Why we still love our FAANGs (+ Microsoft)
Despite falling in recent weeks (a confirmatory “told ya we were in a bubble!” moment for many investors), the sharp rise in the share prices of major technology companies over the past six months has understandably caused many people to claim we are in a repeat of the 1999 tech bubble.
What I learned about investing from baby monitors
Benjamin relates how the baby monitor for his 11-month-old son, which provides a plethora of information on his sleep habits, compares to the almost infinite amount of information available to investors to allow them to treat their portfolios as restless babies, in need of constant monitoring, and yet this does not always lead to the best outcome.
Rule #1 for Bonds: Don’t Lose Money
The world has changed a lot in just the past seven months. In this article, Barry explains that, despite this, our long-standing perspective on the appropriate portion of fixed income investments in your portfolios has not changed but actually been reinforced.
You can’t control COVID but you can control yourself
At the time of writing, most investors’ stock portfolios have recovered significantly from the precipitous drop in late February through March, 2020 and with the worst of it over – hopefully – Benjamin outlines 3 lessons can we learn from the COVID-19 crisis that can guide us through the next one.
Why is the US market the best place to invest in 2020?
With its wealth of businesses that are asset light or price makers in their market, the U.S. has been and will continue to be an area of focus for Baskin Wealth Management in building portfolios for our clients. Barry explains in this video how these characteristics make for an attractive investing opportunity.
Why the big technology companies are must-own stocks for most clients.
Barry describes the technology giants Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Facebook and Netflix as “digital toll booths on global growth”. He goes on to explain how these companies have benefited from an amazing technological shift and why they have an unbelievably long runway for growth.
How are we looking at our portfolio companies in the time of COVID?
Death, debt and dividends are 3 factors we have been putting an increased emphasis on during this period of extreme uncertainty. David explains how each is considered by the Baskin Wealth Management Portfolio Management Committee as we carefully assess the holdings in our client’s portfolios.
Why is the stock market going up when the economy is still so bad?
To answer a question that is on many investors minds these days, David outlines 4 key reasons for why there has been such a contrast between stock market performance and the overall economy so far this year.
Where do we go from here?
Ernest tackles the question on everyone's mind these days - "Why is the market going up when the outlook is so grim?" - and then explains what investors should be focused on.
The 2021 Federal Budget Speech
LOUIS XIV’S finance minister, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, famously declared that “the art of taxation consists in so plucking the goose as to obtain the largest possible amount of feathers with the smallest possible amount of hissing.” While spending continues in response to the COVID pandemic, at some point the government will need to pluck some more feathers by finding ways to increase revenues to cover the debt. David drafts what the 2021 budget speech might possibly, but not hopefully, look like.
Shrug off your home country bias
It is easy for an investor to have home country bias: I live in Canada, I get paid in Canadian dollars, and I know and understand Canadian companies—as a result, my portfolio contains mostly Canadian assets. Even if you are stuck within Canadian borders until the Covid-19 pandemic slows down, it doesn’t mean your portfolio has to remain 100% Canadian.
How much is the Canadian dollar worth?
The COVID-19 pandemic is upending a lot of assumptions and giving forecasters fits as they try to assess what life is going to look like going forward. One area that is of interest to us as investors is the relative value of the Canadian dollar against the US dollar.High on the list of things that are hard to predict is the value of currencies. Forecasters, traders and economists spill oceans of ink and spend hours of time trying to guess (really, it is a guess) if the yen, the pound or the euro will go up or down, and how much. It is tempting just to ignore the whole question, but in order to do our job, we can’t.
