Briefly: “Canadians still spending: StatsCan” and more news

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The constant barrage of gloom hasn’t deterred Canadian consumers from emptying their wallets; Statistics Canada reports that retail sales grew during the month of January.

According to StatsCan, retail sales rose 1.9% in January, to $33.7 billion. Granted, the jump comes after the worst Christmas shopping season in 15 years, after sales declined 5.2% in December.

StatsCan says sales rose in five of the eight retail sectors, led by a 3.8% increase in the automotive sector. In volume terms, retail sales rose 1.8%.

Since peaking in September 2008, StatsCan says the monthly level of retail sales in current dollars has fallen by about 7%. The main contributors to this shift were lower unit sales of new motor vehicles and reduced gasoline prices.

“Unfortunately, we already know that auto sales fell again in February (about 2%). And, even with the bounce, the level of real retail sales in January was almost 5% below the fourth quarter’s level (annualized), suggesting real consumer spending still dropped markedly in the first quarter,” Douglas Porter, deputy chief economist at BMO Capital Markets, pointed out in a report released Friday. “But, not wanting to rain on a one-float parade of good news, this nice rebound is certainly more encouraging than an even deeper dive, which has unfortunately been the case in so many other indicators of late.”

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Univeris launches online compliance “watchdog”

Don’t worry — it’s not a new compliance initiative from regulators. Rather, it’s an online tool to help dealers cut down on onerous compliance processes. Univeris announced today that it has developed Supervision+, an online compliance supervision system for investment dealers that helps streamline processes for branch and headquarters compliance managers.

Integrated into the dealer’s book-of-record, Supervision+ will provide access to a client’s full investing profile in one location, as well as a full audit trail of all transactions, time- and date-stamped, that cannot be altered.

Univeris says the software is there to help advisors as much as their dealers. The program will provide assurance that an advisor’s compliance manager has ready access to complete and accurate information. In addition to this, Supervision+ can be used for business intelligence-gathering such as trending data, at individual or regional levels.

Sun Life Financial has already implemented Supervision+.

“We are very pleased to be the first financial enterprise on the market to use Univeris’ innovative Supervision+ tool,” says Pat Carswell, director, dealer operations, individual wealth management, Sun Life Financial. “The compliance supervision process is a critical aspect of our business. With Supervision+, there is now a total transparency of information, along with a powerful filtering capability that makes information-gathering and reporting easier and more adaptable for our compliance teams, advisors and the auditors.”

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Sentry Select delists closed-end fund

Sentry Select Capital is delisting the Sentry Select Lazard Global Listed Infrastructure Fund, in anticipation of turning the mandate into an open-end fund.

The fund’s units will be voluntarily delisted from the Toronto Stock Exchange at the close of business on Wednesday, March 25, 2009. The conversion of the fund into an open-end mutual fund is expected to occur on or about April 1, 2009.

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Sprott allows All-Cap fund to invest in metals

Given the Sprott Asset Management team’s proclivity for precious metals, it’s probably not a surprise that the firm is changing the investment strategies of Sprott All-Cap Fund so that it may invest in gold and/or silver when deemed appropriate.

The fund obtained exemptive relief from the Canadian securities regulatory authorities on February 23, 2009, to invest up to 20% in total of its net asset value, taken at market value at the time of the purchase, directly in gold, permitted gold certificates, silver, certain silver certificates and/or specified derivatives of which the underlying interest is gold or silver.

The changes are effective immediately, as of March 20, 2009.

(03/20/09)