Cutting Through the Noise
November 15, 2009
Here I go again. Just when everyone is starting to enjoy themselves, I'm getting uneasy. It's time for investors to temper their expectations for returns and prepare for some bumps in the road. This doesn't mean the cycle isn't playing out as it should. The...
Read MoreNovember 12, 2009
The manager of our Global Equity Fund, Edinburgh Partners Ltd. (EPL), has had a personnel change that is of interest to Steadyhand clients. Christine Montgomery has left EPL and joined another firm in Edinburgh, Martin Currie. While the firms are comparable...
Read MoreNovember 10, 2009
In the Economics Focus column in the October 31st Economist magazine, the question is asked, “Why are the banks so averse to raising equity?” It’s a great question, particularly in the aftermath of last year’s worldwide banking meltdown. It has been a...
Read MoreNovember 1, 2009
When you're trick or treating, keep an eye out for mutual funds dressed up as closed-end funds. The latest innovation to take hold in the Canadian wealth management industry is “closed-until-open” funds. There has been a wave of new offerings that...
Read MoreOctober 28, 2009
Quick. It’s February 28th, 2010. The Olympics are just ending and you have to make a last minute RRSP contribution. What would you do? Five seconds. Four. Three. Two. One. Time is up. OK. If you answered: Put it in the Money Market Fund and think about...
Read MoreOctober 26, 2009
The preacher: Tim Price, Director of Investment at PFP Wealth Management in the U.K. The converted: Steadyhand, Manager of the ‘undex’ funds. As noted in previous posts, I enjoy reading Mr. Price’s weekly note. He challenges the conventional thinking that...
Read MoreOctober 22, 2009
I’ve had lots of feedback on a posting I did on Balanced Funds – some as comments on the blog and other as feedback to me directly. A comment from a reader aptly named You Missed The Point said, “A good balanced fund with low fees and experienced with...
Read MoreOctober 18, 2009
Oh Canada! In the constant debate about whether this rally is for real or not, there is an underlying subtext. It relates to how much emphasis investors should put on Canada. In the discussion, there are many who are asking the question, why bother putting...
Read MoreOctober 6, 2009
In her Mutual Fund column in the October MoneySense magazine, Suzane Abboud looked at what balanced funds did through the market crisis, specifically how they managed their asset mix. A big part of the reason for owning a balanced fund is...
Read MoreOctober 3, 2009
One of the really fun events on the Street is the “Up the Down Market” dinner held annually in Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto and Montreal in support of the Down Syndrome Research Foundation. The focus of the evening is a game based on a stock market...
Read MoreOctober 2, 2009
In a recent posting (Complacency: A Major Misstep of Mutual Fund Investors), I talked about how commonplace fund mergers and manager changes have become in our industry. I referred to manager changes at Trimark, fund mergers at Ethical and...
Read MoreSeptember 28, 2009
I don’t believe in trying to precisely time the market. For our clients’ portfolios, and my own, I strive to be approximately right, as opposed to exactly wrong. Having said that, last fall and early this year we were as aggressive as we'll ever be in pushing clients...
Read MoreSeptember 23, 2009
A Steadyhand advertising campaign is starting today. It’s pretty extensive, but not all of you will see it. That’s because the magazine, newspaper, television and on-line ads are targeted at Southern Ontario (more on that later). I never thought we’d be advertising...
Read MoreSeptember 21, 2009
In a nutshell, it all comes down to a few self-centered questions. Is this the way we want our money managed? Is this who we want doing it? Is this the way we want to be serviced, charged and communicated to? Call us selfish, but the answers to those...
Read MoreSeptember 19, 2009
Individual investors (and their advisers) are far too patient when it comes to dealing with changes in their mutual funds. They're quick to make moves based on short-term trends and performance, but slow to recognize the impact of fundamental shifts in personnel...
Read MoreSeptember 16, 2009
I read that the recession is over. Both Ben Bernanke, the U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman, and Mark Carney, the Bank of Canada Governor, have said so. I also read that out here on the wet coast, our provincial government has been dragging its...
Read MoreSeptember 9, 2009
On my recent trip to Toronto, I spent some time at the CGOV office, meeting with Gord O’Reilly, the manager of the Equity Fund, as well as other partners of the firm. Out of all the conversations, pizza and beer came very little that was new - even though...
Read MoreSeptember 5, 2009
I feel like I'm really up to speed right now. With the lousy weather in Ontario and Manitoba cottage country, there's been more time for reading. And while I still can't tell you what “quantitative easing” is, I've firmed up my view on all kinds of other topics...
Read MoreAugust 27, 2009
In postings on March 31st and May 14th, I mused that the financial crisis and market meltdown had turned everybody into an economist. We all have a view on how deep the recession will be, where the dollar is headed and when the recovery will come...
Read MoreAugust 26, 2009
Be warned. I write this after a long day, a glass of wine and having just read an article on ‘Target Date’ funds in Monday’s Report on Business (Target-date Funds Miss Their Mark). Shirley Won’s piece on these packaged, marketing-driven, fee-laden...
Read MoreAugust 24, 2009
Being an analyst or portfolio manager means you are destined to make lots of mistakes. They say the great ones are right 60 per cent of the time, which means they're wrong 40 per cent of the time. There aren't too many professions where you're allowed...
Read MoreAugust 19, 2009
The Steadyhand Small-Cap Equity Fund has been one of the top funds in its category since it started in early 2007. But in getting there, the fund has traced quite a different path compared to that of the market and other small-cap funds. That's because the...
Read MoreAugust 12, 2009
I walked into the office this morning to the news that AIC, the troubled fund company owned by Michael Lee-Chin, has been sold to Manulife. I smiled. I always smile when I hear that more consolidation has occurred in the wealth management industry. That’s...
Read MoreAugust 9, 2009
It may not be politically correct to admit it, but I have mixed feelings on the billions of dollars worth of bonuses being paid out on Wall Street. I'm always wary of hysterical, highly politicized issues that have only one side to them. But in this case, I've...
Read MoreAugust 5, 2009
This current market rally has been characterized as ‘a dash for trash’. In other words, lower quality companies have seen their stocks bounce back dramatically, while the higher quality ones have experienced more modest gains. When the companies that...
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