Cutting Through the Noise
September 20, 2010
To me, the media coverage on the new banking regulations laid out by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision misses the point (Basel was established in 1974 to improve the quality of banking supervision worldwide). The commentary has focused...
Read MoreSeptember 18, 2010
Every summer Lori and I make a pilgrimage to the famous Highland Cinema in Kinmount, Ont. This summer’s movie was Inception. While I had mixed feelings about the film (movie – 2 stars; conversation after – 4 stars), I found the...
Read MoreSeptember 16, 2010
We continue to be barraged with negative news. Even the most positive economists are projecting slow growth for the next few years, and the bearish ones, whose names all seem to start with ‘R’, send chills down my spine. One sentence in Connor...
Read MoreSeptember 13, 2010
At Steadyhand, we’re big on client-manager alignment. We think it’s important that investors work with professionals who share their interests. As clients and regular readers know, we walk the walk in this regard. Each year we publish the...
Read MoreSeptember 7, 2010
It was revealed last week that regulators are looking into potential conflicts of interest between the banks and their clients. According to the Globe and Mail, the enforcement division of the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada...
Read MoreSeptember 4, 2010
One of the joys of my day job is talking with smart, turned-on people from all aspects and levels of the investment business. My good fortune comes from having a long and diverse career (as Woody Allen put it, 90 per cent of life is just showing...
Read MoreAugust 31, 2010
Roger Lowenstein’s latest article in The New York Times is a must-read. In Taking Stock, Lowenstein (a financial author and journalist) draws parallels between the investment environment and mindset of individual investors today to that of the 1970s...
Read MoreAugust 30, 2010
I recently finished reading False Economy – A Surprising Economic History of the World. Along with its New York Times Bestseller status and praise from all the usual suspects (The Washington Post, Financial Times, The Economist, etc.), I was intrigued...
Read MoreAugust 30, 2010
t was reported this week that millionaires are feeling more bearish. The Spectrem Millionaire Investor Confidence Index fell to -18, which represents “mildly bearish territory”. Prior to the August score, the index had been in neutral range (-10 to +10)...
Read MoreAugust 26, 2010
This week’s rerun comes from April 2007. Foreign buyers were on the hunt for Canadian assets, which was stirring emotions and politics at home. Tom weighed in with some unique perspective on the issue. With Potash Corp. now in play, it's...
Read MoreAugust 21, 2010
Portfolio management is both a science and an art. The science can be learned from finance professors and investment books. The art part, however, comes from years at the school of hard knocks. Like every grizzled money manager who’s...
Read MoreAugust 18, 2010
Flashback to February 2007. It was the middle of RRSP season and Tom Bradley penned a Globe and Mail article that would, in turn, prompt numerous investors and advisers to share stories of their RRSP nightmares. How many funds do you...
Read MoreAugust 12, 2010
This week’s rerun comes from April 2009. The stock market had recently bottomed and investors were particularly fearful of risk. Not surprisingly, investment products with special features that promised certainty or limited downside were gaining...
Read MoreAugust 9, 2010
In my last column I talked about fear and investors who wanted to get out of the market. My advice (don’t do it) was based on valuation, investor sentiment and the difficulty of timing the market. It was aimed at helping the investor make the best decision. But...
Read MoreAugust 6, 2010
Everything we read about the economy these days is depressing – too much debt, scary demographics (with regard to social security and healthcare), weak political leadership and a warming planet. As an antidote to this macro gloom, there were lots of positives...
Read MoreAugust 3, 2010
In this week’s rerun we flip the calendar back to September 2007. The loonie had recently hit parity with the U.S. dollar for the first time in over 30 years. Predictions were widespread on which direction it was headed next. As for our forecast? (see the last...
Read MoreJuly 30, 2010
Investors have learned to deal with a lot of anxiety over the last couple of years, what with a severe credit crisis, major bank failures, derivatives gone bad and gyrating stock markets. Indeed, stress is becoming the new buzz word. Below are some stress-related observations and musings on the week that was. Stress tests: European banks were recently subject to a health check in the form of stress...
Read MoreJuly 27, 2010
This week we look back to the summer of 2006. The U.S. housing market was at a turning point. The consensus view was that it would be a soft landing. Tom disagreed. Four years later, prices are still down 40-50% from their peaks in some markets...
Read MoreJuly 26, 2010
The latest acronym in the investment world smells a little funny. The STINC countries (Singapore, Thailand, Turkey, Indonesia and Chile) are meant to represent export-oriented nations that have shown good fiscal restraint and infrastructure investment...
Read MoreJuly 24, 2010
In my quarterly letter to clients I used the word “discouraged” to describe investor sentiment. In the few days since we published it, however, I’m starting to think a better word is “despair.” Too regularly I’m being asked whether it’s time to get out of the...
Read MoreJuly 20, 2010
In this week’s rerun, we revisit the asset backed commercial paper (ABCP) debacle as a reminder of a key lesson in investing – if you don’t understand what you’re getting into, don’t buy it. Purdy, what were you thinking? Didn't you know how complex and...
Read MoreJuly 15, 2010
The second quarter of 2010 was a challenging period for equity markets, as investors focused on the European debt problems and the sustainability of the global economic recovery. In this podcast, we review these issues and highlight some of the key messages from our Quarterly Report. You can subscribe to our podcasts via iTunes...
Read MoreJuly 13, 2010
In this week’s rerun, we travel back to May 2008 for a brief look at the negative sentiment and opportunities in the corporate bond market at the time. As it turns out, the soil was fertile indeed. The managers of our funds report to us formally...
Read MoreJuly 10, 2010
I’ve had a bias to owning higher quality companies since 2007. In a challenging economy with unpredictable credit markets, it seemed reasonable to pay a premium for stable profits, excess cash flow and strong balance sheets. I knew the companies...
Read MoreJuly 9, 2010
Below are some observations and musings on the week that was – a recent feature that we’ve aptly coined The Back Hand. The Next Wall Street? – I’m desperately trying to come up with an investing analogy for the LeBron James signing with the Miami Heat
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