News and resources for Canada's top financial advisors
Market Insights
Gerald Coleman, Morningstar Canada’s 2008 Manager of the Year, is in a buying mood. The founder and head of the Harbour team of managers at CI Investments Inc. has a long history of letting cash pile up when he can’t find any investment opportunities to his liking. But increasingly, the price is right for Coleman, […]
By Diana Cawfield |December 1, 2008
3 min read
Hanif Mamdani, lead manager of PH&N High Yield Bond, attempts to mitigate the inherent peril of high-yield bonds by focusing on the area of the credit spectrum where “junk” meets “investment grade.” There are significant risks in the fund right now, stemming from the point we’re at in the credit cycle, and the nature of […]
By Al Kellett |December 1, 2008
Products
The collapse of Lehman Brothers didn’t just take down the whole investment banking model of Wall Street; it also put the squeeze on a significant number of other investments, including principal-protected notes and hedge funds. Lehman’s PPNs, while notionally powered by various stock indexes, were actually senior unsecured obligations for a company now in bankruptcy. […]
By Scot Blythe |November 26, 2008
5 min read
One of the key highlights from this downturn may very well be the performance difference between portfolios modelled after a traditional asset allocation mix, and those that emulate an institutional asset mix. Advisors may have to take a hard look at their client asset allocation and consider emulating institutional portfolios. For almost 30 years, the […]
By Mark Noble |November 18, 2008
ETF products just got more complex — to make investing simpler. Barclays Global Investors Canada has launched four fund-of-funds portfolios that are intended to go beyond balanced investing. Heather Pelant, the head of iShares for Barclays Canada, says there are two reasons for the new portfolios. Not only is it difficult for individual investors to […]
By Scot Blythe and Mark Noble |November 18, 2008
After years of strong returns, the commodity sector has taken a serious beating the last few months. Crude prices in particular have been hit hard, with a barrel of oil falling from a peak of $145 in July to around $58 in mid-November. With one of Canada’s most prized growth areas suddenly stalling, what’s going […]
By Bryan Borzykowski |November 14, 2008
6 min read
Energy and commodity prices reached unprecedented heights only a few short months ago; now their rapid decline has value investors kicking the tires. A new report from Merrill Lynch in the U.S. issues a buyer-beware warning on these sectors, calling them value traps. Traditionally a term used to refer to individual stocks, “value traps” are […]
By Mark Noble |November 10, 2008
4 min read
If you mentioned the names Bear Stearns, Ospraie and Sowood to investors a year ago, their eyes would likely have lit up with dollar signs flashing across their retinas. These hedge funds were powerful players, making big returns and helping investors get rich. But utter a word about these companies to investors today and you’ll […]
By Bryan Borzykowski |November 7, 2008
When Desjardins Group announced Monday that it was closing two lines of its principal-protected notes (PPNs), it was just another nail in the coffin for the once-popular investment vehicle. Over the last few years it seemed as if everyone was offering PPNs, but lately that hasn’t been the case; Sun Life, for one, hasn’t issued […]
By Bryan Borzykowski |October 31, 2008
According to the recently released Russell Active Manager report, 65% of large cap Canadian equity active managers beat the benchmark during the extreme volatility of the third quarter of 2008. According to the report, this is the highest rate of outperformance since the first quarter of 2007, with the number of active managers beating the […]
By Romana King |October 29, 2008
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