Cutting Through the Noise
January 14, 2008
I've been following the rise in self-publishing and book publishing on demand (POD). One of the leaders in the field is lulu.com , who allow you to publish hardcopy books in quantities as little as one. Just for fun, we selected ...
Read MoreJanuary 10, 2008
The Globe and Mail, Report on Business Published January 12, 2008 Note: this article is a revised version of a previous blog posting titled Fit to be Tyed that was picked up by the Globe and Mail. It was a ...
Read MoreJanuary 7, 2008
The Globe and Mail, Report on Business Published January 5, 2008 Over the holidays I had a chance to read Michael Mauboussin's More Than You Know: Finding Financial Wisdom in Unconventional Places . From his perch as chief investment strategist ...
Read MoreJanuary 2, 2008
The funds paid out management fee rebate distributions and year-end distributions on Dec 27th and 31st respectively, so distributions have been on my mind lately. As we went through the distribution process, I made a number of notes. A lot ...
Read MoreJanuary 2, 2008
Bell-bottom jeans, the Chia Pet, and the $5 latte. What do they have in common? All were seemingly ridiculous ideas that were brushed over and laughed at in the conceptual phase. But who’s laughing now? We were inspired by a ...
Read MoreDecember 28, 2007
I've finally gotten around to reading William Bernstein's popular 'The Four Pillars of Investing', first published in 2002 by McGraw-Hill. As the title suggests, Bernstein approaches understanding investing via four broad themes: Theory - emphasizes that investment returns are primarily a ...
Read MoreDecember 23, 2007
The Globe and Mail, Report on Business Published December 22, 2007 I put my neck on the line last year with some bold and provocative predictions for 2007 . Rather than make economic or market calls, however, I focused on ...
Read MoreDecember 20, 2007
Yesterday Morgan Stanley took a mortgage-related write-down of $9.4 billion, which led to a sizeable loss for the bank’s fourth quarter. This amount was an increase of $5.7 billion from an estimate it gave the street on November 8th. By ...
Read MoreDecember 17, 2007
Many of our readers are not familiar with blogs and RSS. This short video provides an introduction to these technologies. Using an RSS reader can be a more efficient way to read our blog. ...
Read MoreDecember 12, 2007
We are not a big firm and don’t talk to thousands of investors on a daily basis, but Chris, Scott and I do talk to a fair number. From our conversations, there is one theme that recurs constantly. I DON’T ...
Read MoreDecember 10, 2007
The Globe and Mail, Report on Business Published December 8, 2007 What price-earnings multiple would you put on a company that is growing at 10 per cent, is highly profitable and pays a healthy dividend? A company that has steadily ...
Read MoreDecember 6, 2007
“ As always the key remains to focus on long-term valuations and step aside from the emotional rollercoaster which accompanies it. ” This is an excerpt from a recent interview that Dr. Sandy Nairn, the CEO and founder of Edinburgh ...
Read MoreDecember 4, 2007
Globe and Mail columnist Rob Carrick has recently been pounding the table on the poor investment merit of principal-protected notes (PPNs). In his column in last Saturday’s Report on Business ( A Do-it Yourself Principal Protection Plan ), Rob reiterates ...
Read MoreNovember 30, 2007
It’s the most important moment in one’s investment career - the day they receive their first paycheque. That is the moment that a young person can start a discipline that will last a lifetime - a discipline that will set ...
Read MoreNovember 27, 2007
Research studies have consistently shown that investors do worse than the mutual funds they invest in. And depending on what study you read, the shortfall is sometimes quite substantial. David Sung, from Nicola Wealth Management in Vancouver, has written an ...
Read MoreNovember 26, 2007
The Globe and Mail, Report on Business Published November 24, 2007 Over the last few weeks, I've been spending lots of time speaking with clients and other investors. It's been interesting because while I want to talk about Steadyhand, Steve ...
Read MoreNovember 25, 2007
Canadian Capitalist first brought Vitaliy Katsenelson's Active Value Investing to my attention in this posting . Katsenelson believes that we are in a range-bound market, defined as a market that goes up and down, but ultimately ends up back where ...
Read MoreNovember 22, 2007
This was just too good to pass up... ...
Read MoreNovember 21, 2007
In this podcast, Christine Montgomery, an insurance analyst and portfolio manager at Edinburgh Partners (EP), reviews her firm's investment philosophy, gives an update on the Global Equity Fund and provides some insight into what investors can expect going forward. On a personal note, we discover that EP's insurance analyst is a fan of Led Zeppelin, bypasses Burberry, and prefers St. Andrews over Carnoustie.
Read MoreNovember 19, 2007
While in Toronto last week, I spent some time with Christine Montgomery and Cathy Alsop from Edinburgh Partners (EP). One of the reasons Christine and Cathy were in town was to present to a group of clients and other investors ...
Read MoreNovember 14, 2007
We've just created a Steadyhand page on Facebook, available here (you'll have to sign up for a free Facebook membership if you don't already have one). Frankly at this stage it is an experiment, but we're inspired in part by ...
Read MoreNovember 14, 2007
Some mutual fund executives must be getting pretty fed up with the academic world. First there was the study Mutual Fund Fees Around the World published last year by three professors from Harvard Business School, the London Business School and ...
Read MoreNovember 12, 2007
The Globe and Mail, Report on Business Published November 10, 2007 As an equity guy, I don't like to admit it, but I recently spent some time with the bond team at Connor Clark & Lunn Investment Management. Bondies aren't ...
Read MoreNovember 8, 2007
I don’t know what the market is going to do in the coming months. I do know we will have weak markets at some point (and I suspect they could be quite messy given the extremes we are now experiencing ...
Read MoreNovember 6, 2007
As I caught up on my reading this weekend, I was perusing an advertising feature that the Investment Fund Institute of Canada (IFIC) placed in the papers last week. The lead article was a review of a survey that IFIC ...
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