Blog

Cutting Through the Noise


June 9, 2008

By Scott Ronalds

Hanging with Christine...Again

Christine Montgomery and Cathy Alsop from Edinburgh Partners Limited (EPL) were in Vancouver this week to meet with our clients and other interested investors.  Christine manages our Global Equity Fund.  With Canadian dollar returns from foreign funds being poor for ...

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June 9, 2008

By Scott Ronalds

Podcast: Global Equity Fund Update

Edinburgh Partners' Christine Montgomery was in town last week to present on the Global Equity Fund. Tom also had a chance to sit down with her to discuss the fund's performance and some of the investment strategies that our Scottish partners are pursuing.

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June 5, 2008

By Tom Bradley

It's Tough Beating the Index

Why do active managers find the S&P 500 so hard to beat? In his book More Than You Know – Finding Financial Wisdom In Unconventional Places , Michael Mauboussin takes a different approach to the question.  He starts by assessing ...

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June 3, 2008

By Tom Bradley

Something to Chou on

I had some interesting feedback on my Saturday column on Francis Chou .  The volume of emails was not noteworthy, but the diversity of views and the temperature level had the widest range I’ve experienced.  There were a few investors ...

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June 2, 2008

By Tom Bradley

Chou Runs His Fund the Way He Runs His Life - and That's a Good Thing

The Globe and Mail, Report on Business Published May 31, 2008 I grumbled as I read Rob Carrick's profile on Francis Chou in the latest issue of Globe Investor magazine. He beat me to it. I had visited Francis a ...

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May 28, 2008

By Tom Bradley

The Steadyhand Diaries: Postscript

We’ve had great reaction to The Steadyhand Diaries published last week in the Globe Investor magazine.  Over the next few weeks we are going to complement the Diaries with a few additional postings.  The original draft of the article was ...

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May 22, 2008

By Scott Ronalds

Thar's Thieves in Them Thar Hills

The price of a barrel of oil recently topped $135.  Get out the balaclava.  It’s time to steal us some crude.  At least that’s the thinking of the opportunistic criminal in Texas. An article in the Wall Street Journal yesterday ...

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May 20, 2008

By Tom Bradley

Watching if Sprott Can Handle Life in the Heavyweight Class

The Globe and Mail, Report on Business Published May 17, 2008 On my way to a breakfast meeting recently, I walked by the 'Opening Soon' Apple store in Vancouver's Pacific Centre Mall. I know how hot that store is going ...

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May 20, 2008

By Scott Ronalds

The Steadyhand Diaries

The summer edition of Globe Investor Magazine comes out this Thursday (May 22) as a supplement in the Globe and Mail. Watch for The Steadyhand Diaries , a piece written by Tom Bradley that takes readers through the company's first year ...

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May 13, 2008

By Tom Bradley

The ETF Diaries - Part V: All Dressed Up and Nowhere to Go

JovFunds Management is coming out with three ‘tactical allocation portfolios’ that will invest solely in exchange-traded funds (ETFs).  These growth, balanced and conservative mutual funds will own Horizons BetaPro ETFs and the asset mix will be actively managed by Fiera ...

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May 8, 2008

By Scott Ronalds

Investment Blogs

The Globe and Mail published a report on investment blogs in Tuesday’s paper, where a number of their columnists identified some of their favorite blogs. If you’re a fan of our blog, you may want to check out a few ...

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May 6, 2008

By Tom Bradley

A Belated Response to an Income Investor

Our blog on March 17th ( In Need of a Steady Hand ) generated a large number of hits, which given the investing environment at the time, is not surprising.  The main message in the posting was that investors shouldn’t ...

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May 6, 2008

By Tom Bradley

Get a Reality Check Folks: Those Low-risk Big Yields are History

The Globe and Mail, Report on Business Published May 3, 2008 Where were you in August of '82? I will always remember. I was between my years at Western in what is now the Ivey School of Business and was ...

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May 1, 2008

By Tom Bradley

Irrational Nervousness = Fertile Soil

The managers of our funds report to us formally once every quarter.  In the Income Fund report from Connor, Clark & Lunn, there was a chart that is a great indication of what the capital markets are going through. It ...

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April 25, 2008

By Scott Ronalds

An Intrinsically Attractive and Flexible Vehicle

Jonathan Chevreau’s article in Wednesday’s Financial Post highlights the latest book that bashes the mutual fund industry, The Investor’s Dilemma: How Mutual Funds are Betraying Your Trust and What to do About it , written by Louis Lowenstein. It’s books ...

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April 21, 2008

By Tom Bradley

The Increasing Complexity - and Masked Risks - of Wealth Management

The Globe and Mail, Report on Business. Published April 19, 2008 Purdy, what were you thinking? Didn't you know how complex and convoluted investment products have become? Didn't you know this would become a hornet's nest with many different interests ...

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April 16, 2008

By Neil Jensen

Steadyhand Wins Coveted Lippy Awards

Vancouver, April 16, 2008 - Steadyhand Investment Funds is proud to announce that they are the recipient of two Lippy Awards. The prestigious awards are presented for excellence in the fields of mutual fund performance and marketing. The firm is particularly ...

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April 15, 2008

By Scott Ronalds

Podcast: First Quarter Review

In this podcast, we review the first quarter of 2008 and touch on some highlights from our Quarterly Report.

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April 8, 2008

By Tom Bradley

Fund Fees Coming Down; Cost of Investing Going Up

Last Saturday (April 5th), Globe and Mail columnist Rob Carrick wrote a piece ( Fund Fees that Have Fallen the Most ) featuring mutual funds where the management expense ratio is falling.   He published a list of the ‘Top 30 MER decliners’ (click ...

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April 7, 2008

By Tom Bradley

Odds Can be Stacked in Your Favour Buying Bank Stocks for the Long Term

The Globe and Mail, Report on Business Published April 5, 2008 A couple of times in recent months I've used the banks as a framework for talking about investing and the buy side of the street. I'm back at it. ...

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April 4, 2008

By Tom Bradley

"You Like Me. You Really Like Me!"

Who can forget Sally Field’s acceptance speech at the Oscars in 1985?   The Canadian mutual industry has taken a page from Sally’s delivery.  As Jonathan Chevreau points out in his blog today, the Lipper annual awards gala held in Toronto ...

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April 2, 2008

By Tom Bradley

One Year Performance for the Steadyhand Funds

Oh boy, we finally get to release our investment returns .  The markets having been so...well...interesting.  We’ve been busting to get the numbers out. You may remember that until we renewed our prospectus, we weren’t allowed to provide fund returns ...

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March 31, 2008

By Neil Jensen

Our T3 Mess

One of our promises to our clients is that we will reduce or eliminate paper mailings. Unfortunately we have to deliver tax documents (contribution receipts and T3's) to our clients via paper. The problem is that each of our mutual funds ...

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March 28, 2008

By Tom Bradley

TD Bank - Just too Cheap!

I was in Toronto this week and met with the crew at CGOV to talk about the Equity Fund.  We covered lots of ground, which we’ll report on in our Quarterly Report that will be published on or around April ...

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March 24, 2008

By Tom Bradley

In Turbulent Times, the Wise Investor Should Ignore Fears and Get a Little Greedy

The Globe and Mail, Report on Business Published March 22, 2008 Between now and the time I publish my next column, you should receive a quarterly statement from your investment adviser or manager. Get prepared. Your net worth will have ...

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