Cutting Through the Noise
July 22, 2012
If you really want to delve into someone’s personality and character, take them golfing. There are few pastimes that are more revealing. Golf takes four to five hours to play, is laden with emotion and is mankind’s greatest equalizer - it humbles...
Read MoreJuly 7, 2012
There’s one research report in my reading pile I’ve been avoiding, although it eventually worked its way to the top. Vanguard, the giant U.S. mutual-fund company ($1.8-trillion U.S. under management) produces some great research, particularly in the...
Read MoreJuly 6, 2012
June 28, 2012
There is lots to worry about these days. Rob Arnott, of fundamental indexing fame, talks about the 3D hurricane - debt, deficits and demographics. As part of the hurricane, I’ve been questioning how sustainable U.S. corporate profit margins are, given...
Read MoreJune 23, 2012
A greed moment? So here we are. The economic outlook is bleak. Systematic risk is high. Investors are scared. And Warren Buffett’s words are ringing in my ears, “We simply attempt to be fearful when others are greedy and to be greedy only when others...
Read MoreJune 21, 2012
It was announced this week that Yamana Gold is buying Extorre Gold Mines for $395 million. Yamana is one of the power houses in the mining industry, while Extorre is a smaller company that’s struggling to finance and develop a large silver mine in...
Read MoreJune 15, 2012
A friend of mine forwarded me a quote today from Credit Suisse (allegedly) that says it all: "The market is currently like a strapless bra; half of us are wondering what is holding it up and the other half are waiting for it to drop so they can grab the opportunity...
Read MoreJune 11, 2012
As a follow-up to my last Globe column, which focuses on return expectations, I want to update our guidance to clients on asset mix. I’ll use the Founders Fund as a live example. The fund has a long-term asset mix of 60% stocks and 40% fixed income. (All the...
Read MoreJune 9, 2012
The market had a good run for a while, but now it’s right back to where it was.” “I haven’t made any money in 10 years.” “Whatever it is, I don’t want any more downside.” “I give up.” These statements reflect the sentiment of investors today. The headlines...
Read MoreMay 28, 2012
May 26, 2012
‘[T]he market’ is rapidly becoming something of an endangered species. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to try and identify any asset of significance that isn’t experiencing huge and artificial distortion to its price by forces that we might...
Read MoreMay 23, 2012
I find the kerfuffle about the Facebook initial public offering (IPO) interesting. I don’t know if anything nefarious went on behind the scenes, but it seems to me that what played out on this overhyped and highly priced IPO (the $38 issue price equates to over 20x revenue) fell within the range of possible outcomes. Facebook...
Read MoreMay 17, 2012
In this space, we talk a lot about transparency, and we try our best to walk the talk. There was a piece by Barrie McKenna in the Globe and Mail this week about the Federal government’s transparency around financial reporting. The conclusion: If the...
Read MoreMay 12, 2012
A long-standing investment strategy is back in vogue. “Covered call writing” is designed to generate income from a stock by selling a call option against it (the right to buy the stock at a set price in the future). While the strategy has been around forever...
Read MoreMay 10, 2012
In recent presentations, we’ve been discussing a slide that shows the industry diversification of the Founders Fund versus the S&P/TSX Composite Index. We’ve been doing this admittedly ‘apples to oranges’ comparison because it highlights what the portfolios...
Read MoreApril 30, 2012
The wealth management industry has changed a lot since we started Steadyhand five years ago. The banks have strengthened their hold on asset management, low-cost ETFs and high-cost structured products have become more prominent (and numerous) and lower-volatility income products are now the big seller. Some of the changes have been good for client returns, while others were more attuned to company profits...
Read MoreApril 28, 2012
As your buy side correspondent, I make a point of reading a whole stack of investment manager reports each quarter. I particularly focus on managers who think long term (no frequent traders), are prone to non-consensus views and aren't afraid...
Read MoreApril 25, 2012
Last Sunday, while flying to the hottest housing market in Canada (Toronto), my airplane reading surfaced a couple more statistics about Canadian housing, both of which point towards caution. In their quarterly report, Mawer Investment Management noted...
Read MoreApril 14, 2012
We’re celebrating our firm’s fifth birthday this week, which has brought on lots of reflection. Before we started up, I sought counsel from as many people as possible under the theory that if you want money, ask for advice. As it turned out, I got little money...
Read MoreApril 10, 2012
“If the bear leans on you, hold your ground.” Are these words of advice from an investment guru like Buffett, Watsa or Hager? No, they’re instructions from the trainer of Koda, my big furry friend who appeared with me in the video on our original home page. As it turned out, the trainer’s words would quickly become as relevant...
Read MoreApril 4, 2012
The investment banking league tables came out this week and they showed that Scotia Capital was at the top of the equity list. BNS was lead underwriter on $2.4 billion worth of deals in the first quarter. What pushed them to the top was a $1.66 billion stock...
Read MoreApril 1, 2012
I’m wired to be a contrarian. That means I tend to be early getting on and off trends. I was worried about the U.S. housing cycle in 2004 and thought the Rolling Stones were over the hill two decades ago (was I wrong?). I’m still calling for Cheez Whiz to...
Read MoreMarch 27, 2012
This was the heading on a slide that Connor, Clark & Lunn showed us this morning during our quarterly review of the Income Fund. The chart (below) shows the path of a Government of Canada 10-year bond yield compared to the commonly-used indicator of inflation in Canada, the Consumer Price Index. After 31 years of declining...
Read MoreMarch 21, 2012
In his column in today’s Financial Post ('Doing all of the Right Things'), Jonathan Chevreau reviews Steadyhand. The article is a book end of sorts, because Jonathan was the first one to write about us in the summer of 2006, just as our business model...
Read MoreMarch 17, 2012
As an active manager of stocks and bonds, we’ve always considered our biggest competitor to be the market indexes. Over time, our clients expect us to beat them. These days, however, we’re facing another formidable foe. It’s called real estate. Investors...
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