Cutting Through the Noise
August 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...
Read MoreJuly 29, 2009
In my last posting, I talked about the questions that money managers should be asking. I focused on three – inflation, the next market leaders and valuation. There is an additional question that individual investors (and their advisors) should be asking...
Read MoreJuly 27, 2009
The Globe and Mail, Report on Business. Published July 25, 2009. Knowing the right questions to ask is an important and difficult part of any decision-making process. For the last two weeks I've been parked on the edge of Crystal Lake, Ont., where the right...
Read MoreJuly 13, 2009
A lot of thought has been going into the lessons learned from the recession. That's prompted me to think about what has come out of the turmoil in the capital markets. It didn't take long to come up with a list. Here are my top five lessons learned, or should...
Read MoreJuly 2, 2009
“Things will never be quite the same again. Western businesses in particular will be well served by moderating future expectations. That goes for investors too.” - Tim Price, PFP Wealth Management, June 22nd, 2009. I read Tim Price regularly and always...
Read MoreJune 27, 2009
The Globe and Mail, Report on Business. Published June 27, 2009. Over the past nine months, I've talked often in this space about risk being cheap. Investors can't let past losses blind them to the opportunities that have emerged from the banking crisis and...
Read MoreJune 24, 2009
We need your help Aretha! It seems that the little Canadian technology company that could, Research in Motion, has trouble getting respect. This is hardly a statistically robust analysis, but it has been evident to me for years that RIM and its hugely...
Read MoreJune 14, 2009
I'm not a hedge fund manager, but I find their place in the industry to be forever fascinating. Indeed, this week I went so far as to publicly debate the proposition “Hedge funds are dead” with Toreigh Stuart of Man Investments, a hedge fund conglomerate...
Read MoreJune 8, 2009
Last week Chris and I met with Scott Robertson, a financial planner from Ottawa. Scott is a veteran and has a straight-forward, no-nonsense approach to his craft. That was clear when we asked him when and how often his clients re-balance their portfolios...
Read MoreJune 4, 2009
People are having trouble with this rally. Indeed, I admitted to being uneasy about the speed and magnitude of the market’s move in a recent post. What’s spooking people is that it’s happening at a time when the economy is in the dumper and it's not clear...
Read MoreMay 30, 2009
As our firm passes the two-year mark, we aren't able to generalize about where our clients are coming from or why they chose us, but we can make some observations about what their previous portfolios looked like, and more broadly, the state of the...
Read MoreMay 28, 2009
“Fess up, fellows: The masters of the universe have turned out to be masters of disaster. No matter which aspect of the financial crisis you consider, there is a man behind it.” This was the opening paragraph of an article recently posted in the Wall Street Journal that reinforces our view that women are great investors, and even better...
Read MoreMay 26, 2009
The Ontario Teachers Pension Plan (Teachers) came within a hair of buying BCE at $42.75. Clearly the powers that be at Teachers thought enough of the BCE franchise that they were willing to pay up for it and use substantial amounts of leverage...
Read MoreMay 23, 2009
In 26 years of doing this, one of the phrases I find least useful is, the market “is range bound” or “will stay in a narrow trading range over the next X months”. I don’t have conclusive data on it, but I believe that these types of predictions are almost...
Read MoreMay 16, 2009
The Globe and Mail, Report on Business. Published May 16, 2009. What do we do now? Has the market gone too far too fast? Is it projecting too robust an economic recovery? Is it going to give back its gains as corporate earnings continue to disappoint? Or is...
Read MoreMay 14, 2009
As I pointed out in a recent post, we all have a tendency to become economists at extreme times like this. Everyone has a view on the economy, the dollar, Ben Bernanke, U.S. consumer debt and Wall Street’s demise. And with our increased focus comes...
Read MoreMay 8, 2009
That’s my answer when asked where the dollar is going. As regular readers know, I’m not short on opinions, nor is it the case that I’m not well informed on the economic and political forces at work. I just think predicting currency movements is impossible...
Read MoreMay 5, 2009
A writer in the Financial Times this morning suggested that BMW and Mercedes need to worry about scale. With Fiat and Porsche playing the role of consolidators, the auto industry is going to have fewer, larger players. Therefore, as the logic goes...
Read MoreMay 3, 2009
The Globe and Mail, Report on Business. Published May 2, 2009. Last week I was at the Richard Ivey School of Business speaking to an investing class. It is part of the Benjamin Graham Centre for Value Investing, which has grown in international...
Read MoreApril 29, 2009
The 2009 Lipper Awards have been announced and the ads and emails have started. There will be a rush of fund firms announcing the loot they've collected. Last year we had some fun with our industry's 'silly season'. We announced our own LIPPY Awards...
Read MoreApril 27, 2009
Michael Nairne and his partner (in all respects) Joanne Swystun started a firm called Tacita Capital in 2006. It is a family office for “exceptionally affluent families.” Tacita publishes research pieces from time to time, the latest of which was recently...
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