Cutting Through the Noise
February 21, 2009
The Globe and Mail, Report on Business Published February 21, 2009 As regular readers know, some of my best columns are written for the sole purpose of keeping peace at home. If Lori wants me to write about something, the ...
Read MoreFebruary 16, 2009
That’s how one reader felt about my last Globe and Mail column ( Focusing Too Much on the Short Term Can Lead to a Short Career ). I stand by what I wrote about long-term thinking, but in response to that ...
Read MoreFebruary 11, 2009
I own a lot of Cisco shares through my investment in the Steadyhand Equity Fund and Global Equity Fund. It’s a stock that appears in more than one of our funds. I just went through the company’s February 4th investor ...
Read MoreFebruary 8, 2009
The Globe and Mail, Report on Business Published February 7, 2009 I've been having trouble sleeping, so I dusted off a research report written by my friend, J.J. Woolverton, who is the chairman of Guardian Capital LP (he makes me ...
Read MoreFebruary 7, 2009
“The conduct at issue relates to stock options granting practices at RIM which, over a ten year period from December 1996 to July 2006 were inconsistent with the terms of RIM’s stock option plan and with RIM’s public disclosure.” - ...
Read MoreFebruary 5, 2009
I’ve written about our home team, Teck Corp., in previous postings. This week Rio Tinto is in the headlines. Its situation is similar in the sense that six months ago it was a leading resource company, perhaps the premier one ...
Read MoreJanuary 27, 2009
As I was reading the year-end report from CGOV, the manager of our Equity Fund, I was blown away by the numbers. We’ve talked in the past about the quality of companies in the fund, how well positioned they are ...
Read MoreJanuary 25, 2009
The Globe and Mail, Report on Business Published January 24, 2009 Readers are quick to point out when they think I am naive, dismissive, misinformed or just plain wrong. No doubt there has been some loose analysis in this column ...
Read MoreJanuary 15, 2009
I recently re-read a 2004 article from Bernstein Global Wealth Management entitled Taking the Fear out of Entering Equities . It did an excellent job of addressing the issue of whether dollar-cost averaging is the best way to invest new ...
Read MoreJanuary 13, 2009
As regular readers will know, I follow Jeremy Grantham and his colleagues at GMO with great interest. Jeremy’s quarterly missives are always enlightening and the firm, which is based in Boston, has a great long-term track record. One of the ...
Read MoreJanuary 10, 2009
The Globe and Mail, Report on Business Published January 10, 2009 When trying to explain what's going on in the stock market, we often draw comparisons to the housing market. It helps to put the mysteries of Wall Street into ...
Read MoreDecember 29, 2008
The Globe and Mail, Report on Business Published December 27, 2008 The year 2008 was a tough one for prognosticators. Certainly my previously impeccable record was severely tarnished. Last year's Christmas column had a few things right - Bill Holland ...
Read MoreDecember 20, 2008
I’m a sports fan. I’m a Canucks fan. I was a Mats Sundin fan. Until now. Mats’ little dance with NHL general managers is one of the most cynical things I’ve witnessed in sports - the NY Knicks signing of ...
Read MoreDecember 18, 2008
I am on a list to receive a daily email advertisement from Advisor.ca. I see a different product from a different company every day. For me, it’s a great way to keep in touch with what products are being pushed ...
Read MoreDecember 15, 2008
In this podcast, I expand on my latest Globe and Mail column, where I identify three reasons why investors should be looking beyond the doom and gloom: (1) stock and corporate bond valuations are very attractive, (2) investor sentiment is close to maximum bearishness, and (3) there's a mound of cash building up on the sidelines...
Read MoreDecember 15, 2008
The Globe and Mail, Report on Business Published December 13, 2008 “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.” In a recent series of client presentations, we used these words from Iron Mike Tyson to segue from ...
Read MoreDecember 9, 2008
I think it’s a fascinating time for China watchers. What am I saying? It’s always an interesting time to be a China watcher. There has been an underlying assumption in the market that China will grow rapidly forever. Government resources ...
Read MoreDecember 6, 2008
The other night Lori and I were drowning our sorrows with a bottle of red wine - markets, markets, markets...drink, drink, drink. The wine, called Portfolio 2006 , was a diversified mix of Merlot, Cab, Cab Franc, Malbec and Petit ...
Read MoreDecember 1, 2008
The Globe and Mail, Report on Business Published November 29, 2008 I've been getting more "hate" mail lately. The e-mails from readers who disagree with me have become more pointed; I need oven mitts to handle some of them. It ...
Read MoreNovember 29, 2008
Over the last few months, I’d been avoiding the horrific tales of the U.S. sub-prime mortgage market. I’d read and heard enough. It was ‘so last year’. But this week a friend alerted me to a treatise by Michael Lewis on ...
Read MoreNovember 21, 2008
I have been vocal about our high cost wealth management industry and cynical about pronouncements of fees coming down. There have been some fee reductions, but for the most part the adjustments have been on small, unpopular funds and/or funds ...
Read MoreNovember 17, 2008
The Globe and Mail, Report on Business Published November 15, 2008 It's always hard to pick someone to manage your money. You want people with experience and an investment philosophy you're comfortable with. You want to be sure they have ...
Read MoreNovember 4, 2008
Few of our clients own PPNs (principal-protected notes), so the recent posting on the topic may not be of much interest, but my rant has lessons that apply more generally. Here are the takeaways. The investment bankers and marketing executives ...
Read MoreNovember 3, 2008
The Globe and Mail, Report on Business Published November 1, 2008 I've called them the worst of both worlds - bad for equity investors and inappropriate for those seeking a predictable flow of income. And professional money managers would never ...
Read MoreOctober 29, 2008
CAC 40 (France) - down 50.5%. FTSE 100 (UK) - down 51.9%. S&P 500 (U.S.) - down 40.3%. Hang Seng (HK) - down 54.0%. MSCI Emerging Markets - down 62.0%. S&P/TSX Composite Index - down 32.8%. These are year-to-date market returns up ...
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