Cutting Through the Noise
March 15, 2010
David and I met last week with Ian Cormack and Cathy Alsop from Edinburgh Partners (EPL) in Toronto. EPL manages the Steadyhand Global Equity Fund. The meeting reinforced the depth and experience of the firm (they announced two senior additions...
Read MoreMarch 8, 2010
With very few exceptions, the investment managers who did poorly when markets were melting down bounced back with a solid return last year. What didn't work in 2008 worked well in 2009. That wasn't the case, however, for one of Canada's highest...
Read MoreMarch 2, 2010
I admit to doing less reading over the last few weeks (which is criminal for an investment professional) due to a minor sporting event being held in Vancouver. But between the spectating, TV viewing and partying, I did manage to catch up on some...
Read MoreFebruary 25, 2010
By far the most popular topic in the business press these days is ETFs (exchange-traded funds). Not a day goes by without an article on them (and yes, I am planning to write one in the near future). In all of the commentaries, trading flexibility is put...
Read MoreFebruary 22, 2010
Located in Vancouver and being the sports (analogy) junkies that we are, readers would expect us to go crazy with Olympic stuff. Certainly there are obvious connections between Olympics and investing - the value of time; the notion of risk and reward (the topic of...
Read MoreFebruary 20, 2010
Watching the Olympics, the notion of risk is very clear. Athletes need to push it to the limit in order to get to that top spot on the podium. But to obtain the advantage, they risk missing a gate, catching an edge or taking an untimely penalty. They may...
Read MoreFebruary 8, 2010
Call it an interesting juxtaposition. A few pages after my column on reaching for yield a couple of weeks back, there was a back page ad for the MINT Income Fund. Since then, the ad has been running constantly in the national papers. MINT, which is an existing closed...
Read MoreFebruary 6, 2010
A consequence of being a non-benchmark manager and running a transparent shop is that we are asked direct and incisive questions. At a presentation last week, a client asked what criteria I would use for changing a manager on one of our funds...
Read MoreFebruary 1, 2010
"The lower-hanging fruit is largely gone...but the return profiles are still attractive, relative to the extremely low cost of funding." This innocuous quote from Peter Schoenfeld is very telling. In an article about the outlook for hedge fund strategies in 2010 in Barron’s...
Read MoreJanuary 26, 2010
The discipline of writing 800-900 words for the Globe and Mail every two weeks means that stuff gets left on the cutting room floor. But as I’m learning, that’s usually where it belongs. Having said that, I did want to add an addendum to my last installment...
Read MoreJanuary 23, 2010
There's no question about it. The defining feature of the capital markets right now is the search for more yield. Individuals are doing it. Institutions are doing it. And new product development is totally focused on it. I get an e-mail almost every day announcing a...
Read MoreJanuary 9, 2010
A lot is written about how to pick a money manager, but it's also important to know how to be a good client. A manager-client relationship should last a long time and be rooted in confidence, empathy and stability. Both sides are working toward a common...
Read MoreJanuary 7, 2010
Mercer, the pension and benefits consultant, reported this week that the funding status of Canadian pension plans improved dramatically in 2009. Its ‘pension health index’ moved up from 59 to 74, meaning that for a typical plan, 74% of the pension liabilities...
Read MoreJanuary 6, 2010
There is an interesting business case playing out in the U.S. right now with Kraft Foods attempting to takeover Cadbury. The saga started 4 months ago when Kraft made a hostile bid. Cadbury’s board rejected the cash and shares offer, but by then the...
Read MoreDecember 29, 2009
I love reading sports statistics and box scores (the Suns beat the Lakers last night and Nash had 16 points, 13 assists and was 5 for 11 from the field), but I’ve never been much for economic data. Yesterday on the plane, however, I was scanning the economic...
Read MoreDecember 26, 2009
We'll be turning the calendar to a new decade in a few days and I've been asking people for their take on it. The response has been underwhelming. Seems nobody has thought about it and a few were even caught off-guard, saying only, “Has it really been 10...
Read MoreDecember 16, 2009
Maybe the hardest conversations we have today are with prospective investors who got out of equities in 2008 or early this year and did not get back in. What do they do now? There is really just one answer to the question and then a bunch of execution issues...
Read MoreDecember 14, 2009
John Bogle starts his latest book, Enough, with a great story. Kurt Vonnegut and Joseph Heller were at a party hosted by a hedge fund manager. Mr. Vonnegut muses that their host makes more money in a day than Mr. Heller earned from his wildly successful novel...
Read MoreDecember 10, 2009
Interest rates have a profound effect on portfolio returns. The level of rates sets a base for on-going income and changes in rates affects security prices. As rates drop, bond prices rise and vice versa. The 25-year bull market for bonds and stocks that...
Read MoreDecember 8, 2009
When I was working at Richardson Greenshields in the 80’s, my partners and I watched as all of our big competitors got bought up by the banks – Gundy went to CIBC, DS to Royal, McLeod to Scotia and Nesbitt to BMO. As one of the largest independents left...
Read MoreDecember 3, 2009
Chris, Sher and I were out meeting prospective clients last week and there were a few questions/concerns that came up over and over again. For the most part we have discussed them in the blog, but it struck me that we could be more direct in...
Read MoreDecember 2, 2009
If this month is like previous years, the content in the business publications and industry research will get less and less relevant as we move towards the New Year. Around Christmas the papers and on-line sources will be peppered with fluffy year-end pieces...
Read MoreNovember 28, 2009
Note to reader: I have an axe to grind. I own and operate a low-cost mutual fund company – and I'm hopping mad about the HST. The impact of Ontario and British Columbia's harmonized sales tax will be negative for investors. No matter who you...
Read MoreNovember 19, 2009
In my recent article, The Party is Rolling Again, so be Cautious, I throw a little cold water on the market rally we’re enjoying. I think it’s important to reiterate how a view like this relates to an investor’s asset mix. The key line in the article is near the end – “I've...
Read MoreNovember 18, 2009
Invesco Trimark announced this week that it is offering a new series of mutual funds based on existing exchange traded funds (ETFs) offered by an affiliated company, U.S.-based PowerShares (both companies are owned by the asset management...
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