Cutting Through the Noise
November 26, 2012
The federal government announced today that the annual contribution limit for the TFSA is being increased from $5,000 to $5,500, starting in 2013. A feature of the TFSA is that the annual contribution limit is indexed to inflation, in $500 increments. 2013 will be...
Read MoreNovember 24, 2012
Until a couple of days ago, there was a leaning tower of paper hovering over my desk. It was a stack of articles, charts, cartoons, quotes and sport stats that I was sure would be important one day, but in the meantime, was threatening my safety. It had...
Read MoreNovember 22, 2012
I saw the new Bond flick, Skyfall, the other day and walked away with a smile on my face, knowing that the British Secret Intelligence Service (also known as MI6) is still well positioned to save the world from evil villains and vixens. Being immersed in this industry for the past decade and a half, I’ve developed a bad habit of relating all things to investing, including 007. When Bond was sipping his famous vodka martini in...
Read MoreNovember 20, 2012
With a decline of more than 200 points Wednesday, Canada's benchmark stock index erased its gain for 2012 and cemented its position as the worst-performing major stock index in North America. Even France's CAC 40 and Italy's Mibtel index are...
Read MoreNovember 16, 2012
You’ve likely heard the term fiscal cliff lately. A catchy, if not chilling phrase, but what does it mean? Put simply, it refers to the combination of (1) billions of dollars of tax increases and (2) widespread spending cuts to government programs, all set to take effect on...
Read MoreNovember 15, 2012
It just got a little greener in Seattle. Bloomberg reported last week that Microsoft recently raised $2.25 billion by issuing 5, 10 and 30-year bonds. And they did it on the cheap. The 5-year notes were issued at 0.875%, the 10-year bonds at 2.125%, and the 30-year...
Read MoreNovember 13, 2012
For keen investors and/or students of the investment industry, I recommend reading a speech (Surviving Success) given this past summer by Richard Rooney, the Chief Investment Officer of Burgundy Asset Management. Richard was speaking to an...
Read MoreNovember 10, 2012
In my last column, I suggested that the stock picker’s lot in life is not as bad as it’s made out to be. I argued that many of the portfolio managers competing in this zero sum game (for every winner, there’s a loser) are destined to underperform for structural reasons...
Read MoreNovember 7, 2012
We introduced Emmylou back in March. As a reminder, she’s a fifty-something Winnipegger with a love for yoga, travel and the occasional pale ale. Emmylou has been a Steadyhand client for eight months now. She holds the Founders Fund across her three accounts (RRSP, Tax-Free Savings Account and Investment Account) and her portfolio has gained about 3.5% since she signed on at the end of February. With autumn briskly announcing itself in the Peg, Emmylou recently got...
Read MoreNovember 5, 2012
“It’s been a long, hard slog for [global] value stocks lately. I’d say we’re long overdue for a value recovery ...” These words from AllianceBernstein (a global asset management firm) echo the sentiment of our global manager, Edinburgh Partners. In a recent article...
Read MoreOctober 30, 2012
I had lunch last week at the Fairmont with Nassim Taleb, prominent financial author and professor at the Polytechnic Institute of New York University (there were a few hundred other people there too; it was an event put on by the Vancouver CFA Society). Taleb’s...
Read MoreOctober 27, 2012
"Be it resolved that security selection is dead. Macro forces drive portfolio returns.” This was the resolution for the Alternative Investment Management Association’s (AIMA) annual debate. It reflects what I’m increasingly hearing – it’s a tough environment for active...
Read MoreOctober 25, 2012
This post should've been published two weeks ago, but I neglected to add it to my 'To Do List' this quarter. My bad. Without further ado, here's an excerpt from Bradley's Brief: The third quarter was another good one. Stock markets were up and our clients continued...
Read MoreOctober 24, 2012
The Report on Business today published excerpts from an interview with John Bogle, the father of indexing and founder of Vanguard. We found one of his answers on the wealth management industry particularly poignant. “Today, that profession with elements of...
Read MoreOctober 23, 2012
Our Global Equity Fund has had a rough three years. Nonetheless, it’s our view that foreign stocks will be an important contributor to client returns and portfolio diversification in the coming years. In this post, I’ll provide some background on the fund...
Read MoreOctober 19, 2012
Another timeless sketch from Carl Richards. Richards is an American fee-based financial planner and author. His sketches appear in the New York Times Bucks Blog and he writes a column for Morningstar (USA). Through simple drawings, he makes complex financial concepts easy to understand. We admire that.
Read MoreOctober 17, 2012
“Small Caps will Outperform Soon.” I read this headline yesterday and it reminded me how different our approach to investing is than most other managers. The accompanying article suggested that investors’ appetite for risk is coming back and commodity...
Read MoreOctober 13, 2012
"It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.” – Mark Twain. As investors, we need to be wary of what we’re absolutely, positively sure about. We may be flat out wrong. Economies, markets and...
Read MoreOctober 12, 2012
This week Morningstar Canada, a leading provider of independent investment research, updated its Stewardship Grades for 2012. The grades were first introduced in Canada in 2010 (they’ve been published in the U.S. since 2004) as a means of capturing some...
Read MoreOctober 10, 2012
Markets had a good quarter, with resource stocks rebounding. The Canadian market (S&P/TSX Composite Index) gained 7%, while the MSCI World Index rose 3% (in Canadian dollar terms). Japan was the laggard, as the market declined slightly. There were some positive developments in Europe regarding the region's debt problems, with the European Central Bank (ECB) stepping up efforts to tackle fiscal...
Read MoreOctober 2, 2012
In last Saturday’s Report of Business, Rob Carrick wrote an article about low volatility mutual funds (The Hidden Dangers in Playing it Safe). The Steadyhand Equity Fund was one of six funds he highlighted as having a positive return over the last five years...
Read MoreSeptember 29, 2012
Last week in Toronto, I had back-to-back meetings that provided an intriguing juxtaposition. I first met with Joe Sirdevan, the former head of research at Jarislowsky Fraser, who is starting a new firm, Galibier Capital, and then spent some time...
Read MoreSeptember 26, 2012
Forbes magazine came up with a list of the 15 most outrageous ETFs last year. The winners included the Market Vectors Mongolia ETF, the PowerShares Lux Nano Tech ETF and the HealthShares Dermatology and Wound Care ETF. We thought we’d...
Read MoreSeptember 24, 2012
As we do every year, we’ve updated our figures on co-investment (the practice of investing alongside our clients). We feel there’s no better way to illustrate our commitment to our investment philosophy, approach, and ultimately our clients, than to put our...
Read MoreSeptember 20, 2012
Hard to believe, but we’ve been blogging for 6 years now. Time flies when you’re having fun. We use our blog as an outlet for our opinions, advice to investors, stance on industry issues, and the odd piece of wit (depending on your definition). One of the key objectives of our firm is to help make our clients better investors, and the blog is one of the tools we use in this pursuit. We're encouraged that more and more...
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