This Isn't the RRSP Season to Miss

As regular readers will know, I follow Jeremy Grantham and his colleagues at GMO with great interest.  Jeremy’s quarterly missives are always enlightening and the firm, which is based in Boston, has a great long-term track record.  One of the ...

Podcast: Fourth Quarter Review

2008 was an ugly year in the capital markets.  In particular, heavy losses were experienced in the fourth quarter, as widespread de-leveraging and indiscriminate selling took place.  Yet, every major market decline presents opportunities and investors should ensure their portfolios are well positioned for the 'other side of the valley'.

In this podcast we review the fourth quarter and provide our thoughts on the markets going forward.

Debt is the Pariah in the New Economic Order

The Globe and Mail, Report on Business Published January 10, 2009 When trying to explain what's going on in the stock market, we often draw comparisons to the housing market. It helps to put the mysteries of Wall Street into ...

Tax-Free Savings Accounts (TFSAs)

Starting this year, a new savings vehicle will be available to all eligible Canadians who are at least 18 years old.  Tax-Free Savings Accounts (TFSAs) will enable individuals to invest money in a tax-free structure throughout their lifetimes. Contributions to TFSAs ...

Readers' Choice - Top Steadyhand Blog Postings of 2008

As 2008 comes to an end (thank god!), we’d like to thank all of the loyal readers of our blog.  We hope you’ve enjoyed our thoughts, opinions, commentaries, criticisms, musings and satires on investing and the industry that we call ...

Crystal-ball Gazing for 2009 - After a Less Than Stellar Shot at 2008

The Globe and Mail, Report on Business Published December 27, 2008 The year 2008 was a tough one for prognosticators. Certainly my previously impeccable record was severely tarnished. Last year's Christmas column had a few things right - Bill Holland ...

He Couldn't Carry Trevor's Bag

I’m a sports fan. I’m a Canucks fan. I was a Mats Sundin fan.  Until now. Mats’ little dance with NHL general managers is one of the most cynical things I’ve witnessed in sports - the NY Knicks signing of ...

Road of Least Recovery

I am on a list to receive a daily email advertisement from Advisor.ca.  I see a different product from a different company every day.  For me, it’s a great way to keep in touch with what products are being pushed ...

Podcast: Amid the Doom and Gloom, it's Time to Hatch a Strategy for Better Times

In this podcast, I expand on my latest Globe and Mail column, where I identify three reasons why investors should be looking beyond the doom and gloom: (1) stock and corporate bond valuations are very attractive, (2) investor sentiment is close to maximum bearishness, and (3) there's a mound of cash building up on the sidelines...

Amid the Doom and Gloom, it's Time to Hatch a Strategy for Better Times

The Globe and Mail, Report on Business Published December 13, 2008 “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.” In a recent series of client presentations, we used these words from Iron Mike Tyson to segue from ...

They Say That Laughter is the Best Medicine

A little Saturday humour to perk you up in these troubling times. The market seems to keep dropping and dropping Because those damn Yankees couldn’t stop shopping Through their homes they’ve borrowed a ton of dough Now they’ve got no ...

Corporate Bonds Assuming Worse than the Worst

This posting is for the bond geeks in the crowd. The manager of our Income Fund, Connor, Clark & Lunn Investment Management, recently did the following analysis on corporate bonds.  If you passively buy a portfolio of 5-yr U.S. investment ...

Year-end Distributions

A quick reminder that with the exception of the Savings Fund, the year-end distributions of all our funds will be calculated on December 15th and paid on December 16th .  The distribution for the Savings Fund will be calculated on ...

A Lousy Destination

The latest take on principal protected products comes in the form of life cycle funds with capital guarantees.  For those unfamiliar with life cycle funds, they are simply packaged products that have a target end date and shift the asset ...

China Inc. - Buy, Hold or Sell

I think it’s a fascinating time for China watchers.  What am I saying?  It’s always an interesting time to be a China watcher. There has been an underlying assumption in the market that China will grow rapidly forever.  Government resources ...

No Laughing Matter

The other night Lori and I were drowning our sorrows with a bottle of red wine - markets, markets, markets...drink, drink, drink.  The wine, called Portfolio 2006 , was a diversified mix of Merlot, Cab, Cab Franc, Malbec and Petit ...

Weak Markets Needn't be all That Taxing

We all love to hate taxes.  Especially when it comes to our investments.  This explains why some investors are now busy harvesting losses to offset any prior capital gains.  It also explains the growing number of investment products on the ...

Fund Updates

Suffice to say, we’ve been watching our funds quite closely these days.  We want to make sure that our managers are doing what they do best and are sticking to their investment disciplines.  Following recent calls with the managers of ...

A Bigg Opportunity?

Aside from having one of the great names in the business, Barton Biggs is a renowned hedge fund manager and author of the popular book Hedgehogging .  Biggs is a great thinker and investor, and in the words of David ...

Armchair v. Professional Investor: These Days it's a Much Fairer Fight

The Globe and Mail, Report on Business Published November 29, 2008 I've been getting more "hate" mail lately. The e-mails from readers who disagree with me have become more pointed; I need oven mitts to handle some of them. It ...

Recommended Reading

Over the last few months, I’d been avoiding the horrific tales of the U.S. sub-prime mortgage market.  I’d read and heard enough.  It was ‘so last year’.  But this week a friend alerted me to a treatise by Michael Lewis on ...

Is Your Fund Company Betraying Trust?

I recently finished reading Louis Lowenstein’s latest critique of the mutual fund industry, The Investor’s Dilemma: How Mutual Funds are Betraying your Trust and What to do About it .  The book is a great read for investors seeking an ...

Progress on Fund Fees

I have been vocal about our high cost wealth management industry and cynical about pronouncements of fees coming down.  There have been some fee reductions, but for the most part the adjustments have been on small, unpopular funds and/or funds ...

Look For Managers Who Put Their Money Where Their Mouth Is

The Globe and Mail, Report on Business Published November 15, 2008 It's always hard to pick someone to manage your money. You want people with experience and an investment philosophy you're comfortable with. You want to be sure they have ...

Don't Try This at Home

Few of our clients own PPNs (principal-protected notes), so the recent posting on the topic may not be of much interest, but my rant has lessons that apply more generally.  Here are the takeaways.  The investment bankers and marketing executives ...