Blog: Cutting Through the Noise

Postings

What's Going on Out There?

Excerpt from Scott Ronalds's blog on January 22, 2008

It’s times like these that test our patience as investors. As of yesterday’s close, the TSX had dropped more than 12% since the beginning of the year. Last year’s gains were gone in a mere three weeks. The S&P 500 ...

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George and Ben - Take a Holiday

Excerpt from Tom Bradley's blog on January 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 ...

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Podcast: Fourth Quarter Review

Excerpt from Scott Ronalds's blog on January 17, 2008

In this podcast, we review the fourth quarter, touch on some of the highlights of our Quarterly Report, and take a closer look at how our funds are positioned for 2008 and beyond. The session was fuelled by Nibs (Steadyhand's licorice of choice) for those wondering about the obscure reference toward the end.

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Time to Recycle, the Closet's Full

Excerpt from Tom Bradley's blog on January 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 ...

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Experimenting with Tom's ebook

Excerpt from Neil Jensen's blog on January 14, 2008

I've been following the rise in self-publishing and book publishing on demand (POD). One of the leaders in the field is lulu.com , who allow you to publish hardcopy books in quantities as little as one. Just for fun, we selected ...

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Depleted, Can Trimark Still Execute?

Excerpt from Tom Bradley's blog on January 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 ...

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The Investment Profession-versus-business Tug of War

Excerpt from Tom Bradley's blog on January 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 ...

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The Details of Distributions

Excerpt from Neil Jensen's blog on January 2, 2008

The funds paid out management fee rebate distributions and year-end distributions on Dec 27th and 31st respectively, so distributions have been on my mind lately. As we went through the distribution process, I made a number of notes. A lot ...

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Top Business Ideas for 2008

Excerpt from Scott Ronalds's blog on January 2, 2008

Bell-bottom jeans, the Chia Pet, and the $5 latte. What do they have in common? All were seemingly ridiculous ideas that were brushed over and laughed at in the conceptual phase. But who’s laughing now? We were inspired by a ...

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Book Review: The Four Pillars of Investing

Excerpt from Neil Jensen's blog on December 28, 2007

I've finally gotten around to reading William Bernstein's popular 'The Four Pillars of Investing', first published in 2002 by McGraw-Hill. As the title suggests, Bernstein approaches understanding investing via four broad themes: Theory - emphasizes that investment returns are primarily a ...

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On Fund Mergers, Facebook and Lawn Clippings

Excerpt from Tom Bradley's blog on December 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 ...

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A Recurring Extraordinary Event

Excerpt from Tom Bradley's blog on December 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 ...

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