May 2022 Commentary
A Rougher Start than Most What a year 2022 has proven to be so far, with war, a lingering pandemic and asset markets in turmoil, to name just few risks weighing on investors. Since our last commentary earlier this year, equity and bond markets have continued to exhibit, apart from a brief relief rally in […]
January 2022 Commentary
January has kicked off 2022 with a ferocious selloff across global markets, with many of them now falling into correction territory from their November highs (normally defined as a greater than -10% drawdown in price). The selling has varied across assets, sectors, and geographies, but has been felt especially hard in growth-oriented stocks where valuations […]
The Maradona and Cantillon Effects
Please click on the link below for the current Market Insights newsletter from Wellington-Altus’ Chief Market Strategist, Dr. James Thorne, PH.D. https://bit.ly/33kZ9Eh
Omar’s Quick Take – Gold Forming Multi-Year Symmetrical Triangle Pattern
Having suffered a nearly decade-long bear market through much of the 2010s, gold began a blistering ascent back in late 2018, having essentially doubled in price by its most recent peak back in September of last year. We initially took on our full precious metals exposure in the Growth and Aggressive Growth models back in […]
Omar’s Quick Take: D is for Demographics
Concerns about inflation have taken center stage in the financial and mainstream press over the past six months as various Consumer Price Index (CPI) and Personal Consumption Expenditure (PCE) readings have come in relatively red-hot, at least compared to the past decade. There has been considerable commentary from various pundits about how these readings are […]
Omar’s Quick Take – Bitcoin, Gold, and S&P500 Correlations
With a lot of the conversation around the utility of cryptocurrencies seeming to shift from their use as practical alternative means of exchange to instead being thought of as a new asset class, one should probably then evaluate what would be the benefits of adding such an asset class to a portfolio. Notwithstanding the stellar […]
Federal Budget Commentary
Economic and Tax Highlights from the 2021 Federal Budget “The truth is that the tragedy of COVID-19 has created a window of opportunity.” On April 19, 2021, Canada’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, the Honourable Chrystia Freeland delivered the Liberal government’s first budget in over two years. The 739-page budget entitled, “A Recovery […]
Omar’s Quick Take – Late Winter Market Turbulence
After an early February that saw many equity markets soar to new highs, the back half of February into March has seen those early year-to-date gains evaporate in a selling spell that looks to be the first material equity markets pullback of 2021. The culprit? A relatively rapid rise in bond market interest rates, especially […]
General Commentary – December 2020
The Year of Plague and Politics As we close out a year that few will likely ever forget, we are reassured to see some major risks fade into the rearview mirror and some hopeful developments coming ever closer into reach. We outlined in our July commentary the case for why, for the first time in […]
General Commentary – July 2020
When the Facts Change… If we were to ascribe an overriding theme to our last commentary piece we wrote in March, especially vis a vis our intentions towards the asset allocation and risk posture among our various models, it would have been one of having patience and maintaining defensive positioning. As justification, we cited some […]