In Part I of this series, we reviewed the rise of passive investing and flagged some unintended consequences that have resulted. In Part II, we review recent financial literature which queries the robustness of the 20th century research which became ‘conventional wisdom’ about active vs passive management and importantly, to what extent it...

The story of passive investing is one of consequences, both intended and unintended. This two-part series aims to shed light on both, and to highlight the benefits and costs that these instruments carry. We’ll start in British-ruled India in a city overrun with snakes.Cobras, cobras, everywhere… As the story goes, for reasons unknown...

I have a confession to make: in 2014, after holding on for five years, I sold my remaining Blackberry shares for C$10.32 per share, for a loss of almost 90%. This incident was thankfully) relatively isolated and involved a small amount of money I could afford to lose but it was also a...

In the words of steel baron and progressive philanthropist, Andrew Carnegie, “it is more difficult to give money away intelligently than to earn it in the first place”.People support charities for a variety of reasons, with the types of charities and the amount and frequency of gifts dependent on each person’s financial and...

When I was first learning to be a stock analyst, one of the key pieces of advice I receivedwas to read several papers, cover to cover, every day. While this may seem like a lot,there was wisdom buried (quite literally) in this advice. The general benefit is knowledge of themes and trends occurring...

In the eye of the storm in June 2020, we published a piece on value investing. Titled “Has Value Had Its Last Dance?”, the article asked if value’s best days were behind it. Like the storied Chicago Bulls in Michael Jordan’s final year, were the good times gone? Was value dead?It’s pretty typical...

A common tactic of the hacker is to create a sense of urgency, to get people to react to their message without pausing to question what’s being asked of them. A pandemic provides a built-in sense of that urgency, so the past year has unfortunately created many new opportunities for those seeking malicious...

“It’s hard to make predictions, especially about the future.” Never in our lifetimes has Yogi Berra’s proverb seemed more appropriate than in the current environment of uncertainty. While we don’t try to predict the future, given recent market strength, it’s worth doing a sanity check. Investors selling their stock in the March 202...

Milton Friedman famously said that “Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon.” As central banks and governments have implemented record level s of government spending and money creation to counterbalance the economic impact of the global pandemic, some market watchers are wondering if we should heed that warning, worrying that rising government...

In this edition of Planning Matters, we introduce the Trusted Contact Person, an ally to you and your portfolio manager, and someone who can help protect your interests. As portfolio managers, we have more than the performance of your portfolio on our minds. We are in a fiduciary relationship with you, which means...

Over the last 15 years, responsible investing has grown dramatically in size and scope, with signatories to the Principles for Responsible Investing (PRI) surging past 3,000 and representing over US$100 trillion in assets under management. With the explosion in environmental, social and governance (ESG) investing, many new strategies have emerged to meet the...

Over the last 15 years, responsible investing has grown dramatically in size and scope. Investors’ attention has widened beyond ethical and moral issues to include a range of environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors and signatories to the Principles for Responsible Investing (PRI) have surged to over 3,000, representing over US$100 trillion in...