Cutting Through the Noise
December 13, 2008
A little Saturday humour to perk you up in these troubling times. The market seems to keep dropping and dropping Because those damn Yankees couldn’t stop shopping Through their homes they’ve borrowed a ton of dough Now they’ve got no ...
Read MoreDecember 12, 2008
This posting is for the bond geeks in the crowd. The manager of our Income Fund, Connor, Clark & Lunn Investment Management, recently did the following analysis on corporate bonds. If you passively buy a portfolio of 5-yr U.S. investment ...
Read MoreDecember 11, 2008
A quick reminder that with the exception of the Savings Fund, the year-end distributions of all our funds will be calculated on December 15th and paid on December 16th . The distribution for the Savings Fund will be calculated on ...
Read MoreDecember 10, 2008
The latest take on principal protected products comes in the form of life cycle funds with capital guarantees. For those unfamiliar with life cycle funds, they are simply packaged products that have a target end date and shift the asset ...
Read MoreDecember 9, 2008
I think it’s a fascinating time for China watchers. What am I saying? It’s always an interesting time to be a China watcher. There has been an underlying assumption in the market that China will grow rapidly forever. Government resources ...
Read MoreDecember 6, 2008
The other night Lori and I were drowning our sorrows with a bottle of red wine - markets, markets, markets...drink, drink, drink. The wine, called Portfolio 2006 , was a diversified mix of Merlot, Cab, Cab Franc, Malbec and Petit ...
Read MoreDecember 4, 2008
We all love to hate taxes. Especially when it comes to our investments. This explains why some investors are now busy harvesting losses to offset any prior capital gains. It also explains the growing number of investment products on the ...
Read MoreDecember 3, 2008
Suffice to say, we’ve been watching our funds quite closely these days. We want to make sure that our managers are doing what they do best and are sticking to their investment disciplines. Following recent calls with the managers of ...
Read MoreDecember 2, 2008
Aside from having one of the great names in the business, Barton Biggs is a renowned hedge fund manager and author of the popular book Hedgehogging . Biggs is a great thinker and investor, and in the words of David ...
Read MoreDecember 1, 2008
The Globe and Mail, Report on Business Published November 29, 2008 I've been getting more "hate" mail lately. The e-mails from readers who disagree with me have become more pointed; I need oven mitts to handle some of them. It ...
Read MoreNovember 29, 2008
Over the last few months, I’d been avoiding the horrific tales of the U.S. sub-prime mortgage market. I’d read and heard enough. It was ‘so last year’. But this week a friend alerted me to a treatise by Michael Lewis on ...
Read MoreNovember 27, 2008
I recently finished reading Louis Lowenstein’s latest critique of the mutual fund industry, The Investor’s Dilemma: How Mutual Funds are Betraying your Trust and What to do About it . The book is a great read for investors seeking an ...
Read MoreNovember 21, 2008
I have been vocal about our high cost wealth management industry and cynical about pronouncements of fees coming down. There have been some fee reductions, but for the most part the adjustments have been on small, unpopular funds and/or funds ...
Read MoreNovember 17, 2008
The Globe and Mail, Report on Business Published November 15, 2008 It's always hard to pick someone to manage your money. You want people with experience and an investment philosophy you're comfortable with. You want to be sure they have ...
Read MoreNovember 4, 2008
Few of our clients own PPNs (principal-protected notes), so the recent posting on the topic may not be of much interest, but my rant has lessons that apply more generally. Here are the takeaways. The investment bankers and marketing executives ...
Read MoreNovember 3, 2008
The Globe and Mail, Report on Business Published November 1, 2008 I've called them the worst of both worlds - bad for equity investors and inappropriate for those seeking a predictable flow of income. And professional money managers would never ...
Read MoreOctober 29, 2008
CAC 40 (France) - down 50.5%. FTSE 100 (UK) - down 51.9%. S&P 500 (U.S.) - down 40.3%. Hang Seng (HK) - down 54.0%. MSCI Emerging Markets - down 62.0%. S&P/TSX Composite Index - down 32.8%. These are year-to-date market returns up ...
Read MoreOctober 24, 2008
There has been a constant theme in this space over the last month or so – hang in there, long-term assets are cheap now, start thinking about the other side of the valley. A friend and fellow entrepreneur, Thane Stenner, ...
Read MoreOctober 20, 2008
The Globe and Mail, Report on Business Published October 18, 2008 This earnings season is going to be more interesting than most. There will be some good news, but the bad will dominate the headlines. If I were a chief ...
Read MoreOctober 17, 2008
I often reference Jeremy Grantham, the chairman of GMO in Boston, on the blog and in my columns. The following clip is from his interview with Barron’s last week . Do you think we will learn anything from all of ...
Read MoreOctober 15, 2008
I don't watch the U.S. news networks very often, but being on the road during these interesting times, I've tuned in more than usual. What amazes me is the 'more is better' approach that they are all taking. When I ...
Read MoreOctober 9, 2008
A friend and client called me yesterday and floated the idea of selling everything and waiting out the storm. Like everyone, his portfolio is down, although he has been relatively well positioned with a large cash/GIC/money market position. Previously in ...
Read MoreOctober 6, 2008
The Globe and Mail, Report on Business Published October 4, 2008 “Finding the right answers is easy; it's asking the right questions that's difficult.” Tim Price, the director of investment at PFP Wealth Management in London, started a recent blog ...
Read MoreOctober 3, 2008
Warren Buffett was recently interviewed by Charlie Rose. For investors looking for some clarification and insight into what’s currently going on in the United States, the exclusive conversation is an hour well spent. Some advice from the sage: “You want ...
Read MoreOctober 2, 2008
The third quarter of 2008 was an extraordinarily volatile period in the equity markets. In this podcast, we review the quarter and touch on some highlights from our Quarterly Report, which we will be publishing next week.
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