Cutting Through the Noise
March 6, 2012
Emmylou is a typical Steadyhand client (notwithstanding her mono-tooth). Like Bruce, we’ll follow her investing journey and provide periodic updates on the decisions and challenges she faces. Emmylou is 57 years old and divorced. She’s been down the road with a couple of potential partners since splitting with her husband 10 years ago, but is not seeing anyone at the moment. She has one daughter, Stacey, who is a 30 year old teacher in Toronto...
Read MoreMarch 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...
Read MoreMarch 3, 2012
Would you rather see your portfolio earn 3 per cent per year and provide monthly distributions of 5 per cent, or earn 5 per cent with irregular payments totalling 2 to 3 per cent? It may seem like a ridiculous question, but it’s reflective of the choices being...
Read MoreFebruary 29, 2012
I still see a number of strategists and portfolio managers citing the U.S. housing market as a risk for 2012. I don’t get it. The slump is almost six years old. Housing starts are down to an unsustainably low level of 600,000 per year. The U.S. economy is...
Read MoreFebruary 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...
Read MoreFebruary 24, 2012
Morningstar published an article today on Brian Eby, the head of fixed income at Connor, Clark & Lunn. CC&L is the manager of our Income Fund and Savings Fund. Along with highlighting Brian’s background and experience, the piece sheds some light on...
Read MoreFebruary 23, 2012
For years I’ve been reading reports published by Southeastern Asset Management. The firm manages the Longleaf mutual funds and is chaired by legendary value investor, Mason Hawkins. The year-end report is interesting for a couple of reasons, the...
Read MoreFebruary 21, 2012
Yes, we’re introducing a new addition to our lineup - the Founders Fund. The fund is a balanced mix of our income and equity funds (it is a fund of funds) that best reflects my views on market fundamentals, valuation and ultimately asset mix. The fund’s...
Read MoreFebruary 20, 2012
We wrapped up our cross-country client presentations this month after visiting five cities and braving mother nature in all her winter glory. If you weren’t able to attend one of our sessions, we’ve produced a transcript of the event that hits on the key themes and...
Read MoreFebruary 18, 2012
The RRSP season ain’t what it used to be. In the 1980s and ’90s when investing was fun, it was a focal point on the investment calendar. You couldn’t open the newspaper or walk a block without seeing an advertisement. Banks stayed open late to...
Read MoreFebruary 9, 2012
Warren Buffett’s perspectives on investing are worth their weight in gold (or better yet, stocks). Invest in things you understand. Wait for the right pitch. Don’t follow the herd. Buy things you’d be comfortable holding forever. In a recent article in Fortune...
Read MoreFebruary 4, 2012
Boyd Erman wrote an article before Christmas titled “Squeeze Is On For Smaller Investment Firms.” When I saw the headline, I shuddered a little. Was he going to talk about firms that don’t have billions of dollars under management? Was he going...
Read MoreFebruary 1, 2012
We last spoke with Bruce in September, when he acted on our counsel to trim his weighting in bonds and add to equities. Bruce and Courtney’s portfolio rose roughly 2% in 2011 (its aggregate value at year-end was approx. 346,500). While Bruce isn’t popping any champagne, he realizes that their portfolio fared quite well considering its bias towards equities (which had a weak year). At the end of December, their asset mix was...
Read MoreJanuary 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...
Read MoreJanuary 25, 2012
I’ve read a few interesting books lately on some of the top technology visionaries of our time. They include Paul Allen (Microsoft), Larry Page & Sergey Brin (Google) and Steve Jobs (Apple). The books were all good reads (Idea Man, In the Plex, and Steve Jobs)...
Read MoreJanuary 21, 2012
A meeting I had with a prospective client a few years ago has always stuck with me. She told me her adviser had done well for her in the previous five years, but had been letting her down more recently. After reviewing the data, we discovered the...
Read MoreJanuary 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...
Read MoreJanuary 17, 2012
This week the 2011 sales numbers came out for Canadian ETFs (exchange traded funds). For the year, $7.6 billion flowed into ETFs (net of outflows) and total assets in the 200 plus funds finished at $43 billion. While the number of funds exploded in 2011...
Read MoreJanuary 12, 2012
2011 was a great year for bonds and a not-so-great year for stocks. Interest rates declined further (10-year government bond yields ended the year below 2% for the first time in a century) leading to strong price gains in government bonds, and to a lesser extent corporate bonds. Debt concerns in Europe and political lollygagging weighed on investor confidence and most stock markets...
Read MoreJanuary 11, 2012
From our Quarterly Report: It’s a remarkable time to be an investor. After decades of overspending in the Western world, we’re watching Europe melt down and the American empire decline faster than expected. The debt burden is slowing the world economy...
Read MoreJanuary 10, 2012
I just finished listening to Chris talk with a client about her RRSP transfer. He told her that the paperwork had been sent to the relinquishing institution and we would be monitoring its progress. Chris tried to set reasonable expectations, “Given our...
Read MoreJanuary 7, 2012
My holiday reading included two journal articles that challenge the notion that investing for the long term reduces risk. The message: It’s all well and good to recommend that an investor take the long view and not worry about short-term market dips...
Read MoreJanuary 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...
Read MoreJanuary 4, 2012
Another year, another 120 blog postings. We had some thoughtful, informative, helpful, useless, controversial and scathing posts last year, based on the emails and comments we received. Below is a list of our most popular posts in 2011, as...
Read MoreDecember 29, 2011
Michael Nairne, president of Tacita Capital, wrote a good piece in the Financial Post last weekend, titled A Gift From Risky Markets, which looks at historical stock market returns and valuations (dating back to 1825) and provides some perspective on the...
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