In Brief

The former Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau once famously remarked that being America’s neighbour “is like sleeping with an elephant. No matter how friendly and even-tempered the beast, if one can call it that, one is affected by every twitch and grunt.”The upcoming U.S. presidential election may provide… Read More

It’s been one year since we introduced the Dividend Champions portfolio in May 2015. As we said then, its main objective is to offer investors a portfolio of quality companies that offer an attractive combination of dividend yield and growth, with a focus on sustainability. Our first year provided pleasure… Read More

You can dodge big, portfolio-crushing losses if you know what to look for. Case in point: Valeant Pharmaceuticals, a former market darling that recently suffered a dramatic fall from grace.Valeant provides an excellent case study because the warning signs were there for all to see. Here are the red flags… Read More

The Canadian equity markets (all are measured in U.S. dollars in this article), performed well compared to the U.S. and global equity markets in the first two months of 2016. Where the S&P 500 and the MSCI World Equity indexes both lost more than 5% so far this year, the… Read More

I still have pleasant memories from an evening with friends at a casino in the German town of Baden Baden many years ago. We were backpacking through Europe, and the evening did not start well, with the casino doorman insisting that we wear jackets and ties.The casino did offer a… Read More

For the Canadian stock market 2015 was a miserable year. Measured in U.S. dollars, the market lost 25%, only beaten for the last spot among the major markets by the 42% drop of Brazil’s market. By comparison, the S&P 500 ended the year slightly lower, while Japan had the best… Read More

Here are some risks to avoid and opportunities to take in the Canadian markets in 2016.Risk: Oil prices remain low for an extended period.West Texas Intermediate oil is expected, according to a recent Reuters poll, to average $54 per barrel in 2016 and $63 per barrel in 2017, compared with… Read More

Michael Lewis, in his book Flash Boys, describes in detail how high-frequency traders scalp billions of dollars from unsuspecting investors. High-frequency trading is performed by sophisticated traders who have access to superfast computers and data transmission lines that can process market information and orders in milliseconds. They are able to… Read More