Government tax revenue (when not wasted) is what builds countries into great nations.  And as much as we all don’t like taxation, most of us understand that it is the basis for the infrastructure we associate with a good life.  Things like schools, hospitals, roads, police etc are all here because of it.   There […]

Despite a terrible fall season in both stock and bond markets, we’ve seen a strong recovery over the last 3 weeks which has left most investors relatively flat for the year.  The year-to-date performance shows the importance of strong professional management, especially when volatility is high. The majority of our client’s portfolios have remained largely […]

Stock markets have managed to move ahead moderately this year but appear largely stuck in a narrow trading range with only a handful of companies really powering the gains.     While we’re pleased to see the TSX and S&P 500 are both up moderately since the start of the year,  significant concerns remain.  Currently, we’re […]

One of the areas we watch with interest and concern is fraud and the increasing rates of it we are seeing right the way across the country.    While we haven’t done any of our unofficial studies of its rise, it’s fair to say that it has marched in step with the rise of internet […]

Count on human nature.  As much as things change, the one thing that you can count on, is that the people with the most to lose will do what’s in their best interest when push comes to shove.    This kicks in whenever the news gets bad and people start to worry about investments.  Remember […]

As you may have seen in the news, markets are down fairly significantly and we’ve now moved into Bear market territory.  So we thought you might appreciate our thoughts in between newsletter issues.   Last week the Federal Reserve in the U.S. issued the largest interest rate hike in decades and it’s caused a fair […]

What a mess the world looks to be in.   Between threats of nuclear war, the worst pandemic in 100 years, food shortages, climate disruption and now massive inflation, it’d be easy to think that life was going backwards – not moving ahead.     Not so.  The truth is that we’re in a traumatic period […]

One of our commitments to our clients is keeping up with technology.   Doing so helps us gradually become more efficient while improving client service little by little. This approach has worked well for us in the past.   It’s part of our general philosophy. If we test new technology internally, we’re better able to […]

We’re proud of the fact that we routinely have an open rate on our newsletter of over 80%. That’s pretty much unheard of in the financial industry. And while we’re pleased that so many of our clients appear keenly interested in our perspectives, we believe that the consistently high readership comes largely down to one […]

I’m getting married at the end of August to my wonderful fiance Phil.  As excited as we are, it’s been a challenge putting a wedding together during Covid times.  While things look more encouraging now, in planning things out at the very start of the year we had to really think long and hard about how […]