Articles & Insights

Happy Spring. Headline news is as sensational as it has ever been these days. So much has changed just since the fall of last year; a war in Eastern Europe and raging inflation has gripped everyone’s attention. Q1 2022 was not a good quarter for investors, both equity markets and bond markets were down, some with more conservative portfolios actually fared worse than those with predominantly equity portfolios. In times like these it is more important than ever to take a step back, keep things in perspective and think through fundamentals. Not just fundamentals on investment policy, but revisiting your own cashflow analysis, needs for the future, projected net worth – the work that we’ve always done to gain perspective on how we are trending in order to help us make better decisions today.

Sustainable Investing is an approach that incorporates environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors in the investment process. This in today’s investing community has become front and centre. Never before has there been such a push towards such important drivers of change in the world.

2020 will go down as one for the history books. The first reports of a mysterious virus quickly turned into a pandemic, global shutdown, and the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. And yet, by the end of the year, markets had recovered beyond expectations.

COVID-19 has impacted our mental health in profoundly different ways. Dealing with it has been disruptive in the least and tragic at its worst.

All dealer organizations in Canada such as Manulife Securities require the completion of “KYC” information when opening new accounts. KYC stands for “know your client”.

What a crazy world we live in. For the last number of weeks, we have been jostling around to find our new normal. I still have my surreal moments… on a daily basis.

The title to this year’s economic forecast is…the same as last year. Admittedly, I will fail to earn any creative title credit, but the fact of the matter, there are similarities between 2019 and 2020 with a few exceptions.

As of this past July the current US economic expansion is now the longest since World War II. And while there is little evidence to suggest it is over, we do need to consider that it is closer to its end. Let's be clear, recessions are difficult to predict. But then again, in the context of asset allocation it isn't as black or white as whether we are in a recession or not. There are multiple shades of grey. And we may want to consider how to position during the transition from one to the other.

Often, I get questions about the differences between RSP’s and locked in retirement accounts (LIRA’s). While both share very similar properties, they do have some key differences. RSP’s were originally introduced so that people who did not have access to a pension plan at work could effectively use an RSP to create their own pension plan.

What ever happened to the lazy, hazy days of summer?! Labour day has come and gone, the kids are back in school and the days of wearing shorts all the time are numbered. August was anything but relaxed as far as global events were concerned. Brexit continues, the US and China are no closer to agreeing on trade issues, Hong Kong unrest is in its third month and various hotspots keep the headlines churning. The markets, in turn, have been volatile. In spite of that, most assets are up quite handsomely, year to date.