By Scott Ronalds

From our Quarterly Report:

Five years ago we were right in the middle of it. Lehman Brothers had gone down and the financial crisis was taking hold. It was a period that will be forever fused in my memory, as I suspect it will for our clients.

But even with the toughest months of ’08 and ’09 embedded in our 5-year numbers, investment returns for our clients have been pretty reasonable. Balanced portfolios have earned in the neighbourhood of 8% per year. $100,000 invested in our Balanced Income model portfolio (50% fixed income/50% stocks) is now worth just shy of $150,000.

It might be instructive to review the sequence of returns over this fascinating period. Certainly, the scariest time was the fourth quarter of 2008 and first two months of 2009 – the banking system was teetering and equity and credit markets were melting down. But after the stock market bottomed on March 9th, the initial recovery came with lightning speed and everything was up in 2009.

In the years that followed, it was more of a relay race, with the baton being passed from one asset class to another. Canadian stocks, corporate bonds, high yield bonds, U.S. stocks and finally Japanese and European stocks all took turns leading the way. It was interesting to watch because investors seemed perpetually surprised by what asset classes performed. At points in time, U.S., Japanese and European stocks were written off for dead, with no consideration being given to their unsustainably cheap valuations.

At Steadyhand, we had our own relay race going. Our funds and managers took turns riding their asset classes and adding value over the markets. Most recently, the Global Fund has been the big contributor to client returns.

Read Tom's full brief and the rest of our Report here.

Management fees and expenses all may be associated with mutual fund investments. Please read the prospectus before investing. Mutual funds are not guaranteed, their values change frequently and past performance may not be repeated. The annualized rates of return are the historical annual compounded total returns including changes in unit value and reinvestment of all distributions and do not take into account sales, redemption, distribution or optional charges or income taxes payable by any securityholder that would have reduced returns.