The third quarter brought plenty of volatility for the US and most global stock markets. In particular, a general credit scare gripped the market in late July. The epicenter of that scare was mortgage-related debt focused on subprime borrowers; however, the general panic spread, making it difficult for even higher-quality corporate borrowers in totally unrelated industry groups to garner access to capital... Read More

Having boxed Canada’s opposition parties into a choice between supporting his coming throne speech and forcing an election that will almost surely end with another minority Conservative government, Prime Minister Stephen Harper seems to have turned his skills as a political operator to the world stage and the debate over climate change. Read More

Japan has to be the least interesting market in the world right now. Nobody I’ve spoken to is interested in investing there, based on the perception that because there are so many opportunities elsewhere, money allocated to Japan is dead money. Read More

It’s prime time for 30-years-ago-today stories on both sides of the US-Canada border. Not since November 1976 had the loonie traded at parity with the greenback. Read More

The SRI Long-Term Holdings Portfolio continues to outperform. Read More

Two weeks ago in London I met with a couple of good friends who work in the financial industry. Over dinner one night, we talked about the upcoming Fed cut and about the state of the global economy. Read More

For much of the past week and a half, I’ve been on the KCI Communications, Inc. cruise down the Danube River in Central Europe. As part of this trip, I had the opportunity to meet US Embassy representatives, economists and fund managers primarily in two cities: Vienna, Austria, and Budapest, Hungary. Read More

Say what you will about the Canadian prime minister--and income trusts and their investors have many unkind words for him and his finance minister--but the guy is playing the game hard. And he’s playing it well. Read More

There are no established rules for central banks and policymakers to improve the economic environment. Policymakers face the great dilemma of having to help Main Street without rewarding the assorted speculators who are now paying the price, as they should be. Read More

As widely anticipated by politics watchers north of the border, Prime Minister Stephen Harper last week extended Canada’s parliamentary vacation by a month, proroguing the current session... Read More