Outlook

After a slow start to the year, the spring and summer months brought our clients hot weather and even hotter returns.This has resulted in many asking the natural questions - "How much higher can the markets go?" and "Shouldn't we be looking at taking profits?". In this month's newsletter, Barry talks about the source and sustainability of these returns and the best way to deal with uncertainty.

At the end of the day, earnings are what drive stock prices. Companies that make money, and particularly those that grow their earnings year after year, see the prices of their shares rise. Companies that lose money, no matter the amount of hype or publicity, ultimately see their shares fall. These twin truths are particularly important to remember in this year of “meme” stocks, crypto craziness and Robinhood retail empowerment.

The number of mutual funds and ETFs has grown steadily over the decades such that there are now far more mutual funds for sale than stocks traded. These products provide some benefits such as diversification for accounts under, say, $500,000, which is why we have recently launched 2 pool funds. However, for larger accounts, holding the individual securities remains our preferred approach. In this month’s article, David provides 7 reasons why we continue to emphasize this for our clients.

Other than vaccines, and more recently the Leafs, there is probably no hotter topic these days than housing prices. In this month’s newsletter, David provides some historical perspective on housing costs and some advice to those looking for a place to live now.

There has been a steady stream of news recently about the rising cost of goods sparking fears about inflation. In this month’s newsletter David looks at how the pandemic has contributed to this and explores whether labour costs, the more important factor for inducing inflation, will add to the increases in the coming year.

By now, everyone knows the story of GameStop, even if they’ve never been in one of its stores to buy a video game. In this month’s newsletter, David describes how the story of GameStop, and many other similar companies, is raising the question of whether this represents a new paradigm for investing. Not surprisingly, he concludes that, while he doesn’t know how long it will last, this “internet frenzy” will not lead us to change the way we do what we do.

After two consecutive good years for our clients, 2021 so far has been flat. While we cannot predict what will happen with the stock market in the short-term, Barry outlines in this month’s newsletter why our outlook remains positive.

In this month’s newsletter, David provides some perspective on the recent activity in stocks such as GameStop, AMC Theatres and Blackberry. While the actions around these may seem crazy, they are not much different than what were referred to as “pump and dump” schemes, just with a different group of promoters. He goes on to explain that, by following a tried and true approach to managing portfolios, these events in fact have no affect on us at all.

Looking forward to 2021, the year of economic recovery At the start of the new year, there is an almost irresistible urge to make predictions. Everybody wants to know what will happen next. The demand for good fortune tellers, however, [...]