Blog: Cutting Through the Noise

Undexing

Excerpt from Scott Ronalds's blog on February 4, 2010

In his latest Wealthy Boomer video segment, National Post columnist Jonathan Chevreau sat down with Tom Bradley to discuss the concept of “undexing”. The term, creatively coined by our brash marketing team, refers to an investment philosophy...

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Podcast: Tom Talks with Don Cranston (CGOV)

Excerpt from Scott Ronalds's blog on February 3, 2010

Don Cranston, one of the founding partners of CGOV Asset Management (the manager of our Equity Fund) was in town last week enjoying some of our rain. We put Don in front of the microphone and asked him a few of the questions that are at the top of investors’ minds these days: How and why does CGOV incorporate foreign holdings into the fund? What were some of the...

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Compared to What?

Excerpt from Tom Bradley's blog on February 1, 2010

"The lower-hanging fruit is largely gone...but the return profiles are still attractive, relative to the extremely low cost of funding." This innocuous quote from Peter Schoenfeld is very telling. In an article about the outlook for hedge fund strategies in 2010 in Barron’s...

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Podcast: Going Full Circle on Yield

Excerpt from Scott Ronalds's blog on January 28, 2010

If you’re an income investor, T-Bills and GICs aren’t helping you much these days. And the prospects for government bonds are nothing to get excited about. In order to achieve a more desirable return, you may find yourself reaching for yield, or moving up the...

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More Reaching

Excerpt from Tom Bradley's blog on January 26, 2010

The discipline of writing 800-900 words for the Globe and Mail every two weeks means that stuff gets left on the cutting room floor. But as I’m learning, that’s usually where it belongs. Having said that, I did want to add an addendum to my last installment...

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Don't Let Your Search for Yield Blind You to Risk

Excerpt from Tom Bradley's blog on January 23, 2010

There's no question about it. The defining feature of the capital markets right now is the search for more yield. Individuals are doing it. Institutions are doing it. And new product development is totally focused on it. I get an e-mail almost every day announcing a...

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Changes Morningstar Would Like to See in The Fund Industry

Excerpt from Scott Ronalds's blog on January 21, 2010

Morningstar’s Manager of Fund Analysis, David O’Leary, recently published an article titled Six Changes We Would Like to See in the Canadian Mutual Fund Industry. O’Leary acknowledges that by and large, Canada has an investor-friendly fund industry. Yet...

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Sensitivity Training for Clients

Excerpt from Tom Bradley's blog on January 9, 2010

A lot is written about how to pick a money manager, but it's also important to know how to be a good client. A manager-client relationship should last a long time and be rooted in confidence, empathy and stability. Both sides are working toward a common...

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How is Your Pension Health?

Excerpt from Tom Bradley's blog on January 7, 2010

Mercer, the pension and benefits consultant, reported this week that the funding status of Canadian pension plans improved dramatically in 2009. Its ‘pension health index’ moved up from 59 to 74, meaning that for a typical plan, 74% of the pension liabilities...

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Theory versus Practice

Excerpt from Tom Bradley's blog on January 6, 2010

There is an interesting business case playing out in the U.S. right now with Kraft Foods attempting to takeover Cadbury. The saga started 4 months ago when Kraft made a hostile bid. Cadbury’s board rejected the cash and shares offer, but by then the...

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A Trading Nation

Excerpt from Tom Bradley's blog on December 29, 2009

I love reading sports statistics and box scores (the Suns beat the Lakers last night and Nash had 16 points, 13 assists and was 5 for 11 from the field), but I’ve never been much for economic data. Yesterday on the plane, however, I was scanning the economic...

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The Decade That Was: A Lot Has Happened Since Y2K

Excerpt from Tom Bradley's blog on December 26, 2009

We'll be turning the calendar to a new decade in a few days and I've been asking people for their take on it. The response has been underwhelming. Seems nobody has thought about it and a few were even caught off-guard, saying only, “Has it really been 10...

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