Cutting Through the Noise
June 20, 2008
For a firm that prides itself in being transparent, we have been slow in clarifying our message on fees. There are two questions that come up often, that we can address more clearly. Before I do that, however, I should ...
Read MoreJune 18, 2008
I recently received the following note from an investor: Mr. Bradley – your individual fund financial objectives, the managers, marketing approach, desire to make clarity vs. fund chaos/greed/conformity an objective, and an eMail approach to quarterly/annual data, as so clearly explained ...
Read MoreJune 18, 2008
We’ve had a handful of new clients recently that brought money to Steadyhand as a result of a real estate sale. The conversations have been interesting and got me thinking. A majority of the talk has been around asset mix. What makes ...
Read MoreJune 16, 2008
The Globe and Mail, Report on Business Published June 14, 2008 We can't go anywhere or do anything without feeling the impact of high oil prices. It is the topic du jour and we are at the stage where every ...
Read MoreJune 5, 2008
Why do active managers find the S&P 500 so hard to beat? In his book More Than You Know – Finding Financial Wisdom In Unconventional Places , Michael Mauboussin takes a different approach to the question. He starts by assessing ...
Read MoreJune 3, 2008
I had some interesting feedback on my Saturday column on Francis Chou . The volume of emails was not noteworthy, but the diversity of views and the temperature level had the widest range I’ve experienced. There were a few investors ...
Read MoreJune 2, 2008
The Globe and Mail, Report on Business Published May 31, 2008 I grumbled as I read Rob Carrick's profile on Francis Chou in the latest issue of Globe Investor magazine. He beat me to it. I had visited Francis a ...
Read MoreMay 28, 2008
We’ve had great reaction to The Steadyhand Diaries published last week in the Globe Investor magazine. Over the next few weeks we are going to complement the Diaries with a few additional postings. The original draft of the article was ...
Read MoreMay 20, 2008
The Globe and Mail, Report on Business Published May 17, 2008 On my way to a breakfast meeting recently, I walked by the 'Opening Soon' Apple store in Vancouver's Pacific Centre Mall. I know how hot that store is going ...
Read MoreMay 13, 2008
JovFunds Management is coming out with three ‘tactical allocation portfolios’ that will invest solely in exchange-traded funds (ETFs). These growth, balanced and conservative mutual funds will own Horizons BetaPro ETFs and the asset mix will be actively managed by Fiera ...
Read MoreMay 6, 2008
Our blog on March 17th ( In Need of a Steady Hand ) generated a large number of hits, which given the investing environment at the time, is not surprising. The main message in the posting was that investors shouldn’t ...
Read MoreMay 6, 2008
The Globe and Mail, Report on Business Published May 3, 2008 Where were you in August of '82? I will always remember. I was between my years at Western in what is now the Ivey School of Business and was ...
Read MoreMay 1, 2008
The managers of our funds report to us formally once every quarter. In the Income Fund report from Connor, Clark & Lunn, there was a chart that is a great indication of what the capital markets are going through. It ...
Read MoreApril 21, 2008
The Globe and Mail, Report on Business. Published April 19, 2008 Purdy, what were you thinking? Didn't you know how complex and convoluted investment products have become? Didn't you know this would become a hornet's nest with many different interests ...
Read MoreApril 8, 2008
Last Saturday (April 5th), Globe and Mail columnist Rob Carrick wrote a piece ( Fund Fees that Have Fallen the Most ) featuring mutual funds where the management expense ratio is falling. He published a list of the ‘Top 30 MER decliners’ (click ...
Read MoreApril 7, 2008
The Globe and Mail, Report on Business Published April 5, 2008 A couple of times in recent months I've used the banks as a framework for talking about investing and the buy side of the street. I'm back at it. ...
Read MoreApril 4, 2008
Who can forget Sally Field’s acceptance speech at the Oscars in 1985? The Canadian mutual industry has taken a page from Sally’s delivery. As Jonathan Chevreau points out in his blog today, the Lipper annual awards gala held in Toronto ...
Read MoreApril 2, 2008
Oh boy, we finally get to release our investment returns . The markets having been so...well...interesting. We’ve been busting to get the numbers out. You may remember that until we renewed our prospectus, we weren’t allowed to provide fund returns ...
Read MoreMarch 28, 2008
I was in Toronto this week and met with the crew at CGOV to talk about the Equity Fund. We covered lots of ground, which we’ll report on in our Quarterly Report that will be published on or around April ...
Read MoreMarch 24, 2008
The Globe and Mail, Report on Business Published March 22, 2008 Between now and the time I publish my next column, you should receive a quarterly statement from your investment adviser or manager. Get prepared. Your net worth will have ...
Read MoreMarch 17, 2008
The news just keeps getting worse. Today it’s the announcement that one of Wall Street’s revered investment dealers, Bear Stearns, is being bailed out and shareholders are going to lose almost everything. Despite the fact that Bear was a poster ...
Read MoreMarch 14, 2008
I received an email from an investor today relating to my column in the Globe last week . With her permission, I’ve posted our correspondence below. Mr Bradley, Our investment advisor is trying to sell us PPN's which we are ...
Read MoreMarch 10, 2008
The Globe and Mail, Report on Business Published March 8, 2008 During the RRSP season we were barraged with ads from the banks and insurance companies. In light of the recent market turbulence, the emphasis has been on their ‘risk ...
Read MoreFebruary 28, 2008
In the investment business, Royal Bank and PH&N stole all the headlines last week (including on our blog), but there was another piece of news that relates closely to what we’re doing at Steadyhand. It was the announcement of a ...
Read MoreFebruary 25, 2008
The Globe and Mail, Report on Business Published February 23, 2008 It appeared on my BlackBerry screen on Thursday afternoon. Word from the office that Royal Bank was buying Phillips Hager & North. My first reaction was to shrug and ...
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