blamed for feeling concerned...
Read MoreJune 13, 2012
In our conversations with clients recently, many are shocked to hear the extent to which the Canadian market has trailed the U.S. and even global markets over the past few years. For much of the 2000’s, our market was the place to be. Resource stocks were...
Read MoreJune 7, 2012
The Castlerock funds, which were formerly the Hartford funds, are becoming CI, Cambridge and Black Creek funds. Got it? This confusing reorganization is the result of another round of mergers in fundland. It’s CI’s turn this time, as they plan to...
Read MoreMay 31, 2012
Don Cranston and Sheila Norman, both partners at CGOV (the manager of our Equity Fund), stopped by our office this week to give us a review of the fund. We’ll report on the portfolio in detail in our Q2 Report (early July), but in the interim we felt it would be...
Read MoreMay 16, 2012
We don’t spend a lot of money advertising at Steadyhand (at the end of the day, investors pay for it). If we did, you might see something similar to IA Clarington’s latest campaign on Active Mind. But with a Steadyhand spin, of course. As part of their campaign...
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