This quarter the media attention and investment market impact was all focused on the new US President Donald Trump, inaugurated on January 20. Although the President did have the benefit of a supportive Senate and House, he wasted little time…
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Commentary January 2025 – Preparing for New Directions
This fall the economy and the markets were undisputably fixated on the US election more than anything else. As the promises on both sides of the aisle scaled the cliffs of outrageousness, in the end the Republican platform prevailed and…
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Commentary October 2024 – Wobbling Toward a Cooler Economy
As the US central bankers started signalling the intent to decrease interest rates, long duration bond prices started rising (remember, when interest rates fall, bond prices rise). I have included a longer-term trend chart here to help get a broad…
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Commentary July 2024 – Getting through Indigestion
As winter gave way to spring we began to hear more and more that the tightening effect of higher interest rates is showing up in various parts of the economy. There have been reports of weaker markets for consumer durable…
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Commentary April 2024 – Getting through Indigestion
This winter we witnessed coping with foggy economic conditions in various parts of the world, from China to the Middle East, Ukraine, and North America. Not to say things were dire per se, but we waited for economic clarity on…
Posted in Financial Planning, Investment, Risk Management, Tax, Uncategorized Tagged with: bonds, canadian dollar, equities, exchange rate, investment
Commentary January 2024 – A Tale of Two Sectors
The Autumn season in the markets was punctuated by concerns over the Israeli-Hamas fighting and its geopolitical impacts, watching with bated breath about how consumers would digest the insidious impact of interest rates, and in China a property market decline…
Posted in Investment, Risk Management, Tax, Uncategorized Tagged with: bonds, canadian dollar, equities, exchange rate
Commentary October 2023 – Ready for a Turn
This summer into fall, markets have been fixated on the economic “soft landing” narrative and the notion of rates being higher for longer. It is true that circumstances have made it tougher than in past cycles to slow down the…
Posted in Financial Planning, Investment, Risk Management, Tax, Uncategorized Tagged with: bonds, canadian dollar, currencies, equities, exchange rate
Commentary July 2023 – Déjà vu from 2000
The first quarter of 2023 had markets driven most dramatically by US interest rates, their repercussions, and whether the US Federal Reserve would pivot from an interest rate increasing phase to an interest rate decreasing phase. Bonds and Interest Rates…
Commentary January 2023 – Applying the Brakes Worked
As summer led to fall wild rebounding growth began to yield to taming. Markets were somewhat pulled back into line to begin to reflect a more conventional reality. Since investment markets tend to anticipate and “front run” what happens in…
Commentary October 2022 – Interest Rate Increases Start Cooling the Economy
During the summer we saw the first shoots starting to appear of interest rate increases reducing the extreme intensity of inflation and thus beginning to cool off the economy. More fading of high single digit inflation is likely around the…
Posted in All Archives, Investment, Risk Management, Uncategorized Tagged with: bonds, business cycle, canadian dollar, covid19, crash, economic crash, economic cycle, equities, exchange rate, investment, recession
Commentary July 2022 – Central Bankers Start Taking Inflation Seriously
This quarter, as inflation continued to thrust forward, the US Federal Reserve aggressively raised interest rates to try to get their inflation-busting measures back on track after being caught off-guard earlier in the year. The only major sign of relief…
Posted in All Archives, Investment, Risk Management, Uncategorized Tagged with: bonds, business cycle, canadian dollar, economic cycle, equities, exchange rate, investment, recession, stock market cycle
Commentary April 2022 – Inflation Goes Into Overdrive
As the developed world navigated past the Omicron virus wave, various factors lengthened and/or accelerated the inflation we once hoped would be transitory. On the economic demand-growth side, various economies saw increased consumer activity, especially in leisure spending. On the…
Posted in Financial Planning, Investment, Risk Management, Tax, Uncategorized Tagged with: bonds, canadian dollar, covid19, currencies, equities, exchange rate, pandemic
Commentary January 2022 – Digesting Omicron and Persistent Inflation Impact
Commentary January 2022 – Digesting Omicron and Persistent Inflation Impact There were many winds washing through the markets in the months leading up to the New Year. Hence it was a tumultuous time. To name a few: The Delta variant…
Posted in Financial Planning, Investment, Risk Management, Tax, Uncategorized Tagged with: bonds, canadian dollar, covid19, embridge, equities, exchange rate, fairfax financial, pandemic, preferred shares
Commentary July 2021 – Assessing Economic Progress
With the gradual reopening of businesses post-Covid, we are seeing glimmers of hope regarding the economic recovery. Still, the pandemic created chaos that continues to settle out bit by bit. There were changed buying habits, pent up demand, supply chain…
Posted in Financial Planning, Investment, Risk Management, Tax, Uncategorized Tagged with: bonds, canadian dollar, covid19, enbridge, equities, exchange rate, fairfax financial, pandemic, preferred shares
Commentary April 2021 – A World Refocusing
As the winter progressed, markets were driven more than anything by increasing signs of successful vaccine rollout and hence risk reduction in the global economy. Early in the quarter markets bounced around a bit but the month of March saw…
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged with: capital goods, counter-cyclical, investment, prudent portfolio, rogers communications, shaw communications
Commentary January 2021 – Coping with the Froth
This fall we saw mostly continuation of trends from the summer best described as splitting of the investment world. The prospects of a Covid19 vaccine and US government spending triggered major shifts in currency and certain stocks continued to part…
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We’ve just witnessed the stock market’s echo, echo, echo!
The echo has arrived. Over the course of the spring and summer I have often talked about how most major stock market pullbacks are followed by a rise up and then a second pullback. That second pullback (the echo) is…
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