Starting strong: A financial checklist for new grads

Graduating from university marks the beginning of a new chapter; one filled with opportunities to pursue your career goals and chase your personal dreams....

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Investment Strategy - August 2025

Global equities performed well over the course of July. The strength can be attributed to a number of factors, but a key driver has been an economic, trade, and monetary policy backdrop that’s had more positive than negative developments of late. For...

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Investment Strategy - April 2025

Still slightly overweight Canada – Now underweight U.S. and market weight Europe and Emerging MarketsIt is becoming clearer that Trump’s tariffs and trade wars are less a means to an end than an end in themselves. The implications are profound. The...

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Investment Strategy - March 2025

As we publish this report, some U.S. tariffs on Canada and Mexico have been postponed (again) until April 2. The nascent U.S.-instigated trade war is clearly negative for the entire North American economy as it increases inflation and lowers......

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Stock market selloff – tariffs and then some

Equity markets in both the U.S. and Canada are being rattled by a combination of tariffs and, at least in the case of the U.S., convergent factors including DOGE cuts and softening economic data......

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The Capital Gains deduction and intergenerational farm property rollover

The family farm continues to serve an important role in the Canadian economy and, as such, receives special status under Canada’s tax law......

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Investment Strategy - February 2025

Lost in all the tariff talk is a potential seismic shift in AI power dynamics. China’s DeepSeek produced an OpenAI competitor, DeepSeek-R1, at a fraction of the price......

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Weekly Strategy Perspectives: The Fundamentals are Fine

The Through Line: Although the year is still in its infancy, markets have already been confronted with several volatility-inducing macro surprises. Determining if or how the developments will bend the fundamental arc of industry or economic......

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Global Markets Commentary: Off to a good start – until it wasn’t

January’s positive start to the year is now in jeopardy after the U.S. launched a trade war. Tariffs on China are going ahead, but Canada and Mexico have been given a temporary reprieve. The level of uncertainty remains elevated and headlines......

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Trade war impact: First pass

On February 1, U.S. President Trump signed an executive order imposing a 25% tariff on all non-energy imports from Canada and a 10% tariff on energy imports (effective February 4). In separate executive orders, a 25% tariff was levied on all imports...

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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!