Knowledge Centre

Most investors know that passive Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) are low cost investment vehicles, correct? Well, almost right! Passive ETFs are “designed” to track an 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 there....

Many investors were all too willing to bail on stocks recently as their prospects looked quite dim. Of course, the same was being said of the market in early 2009 when the world was thought to be on the edge of financial ruin. The reality was that the first part...

Most investors have heard of the January Effect which is the observation that January has historically been the best month to be invested in stocks. This year was particularly good with Canadian and U.S. markets up 8.7% and 8.0% respectively. However, there is another January effect which states that, “as...

One of the core pieces of information in the financial planning process is the assumption of what the future return for a portfolio could be. Certainly, higher returns are more desirable as they generate greater spending power and/or the potential to achiever goals sooner. Of course, the standard caveat is...

Current volatility levels are not even close to being high. In fact, we are very close to being in one of the least volatile periods since 2000.

The riskiest forms of lending are missing, financial institutions are well capitalized, and while asset prices look stretched, it is difficult to make the case that they are dangerously overvalued. So hopefully the next global downturn is more likely to be relatively mild and short lived.

October gives way to what is historically the best four months of stock performance in Canada, the months of December through March.

Interest rates have been on the rise in Canada since June 2017 and the general consensus is that they will continue to go up. What will this mean to the average client’s portfolio? Of course, everyone knows that rising interest rates are bad for bonds, right? In reality, history shows...

The performance difference between Canadian and U.S. stocks has been very pronounced over the past few years, but that could be about to change. Of course, the U.S. is a growth stock market and Canada is deep value, which as most investors know do very well during the late stages...

Around the world, particularly since the bottom of the stock market crash of 2008 (which occurred in February 2009), growth stocks have lead the recovery – but not in Canada. Global value stocks have traditionally produced greater gains during good quarters and bigger declines through bad quarters but Canada is...