In “Managing Capacity,” we discussed planning strategies in the case of diminished mental capacity through dementia. This quarter, we explore the broader issue of estate planning should your kids, your spouse, or your parents suffer from a mental health disorder. The quality of life for your surviving family is at stake should their...

By March 9, 2009, the subprime mortgage crisis had knocked nearly 57% off the S&P 500 Index’s highs of 17 months prior. These were dark days. Although it has now been over ten years since markets bottomed, the scars remain and still impact investor behaviour. With markets again near all-time highs, many are...

By March 9, 2009, the subprime mortgage crisis had knocked nearly 57% off the S&P 500 Index’s highs of 17 months prior. These were dark days. Although it has now been over ten years since markets bottomed, the scars remain and still impact investor behavior. With markets again near all-time highs, many are...

In 2016, the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) changed its administrative policy relating to the reporting of the principal residence exemption. This has made reporting the disposition or “deemed disposition” of a principal residence more important in recent years.The concept of a deemed disposition is one we have found is not well understood by...

The past eight months have provided investors with an important reminder of what volatility in capital markets actually looks like. For nascent investors – even those with upwards of 10 years of experience in the gently rising equity markets – all the stories of the Creat Recession and the lnternet Bubble, Long-Term Capital...

Core Plus strategies promise the best of all worlds: a core fixed-income strategy, with a suite of sophisticated strategies layered on top to augment the return profile while managing risk. However, our analysis suggests that most of the additional returns that Core Plus strategies provide is not generated by the sexy bells and...

Throughout the world there is a proverbial saying that “Wealth never survives three generations.” In Canada and America we say “shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations.” In Lancashire it’s “there’s nobbut three generations atween a clog and clog” and Italians say, “dalle stalle alle stelle alle stalle” (“from stalls to stars to stalls”)...

While meeting with some Ontario-based clients in January, l got caught in the “polar vortex,” which resulted in a cancelled flight, a treacherous drive to Toronto, and a long wait at the airport – and left me with plenty of time to reflect on weather patterns, and capital markets.Many are surprised to learn...

As stock pickers in the developed world, we find unicorns high-quality businesses with sustainable growth opportunities and deeply discounted prices to be rare. Identifying one requires not only the skill and resources to break through the noise obscuring that value, but also sufficient noise to fool the rest of the market in the...

As investors review their tax returns at this time each year, they are reminded that taxation of investment income varies depending on the type of investment and the type of account. Interest income, dividend income, foreign income, and capital gains all attract different levels of tax and investors are well-advised to structure their...

The market decline in October got us thinking. Thinking about the “big picture” of the market’s direction, as we spend some small portion of our time doing, and about the “smaller pictures” – the collection of little stories and themes that capture our attention (or not) and ultimately feed into newspaper headlines. We...

The 2018 budget marked the culmination of a tumultuous year in which we saw the proposal of the most significant tax changes in the last 45 years, many specifically targeted at professionals including dentists, lawyers, and doctors. Through the budget, the federal government confirmed it would be moving forward with changes regarding income...