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(November 2006) The Canadian venture capital industry has become more conservative with its funding disbursement, focusing its relatively scarce capital on later stage financings, according to the industry association. In its quarterly study, the Canadian Venture Capital & Private Equity Association reported a continued decline in venture capital investment in Q3, with emerging companies seeing […]
By Steven Lamb |November 14, 2006
3 min read
(November 2006) In the days following Finance Minister Jim Flaherty’s announcement that income trusts would face similar taxation levels as corporations, the markets reacted with their characteristic good sense: a mass sell-off of the affected asset, followed by an immediate — albeit partial — rebound in prices. Having time to digest the news, market analysts […]
By Steven Lamb |November 10, 2006
4 min read
(November 2006) You invest in mutual funds, good, solid, long-only investments that everyone can understand. No surprises, no mystery. Market goes up — money is made. Market goes down — well, the fund’s active manager has presumably preserved wealth through defensive (tactical) positioning. Plain and simple. Not so fast! Did you know that your plain-vanilla, […]
By Pierre Saint-Laurent |October 31, 2006
5 min read
(October 2006) It appears the popularity of outsourcing investment decisions has surged. In our 2005 Dollars & Sense Survey, 28% of respondents said they were selling or recommending managed products. This year, the number has climbed to 43%. “I am a big proponent of asset management programs — 90% of my book is in them,” […]
By Steven Lamb |October 12, 2006
(August 2006) The potential recoveries aren’t looking any better for Olympus hedge fund investors, nor is the principal cooperating quite as much as he has privately told investors, says RSM Richter in its latest update. Richter is the receiver for the whole Norshield complex of hedge funds and private equity investments. Canadian retail investors put […]
By Scot Blythe |August 8, 2006
8 min read
(May 2006) Here’s a fact: the late 1990s were a time of irrational exuberance (said Alan Greenspan, no less), with more froth than Lake Ontario in a hurricane. When the floor dropped on the markets many investors were mauled and markets are just now recovering from these historic lows. But this flies in the face […]
By Pierre Saint-Laurent |May 26, 2006
(May 2006) Traditional asset allocation typically divides a client’s portfolio between stocks, bonds and cash, with some fine-tuning around allocations of global versus Canadian, small cap versus large cap, and growth versus value stocks. Most advisors design their recommended portfolios around this approach for both funds and securities. What we tend to overlook is the […]
By John Nicola |May 5, 2006
Similar to a true gold bug's aversion to mining stocks and preference for physical bullion, institutional real estate investors know that REITs are far too closely correlated to the equity markets on which they are listed. For these managers, nothing beats the real thing: a portfolio of physical real estate holdings.
By Steven Lamb |April 27, 2006
With the real estate market booming across the country, it may be hard to ignore the capital appreciation aspect of real estate investments. But for many institutional portfolio managers, real estate is a core holding rooted firmly in the fixed income side of the asset mix. Sure, housing prices seem sky high, but residential property […]
By Steven Lamb |April 21, 2006
(April 2006) Largely based in the Quebec market, the story of Norshield Asset Management may not have attracted the same national media attention as Portus, but the story is just as compelling: a labyrinth of inter-related companies, a regulatory crackdown and investor funds vanishing into thin air. Investigative journalist Scot Blythe has been digging into […]
By Staff |March 31, 2006
1 min read
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