Market Insights

Decorative pattern

Market Insights

Debt trap

Last month, we looked at some of the perils of leveraging, using actual market data starting in years 1990 and 1973. Of course, plucking two years out of history can’t reveal the entire picture, so let’s look at a cost versus benefit calculation for all years since 1900, using a leveraging calculator based on market […]

March 30, 2009

5 min read

Decorative pattern

Market Insights

Tails of risk

By most accounts, the current financial crisis is epochal — the worst since the Depression. Still, it is a truism in asset management: look after the downside and the returns will look after themselves. But how well do asset managers look after the downside? In the current market meltdown, evidence of failure isn’t hard to […]

By Scot Blythe |March 27, 2009

3 min read

Decorative pattern

Market Insights

Economy is bad, but stock valuations aren’t: Report

The world is in a deep global recession that’s expected to continue until at least the end of this year, but that doesn’t mean the markets aren’t rife with opportunity, according to the latest Global Investment Outlook by the country’s largest asset manager, RBC Asset Management. According to RBC’s 70-page spring investment outlook, authored by […]

By Mark Noble |March 12, 2009

5 min read

Decorative pattern

Market Insights

Road to ruin

While they’ve been around for just over two years, Guaranteed Minimum Withdrawal Benefit (GMWB) segregated funds have made a significant impact on the Canadian marketplace. The introduction of an investment vehicle that offers the opportunity to participate in investment markets while guaranteeing a stream of income for life has been so attractive to the marketplace […]

By Jason M. Pereira |March 1, 2009

5 min read