Knowledge Centre

The financial markets are producing very few bargains these days for investors. Everybody likes a bargain but with current valuations across the financial markets ranging from fair to very expensive, the keys to success are in choosing the right entry point and the best securities.

There is an old story about a visitor to New York who is admiring the yachts belonging to the bankers and stock brokers and innocently asks ‘Where are the customers' yachts?' Apparently there were none since the clients could not afford them because of the high banking and stock brokerage...

Most investors know that passive Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) are low cost investment vehicles, correct? Well, almost right! Passive ETFs are designed to track a benchmark index or market at a low cost. ETFs may be relatively cheap from a Management Expense Ratio (MER) perspective but the costs don’t stop...

Canadian equities appear to have entered into a new stealth bull market with a cyclical rally apparently having begun on April 28, 2016. The potential reasons for this occurring are as wide and varied as the pundits’ opinions on whether or not there is a new bull market. Of course...

Dramatic and sudden declines in stock markets are both rare and painful initially. Many times they are the final straw for quite a few investors who decide it is time to throw in the towel and head for the sidelines. However, investors should keep in mind that this is likely...

Something very rare occurred on February the 12th, 16th and 17th as the S&P/TSX stock market index gained more than 1.4% per day for three consecutive days. Since 1980 this has only happened nine other times. The interesting aspect is that it has historically triggered an extraordinarily large surge in the value...

History has a way of repeating itself and it might be about to deliver a welcome relief from the Canadian stock market turmoil in the form of a turning point in what has been a one-sided slide since mid-April of 2015. Investors who are fearful should keep in mind what...

In theory rising interest rates spell trouble for stocks but history confirms that equity market returns have varied significantly following an initial central bank rate hike. This is because not all interest rate hikes are equal. An increase is more meaningful if the starting point is 0.5% as opposed to...

If stock markets around the world had fallen by more than 50% from their peak, investors would have been in quite a tizzy with the panic of collapse and catastrophe running rampant. But it is not stocks that are in a nasty bear market, it is commodities. They are far...

Across the investment landscape there are countless philosophies, gauges and indicators that have attempted to elicit exploitable intelligence and generate superior performance. The last century has seen new paradigms, recycled theories and just plain hokum put forward as the answer to every investor's dreams. In the end, solid fundamental and...