Cutting Through the Noise
April 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 ...
Read MoreFebruary 21, 2008
February 11, 2008
The Globe and Mail, Report on Business Published February 9, 2008 In 2007, the capital markets were defined by acronyms (CDO, ABCP, SIV, CDS), but the big new word doing the rounds now is "decoupling". Decoupling refers to an economic ...
Read MoreFebruary 6, 2008
In 2007, the total return of the S&P/TSX Composite Index was +9.8%. The MSCI World Index (in Canadian dollar terms) was -7.5%. This divergence of returns means that if you’ve done nothing in the past year, Canadian equities are a ...
Read MoreJanuary 28, 2008
The Globe and Mail, Report on Business Published January 26, 2008 I had a column written for this week on how investors should expect lower returns, lower than what they have achieved in the past 10 to 25 years. I ...
Read MoreJanuary 24, 2008
A friend of mine who lives in the U.S. sent me a comment on my last blog that is worthy of a posting of its own. She is witnessing first-hand the fallout in the housing market and has a few ...
Read MoreJanuary 21, 2008
I can’t contain myself any longer. Do people really expect Ben Bernanke, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, and George Bush to come to the rescue of the failing U.S. economy? Are they nuts? Ben’s predecessor, Alan Greenspan, and George ...
Read MoreJanuary 16, 2008
A friend was telling me about a discipline she enforces in her household - if anyone brings a new piece of clothing into the house, they have to get rid of something. It keeps the drawers and closets in reasonable ...
Read MoreJanuary 10, 2008
The Globe and Mail, Report on Business Published January 12, 2008 Note: this article is a revised version of a previous blog posting titled Fit to be Tyed that was picked up by the Globe and Mail. It was a ...
Read MoreJanuary 7, 2008
The Globe and Mail, Report on Business Published January 5, 2008 Over the holidays I had a chance to read Michael Mauboussin's More Than You Know: Finding Financial Wisdom in Unconventional Places . From his perch as chief investment strategist ...
Read MoreDecember 23, 2007
The Globe and Mail, Report on Business Published December 22, 2007 I put my neck on the line last year with some bold and provocative predictions for 2007 . Rather than make economic or market calls, however, I focused on ...
Read MoreDecember 20, 2007
Yesterday Morgan Stanley took a mortgage-related write-down of $9.4 billion, which led to a sizeable loss for the bank’s fourth quarter. This amount was an increase of $5.7 billion from an estimate it gave the street on November 8th. By ...
Read MoreDecember 12, 2007
We are not a big firm and don’t talk to thousands of investors on a daily basis, but Chris, Scott and I do talk to a fair number. From our conversations, there is one theme that recurs constantly. I DON’T ...
Read MoreDecember 10, 2007
The Globe and Mail, Report on Business Published December 8, 2007 What price-earnings multiple would you put on a company that is growing at 10 per cent, is highly profitable and pays a healthy dividend? A company that has steadily ...
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