Blog: Cutting Through the Noise
Personal Investing
All-Canada All-the-Time Part II
Excerpt from Tom Bradley's blog on February 25, 2011
As an addendum to my post last week, I want to revisit the words safe and Canada. An excellent reason for investing in Canada is that it’s a safe(r) way to play the emerging markets, specifically China. Our resource stocks in particular will benefit from...Read More
My TFSA Strategy
Excerpt from Scott Ronalds's blog on February 14, 2011
As for my strategy, I’ve sold some of my non-registered investments and invested the proceeds in my Steadyhand TFSA. I triggered a small capital gain in the process, but the future tax-free growth will more than offset the small tax liability. All of my TFSA...Read More
U.S. Housing Market Still a Mess, But...
Excerpt from Scott Ronalds's blog on February 7, 2011
The manager of our fixed income funds (Connor, Clark & Lunn) prepares a Financial Markets Forecast every year that addresses the outlook for the economy, inflation, monetary policy, market valuations and extreme technical conditions in order to set...Read More
How is Your Portfolio Doing?
Excerpt from Scott Ronalds's blog on January 20, 2011
Assessing your portfolio’s performance is a key element of being a successful investor. Yet, it’s also one of the ‘muddiest’ and more overlooked areas of investing. That’s because a proper performance assessment takes time and is hard to do. Also, the...Read More
The (De)Merits of Gold
Excerpt from Tom Bradley's blog on December 22, 2010
Howard Marks of Oaktree Capital Management is one of my favourite market analysts. In a letter published last Friday, he takes on the topic of gold. It’s a wonderful piece and a must read for anyone who is interested in the shiny metal. There are too many pearls...Read More
Income Fund - Post-distribution
Excerpt from Scott Ronalds's blog on December 17, 2010
Our funds paid out their distributions to unitholders yesterday. As a reminder, distributions represent the mechanism whereby the funds transfer to unitholders any interest and dividend income and realized capital gains they accrued over the year...Read More
Underperforming Assets - What to Buy?
Excerpt from Tom Bradley's blog on November 18, 2010
My posting last week (A Simple Risk Management Tool to Avoid the Next Bubble) garnered lots of comment. In one of the kinder emails, a reader asked what weaker performing assets I would consider to be an attractive balance to the current high flyers...Read More
Fixed or Variable?
Excerpt from Tom Bradley's blog on November 8, 2010
Last week a friend asked me what his daughter should do with her mortgage. The bank was giving her the option of going with a variable rate mortgage at 2.85% or a 5-year fixed at 3.5%. Investment professionals get asked this question all the time by friends...Read More
Who is Your Steady Hand?
Excerpt from Tom Bradley's blog on October 18, 2010
“I’ve been shaking all night long, but my hands are steady” - from ‘Three Pistols’ by the Tragically Hip. David and I have been doing presentations over the last few weeks and we’ve talked about the notion of a ‘steady hand’. The company name came...Read More
Dividends in Action
Excerpt from Scott Ronalds's blog on September 28, 2010
Through the market’s ups and downs over the last few years, one area of stability has been dividends (for investors in Canadian stocks at least). With few exceptions, companies have maintained or increased their dividend payouts, providing...Read More
Closed-end Funds – Math Only a Marketer Could Love
Excerpt from Tom Bradley's blog on September 24, 2010
Writing about the unfairness of closed-end funds has been a lonely vigil. Despite the fact that the last year has been a robust period for new issues of these funds, there have only been a few other commentators taking on this egregious industry practice. In...Read More
Counterpoint - It's Bad, But Not All Bad
Excerpt from Tom Bradley's blog on September 16, 2010
We continue to be barraged with negative news. Even the most positive economists are projecting slow growth for the next few years, and the bearish ones, whose names all seem to start with ‘R’, send chills down my spine. One sentence in Connor...Read More
