Blog: Cutting Through the Noise

Heavy Lifting with CGOV

Excerpt from Scott Ronalds's blog on September 7, 2011

We often remind our clients that they don’t need to do much once their portfolios are set up, as our managers do most of the heavy lifting. While it may sound like lip service, it’s a phrase that carries weight. In times of heightened volatility, such as the past two...

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Trimming Bonds with Bruce

Excerpt from Scott Ronalds's blog on September 1, 2011

Last month we introduced Bruce, a forty-something investor with a balanced portfolio (tilted towards equities). Bruce spent the last three weeks of August on vacation and tuned out the noise in the markets as best he could. The single malt helped. While catching up on his reading this week, however, he came across two pieces by Tom which encouraged him to make an adjustment to his portfolio (What Now? Part II and When Fear Rules the Market, it's Time to...

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Tom on BNN: Approximately Right

Excerpt from Scott Ronalds's blog on August 25, 2011

Tom was on BNN this morning discussing how we think about asset allocation and portfolio positioning in volatile markets. It’s all about being ‘approximately right’ rather than exactly wrong. In other words, you’re never going to pick the top or bottom of...

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Stock Update: Nalco

Excerpt from Scott Ronalds's blog on August 24, 2011

Nalco, the world’s leading water treatment company, recently entered into a merger agreement with Ecolab (a provider of cleaning, food safety and infection prevention products and services). CGOV, the manager of our Equity Fund, sold the stock...

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Buffett for President?

Excerpt from Scott Ronalds's blog on August 16, 2011

One of the richest men in the world wishes he was taxed more. Warren Buffett paid $7 million in federal taxes last year, which equated to 17% of his taxable income. Surprisingly, this was the lowest rate of any of the 20 employees in his office. In a...

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Meet Bruce

Excerpt from Scott Ronalds's blog on August 4, 2011

Meet Bruce. He shares several traits of investors who we deal with every day. In many ways, he is representative of a typical Steadyhand client. In this blog series, we’ll follow his investing journey and provide periodic updates on the decisions and challenges he faces. Bruce is a married forty-something software engineer with two pre-teen kids. His wife, Courtney, works part-time in marketing and the couple makes a combined annual income of approx. $180,000. They own a house in North Vancouver worth roughly $750,000 ...

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Simply Complex

Excerpt from Scott Ronalds's blog on July 27, 2011

I was reviewing a new client’s portfolio last week and I stumbled across the Manulife Simplicity Balanced Portfolio. It’s a fund-of-funds product, meaning it holds a basket of mutual funds. In this case, the Portfolio holds 18 funds (as of December 31, 2010)...

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Sound Off

Excerpt from Scott Ronalds's blog on July 20, 2011

At Steadyhand, we think we’ve got the best business model and investment philosophy around. We offer investors access to talented and experienced investment managers (who are typically only available to the ultra-wealthy) and straight advice. We invest alongside our clients, charge low fees and provide timely &...

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Podcast: Second Quarter Review

Excerpt from Scott Ronalds's blog on July 12, 2011

It was a skittish quarter for stocks. The Canadian market had a rough spring, as commodity-related stocks gave back some of their gains from earlier in the year. The U.S. and Japanese markets were largely unchanged, while Europe was mixed. Bonds, on the other hand, had a strong quarter, as investors embraced safety and yields...

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The F-Bomb

Excerpt from Scott Ronalds's blog on June 22, 2011

Fund (as in mutual) has become a dirty word. I was reminded of this the other day when Tom was lamenting over all the negative connotations associated with mutual funds. What was once a beautiful concept – investors pooling their money in a shared vision...

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Get Human

Excerpt from Scott Ronalds's blog on June 16, 2011

We’ve all dealt with it and it drives us insane. Calling a toll-free number and following an automated voice prompt. Just give me a damn human voice! Pretty much every big business uses them. Yet, I don’t know of a single person who likes responding to synthetic...

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Global Equity Fund Performance Update

Excerpt from Scott Ronalds's blog on June 13, 2011

Our Global Equity Fund has had a poor stretch of performance since early 2010. The fund’s manager, Edinburgh Partners Limited (EPL), is the first to admit this. While they don’t manage the fund with a close eye on what the index is doing, any sustained period of under-performance...

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