Market Insights

Decorative pattern

Market Insights

Trading across multiple markets

Not so long ago, only a decade, retail investors were wringing their hands about outages on the Toronto Stock Exchange, which sometimes failed to provide high-speed access for day-trading in Nortel stock. They envied the U.S., with its multiple exchanges, including electronic communications networks (ECNs) that provided trading in Nasdaq stocks. Ironically, the Nasdaq stocks […]

By Scot Blythe |June 3, 2009

5 min read

Decorative pattern

Market Insights

Are we there yet?

Over the past several weeks, much has changed in the tone of the financial press, the economic indicators and the markets. Virtually all of the changes have been positive. The tone has changed from utter doom and gloom to something much more cheerful and, I might add, more balanced. Many economic indicators have become more […]

By Peter Drake |June 3, 2009

5 min read

Decorative pattern

Market Insights

Transforming, not eliminating, risk

One of the great lessons of the current credit crisis is that risk is indestructible. When capital is invested in a long-term asset, risk exists, since the asset will provide value to its owner over a long period, while involving non-trivial acquisition costs. Investment in long-term assets necessarily involves forecasting, and the vagaries of forecasting […]

By James I. Hymas |June 1, 2009

7 min read

Decorative pattern

Market Insights

Equities vs. bonds

As the last vestiges of a rather cold winter come to an end, I wonder if the chilling price drops in equity markets may at long last be ready for recovery. At the end of February 2009, the S&P 500 index was 50% below where it was in March 2000. Since then, March came in […]

By John Nicola |June 1, 2009

4 min read