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There has been some misunderstanding about the Baskin Fixed Income Pool, and the returns or losses that clients have experienced. We accept responsibility for bad communication on this issue. Fund accounting is tricky, and in this case, has been made harder to explain by two factors. We have, in the past, reinvested income paid by the Pool, issuing additional units to our clients rather than paying them cash; and the bond market experienced a record decline in value in 2022.

There may be no word discussed more in the world of investing than “risk”. Risk means many different things to different people. To some, it represents how much a given investment might fluctuate in a given day, month, or year. To others, it represents the chance an investment might lose its value entirely. A third option is that risk represents the chance an investment or portfolio will suffer a permanent loss of capital that will never be recouped. At Baskin Wealth Management we typically discuss risk as the latter; and we believe it possible to significantly reduce the risk of permanently eroding one’s capital through diversification, wise asset allocation, and owning high quality investments.

In its 2022 Budget this past Spring, the Federal Government announced a new account to help first time homebuyers save for a down payment on their first home. While this Tax-Free First Home Savings Account (FHSA) will not be available until sometime in 2023, no time like the present to beginning planning.

Why we are buying an oil company Not that long ago, I wrote a blog explaining why we don’t own oil companies. We recently purchased shares of Canadian Natural Resources, one of the largest Canadian oil sands producers, for many [...]

Given the current environment, interest rate hikes, inflation, further disruption to supply chains and the Russian invasion which resulted in a very bumpy start to 2022, Barry & Ernest share their views on the market as well as specific examples of companies we are holding and how we analyze them.

If there’s anything to be learned from the last few years, it’s that unprecedented events occur much more often than one would expect. This isn’t exactly a new concept – the idea is borrowed from famous investor Seth Klarman – but the events that have taken place recently have really driven this concept home.

If your house is like my house, you have a box of ear swabs that you use regularly for their intended purpose, cleaning your ears. But if you read the fine print on the box, you will find a warning. You are told that you must not put this product in your ear, that it is dangerous to do so, and whatever made you think to call cotton swabs “ear swabs” anyway?

The client comes first. That, in a nutshell, is the message of the Client Focused Reforms (CFRs) put into place by the Canadian Securities Administrators in 2021. As discretionary portfolio managers, able to buy and sell securities on behalf of our clients, we have always been subject to this principle. Now, the rules have been made more explicit, and new standards have been put in place in the areas that can be broadly defined below.

There are lots of investment styles, and it is certainly the case that no one way of doing it will be best for everyone all the time. Some people are really traders, not investors, and seldom hold a position for more than a day (some not even overnight). Some people like following momentum, and will ride a hot name until it seems to fizzle out. We like the style usually called “buy and hold”.