Investment Strategy - December 2024

Our title is shamelessly self-referential since we essentially copied the one from the December 2024 Investment Strategy report and changed the year to 2025....

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2025 Canada economic outlook: On the mend

Canada’s economic environment remains as complex as it has been for the past couple of years. However, we're now dealing with a different inflation and interest rate environment....

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2025 Canadian Market Outlook

In his 2025 Market Outlook, BMO Capital Markets’ Chief Investment Strategist Brian Belski expects Canadian equities to build on a surprisingly strong 2024—possibly outperforming U.S stocks....

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President-Elect Donald Trump’s Tariff Threat is Too Big to Dismiss

U.S. president-elect Donald Trump has threatened to impose 25% tariffs on all imports from Canada and Mexico on his first day in office – unless both countries deal with border security issues....

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Red Sweep: Trump the Sequel

It was a sweep. While Kamala Harris had been gaining in some polls in the last week, the U.S. chose to give Donald Trump a second term....

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Market and Economic Outlook: Final Months of 2024

Investors have had a lot to digest in 2024. Inflation has come down, interest rates have eased and markets have responded positively, yet climate disasters, geopolitical tensions and a U.S. election continue to be on everyone’s minds – and the year i...

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Global Markets Commentary: Goldilocks Rally

The third quarter was full of surprises – an integral part of investing. Prices don’t move on what happens; they move on what happens versus expectations. Various outfits keep score of how many data points hit, miss, or beat economists’ consensus exp...

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Politics and Your Portfolio

While it is tempting to want to tilt investment choices in anticipation of a particular election outcome, mixing politics and your portfolio has a poor record of success....

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Investment Strategy - September 2024

We don’t often think of Switzerland and Canada leading the developed world, but that is exactly what these two countries have recently done, at least in terms of central bank rate cuts....

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Global Markets Commentary: Summer Somersault

If you took an extended summer break and have come back to look at the two-month results for July and August, you will be pleased to see that most equity markets delivered mid-single-digit gains and the FTSE Canada Universe Bond Index rose......

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Retirement Planning Calculator Tool

This Retirement calculator will allow you to input assumptions to generate a retirement illustration and a tool for estimating income in retirement.  This self-input calculator tool will provide a good high level summary while we would develop a more comprehensive tax optimized plan for our clients using our access to a more detailed and sophisticated planning software when we meet.  Enjoy!

https://www.bmo.com/financial-calculators/retirement-savings/

 

Portfolio

To Preserve & Protect Your Legacy

Managing the Health of Your Wealth by Building Smarter Portfolios

 

We believe the greatest opportunity for clients to achieve their investment objectives and to realize optimal risk-adjusted returns is by using a well-constructed portfolio combining active, passive and alternative strategies allocated to meet their unique needs. Given all of these factors, we believe portfolio construction efforts should focus on seeking a balance between growth potential and downside protection. This means being sensitive to stock valuations, ensuring wide-ranging diversification and focusing on income.
 



In its broadest sense, diversification means exposure to a variety of asset classes that have historically had lower correlations to each other.  For many investors, this could mean adding real estate, international exposure and alternative strategies (such as long-short, absolute return, and market neutral mandates) to their portfolios.

Our Portfolio construct provides adequate and prudent diversification to global equity markets and fixed income, while incorporating an allocation to Absolute Return managers. 

Please contact us to learn more about our portfolio construct and historical performance.
 

Why Select a CFA

Why Choose a CFA?

The Case for Passive VS Active US Equity

Historically, the US equity market as represented by the S&P 500 Index, has been extremely difficult to beat!  In the past 15 years, less than 3% of Active Managers have been able to Outperform the Index. 

The S&P 500 is highly efficient, liquid, and does not suffer from high single security concentration risk (ie. like the TSX Index has in Canada in the past with Nortel, RIM, Valeant, and Shopify today). 

Please click here to see the latest SPIVA research on how difficult it is to outperform the S&P 500 US equity index.  This is why our core strategy for US equity market exposure is a Passive US Equity allocation incorporating low cost Index ETFs.

Benefits of Alternatives

With markets at all-time highs, volatility at multi-year lows, high equity market valuations and general political and economic uncertainty, investors have a desire to protect capital and earn a competitive return. Absolute Return Strategies are often utilized by High Net Worth families to Enhance Returns & Add Downside Protection to complement Traditional Portfolio Asset Exposures.

Click here to discover the Power & Benefits of Adding Alternatives to your Portfolio!