Outlook

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 open the door of 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, [...]

In November of 1942, Winston Churchill gave a speech which is much remembered for the following prediction: “Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end; but it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning”. History buffs will know that he was referring to Montgomery’s defeat of Rommel and the Africa Korps in Egypt, and they will also know that Churchill was largely correct. In this month’s newsletter, David talks about war against COVID-19 over the past year and how we may now be moving to the beginning of the end.

In place of our annual in person Outlook event, we have created a series of 3 videos with Scott Mazi discussing various topics with David Baskin, Barry Schwartz and Ernest Wong.

A month or so ago I wrote about why a Biden presidency might be good for the US economy. Now that we know that Biden will be President, but that the US Senate will most likely remain Republican, I will update my thoughts, and add some ideas about Canada-US relations.

Paul Martin was Canada’s Minister of Finance in the mid to late 1990’s, when Jean Chrétienwas Prime Minister. When he came into office, Canada’s public debt had reached the dire and unenviable level of 100% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), a level only previously seen in the aftermath of World War II.