Cutting Through the Noise
August 27, 2007
The following blog was written by Tom just before his surgery, from which he is recovering well. Dan Richards is a name you may be familiar with. He has been in the wealth management industry for years and currently operates ...
Read MoreAugust 20, 2007
The Globe and Mail, Report on Business Published August 18, 2007 Shouldn't I be doing something? In historical terms, volatile markets like we're experiencing now are not unusual, so I don't want to overplay it. I'll admit, however, that I ...
Read MoreAugust 13, 2007
I’m picking on Claymore Investments again. I don’t have a thing about them, but they’re hard to ignore because they advertise a lot and are releasing a steady stream of new products. They are also an interesting firm in that ...
Read MoreJuly 19, 2007
Chris, Scott and I have had ample opportunity to see what’s going on out there in investor land as we’ve each had a chance to work with a number of our new clients. We have done enough portfolio reviews and ...
Read MoreJune 28, 2007
We read in Larry MacDonald’s blog ( Avalanche of New Exchange Traded Funds ) on the Canadian Business site that there have been 18 new exchange-traded funds (ETFs) created this year in Canada. Horizons BetaPro has been the most active ...
Read MoreJune 21, 2007
My wife tells me I can be a real downer at parties. There are lots of reasons why she says that, but one is that I just can’t help myself when people start telling me how well they’ve done on ...
Read MoreJune 18, 2007
Early on in his book Unconventional Success: A Fundamental Approach to Personal Investment , David Swensen talks about market timing and asset allocation. His words reinforce how we feel about the topic. After writing about how market timing has had ...
Read MoreJune 12, 2007
I’ve shown great restraint. It’s been seven months since I wrote specifically about principal-protected notes (PPNs). But I came across two things last week which reinforced that the structured product lunacy (including PPNs) continues unabated in the Canadian wealth management ...
Read MoreJune 11, 2007
The Globe and Mail, Report on Business Published June 9, 2007 One of the reasons I’ve recently focused my career on the individual investor, after years of working with pension clients, is because there is a huge disconnect between their ...
Read MoreJune 6, 2007
Steadyhand has a very definite investment philosophy. We believe our funds should be (1) absolute-return oriented; (2) concentrated on the managers’ best ideas; (3) unconstrained; and (4) have low turnover (i.e. tax efficient). The least understood of these four tenets ...
Read MoreMay 23, 2007
Over the last few weeks, a couple of warning flags have popped up that reminded me that with closed-end funds and structured products, it’s ‘ buyer beware ’. The first flag was an announcement that Sceptre Investment Counsel was merging ...
Read MoreMay 4, 2007
The Globe and Mail, Report on Business Published May 4, 2007 Feeling richer? But are you better off? When Lori and I left Toronto to move west in 1991, we kept our summer cottage in the Haliburton. Back then, we ...
Read MoreApril 13, 2007
In our self-congratulatory posting about our official opening, we noted what a beautiful day it was in Vancouver on Tuesday. That nice spring weather is also symbolic of what is going on in the pension world these days. Thursday’s papers ...
Read MoreApril 2, 2007
There is plenty of ink devoted to mutual fund wraps these days. Wraps are investment products that package a number of mutual funds together to provide individuals with one simple solution to their investment needs. Firms that sell these products ...
Read MoreMarch 2, 2007
I couldn’t resist. Here’s another response to my Globe column the other week ( RRSP Nightmare: Too Many Funds in Your Basket ) on the couple that owned 29 mutual funds. Tony Evans wrote: Sitting here in Tokyo on a ...
Read MoreFebruary 26, 2007
The Globe and Mail, Report on Business Published February 23, 2007 I’ve always encouraged investing enthusiasts to read more than just the newspaper for ideas and education ( User’s Guide to the Business Media ). If you discover a professional ...
Read MoreFebruary 23, 2007
What happened to the ‘winner take all’ attitude? Where’s the competitive spirit? Doesn’t an intense rivalry mean anything anymore? Is the corporate world turning into milk toast? What has sparked all these questions is the proposed merger between Sirius Satellite ...
Read MoreFebruary 21, 2007
It’s that time in the market cycle when we’re all vulnerable to hearing how great someone else has done with their investments. Invariably, this kind of chatter leads back to comparisons with the mutual funds owned by the speaker or ...
Read MoreFebruary 16, 2007
I’ve had some fun and interesting responses to my Globe column last Friday on the Canmore couple that owned 29 mutual funds ( RRSP Nightmare: Too Many Funds in Your Basket ). Adrian Mastracci of KCM Wealth Management in Vancouver ...
Read MoreFebruary 7, 2007
This past weekend I came across an investment situation that I see quite often. It relates to the portfolios of super seniors (80 plus years). The situation is this: The senior has a regular income from a pension plan or ...
Read MoreFebruary 1, 2007
The January 20th issue of The Economist had a good article on the investment success that American university endowments have had. The article points out that these endowments have done better than other types of investors (pension funds being the ...
Read MoreJanuary 22, 2007
Jonathan Chevreau's column in today's Financial Post provides more data on the Claymore ETFs of which I spoke in a recent posting ( ETFs' I've Seen This Movie Before ). The column reinforced some of the views I put forward: ...
Read MoreJanuary 18, 2007
I've been under the weather over the last week and have had lots of time to sit and read. Thank goodness I've had other things to read besides the newspapers, otherwise I'd be going crazy right now. For a few ...
Read MoreJanuary 18, 2007
Posted by Scott Ronalds For a while, my partner Tom Bradley has been talking about how Canadian investors are less diversified than they should be ( Feeling Comfortable? Maybe it's Time to Shake Up Your Portfolio ). At times, it's ...
Read MoreJanuary 12, 2007
The Globe and Mail, Report on Business Published January 12, 2007 The YWCA that I go to is always busier in the early part of January. This year is no exception. As part of our New Year's resolutions, we all ...
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