Planning a Family – What to Save for Right Now The decision to move forward with your plans to start a family is a joyous one, but it can also lead to increased stress, especially if your financial house has not been “child-proofed”. Considering that, on average, the estimated cost of raising a child now exceeds $300,000, there’s little margin for error for most young families that have other important financial goals to achieve. But...
Does Your Portfolio Embrace Market Volatility? Many investors, especially those still reeling from the 2008 – 2011 stock market roller coaster ride, have developed a low tolerance for volatility. As a result they have moved a significant portion of their investments into bonds or other fixed yield vehicles. What many investors may not realize is that wholesale switches from one asset class to another in order to avoid volatility, can actually increase it. Secondly, for...
Keeping your Credit Safe – Are Credit Monitoring Services the Answer? We learned from legendary bank robber, Willie Sutton that the reason he robbed so many banks was, as he put it, “obvious ... you go where the money is and you go there often.” Today, the real money exists not in banks, but in cyberspace among the trillions of bits and bytes that hold the keys to the massive digital vault guarding our most...
Leave your Legacy through Planned Giving There comes a point in life where you want to begin sharing or gifting all the things you’ve collected over the years—stories, wisdom, financial wealth, etc. And unlike the Ancient Egyptians believed, you cannot take your worldly goods with you when your light goes out. You can share your stories and wisdom in a manifesto or through funny tales to your family, but what about your material assets? Like...
Why Women Make Better Investors than Men When it comes to admitting that women are better at certain things, men have a difficult time conceding any degree of supremacy. One of the more contentious debates in the gender stakes is over which is the better driver – the male or female of the species. Of course, as with any contest of proficiency, establishing superiority is contingent on what exactly is being measured. While, men will...
Quebec Canada (Except Quebec)
Your Financial Review January 2021 While few will miss 2020, all will long remember this past year that began amidst bombings between the U.S. and Iran, featured the worst pandemic in over 100 years, that sparked a recession as brief as brutal. During the year, we have witnessed the spectacular effectiveness of coordination between monetary and fiscal authorities in times of crisis as well as a succession of historic highs and lows, sometimes quite unusual...
All Eyes on Washington After a sharp rise in August, the U.S. stock market showed increased volatility in September. Early in October, the likelihood of a fiscal stimulus package announced before the presidential election was quite low. In fact, Trump even announced this week he had scrapped talks with congressional Democrats over another financial aid package to help support the economic recovery in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. Two days only after this shocking...
Great Recessions, Great Rebounds, Now What? Judging by the most recent data, it certainly seems that the trough in economic activity is behind us, which technically means that we are indeed early in a new cycle. For instance, U.S. retail sales have already recovered 62% of their decline. Meanwhile, a consensus expectation of 8 million job losses for May turned out to be quite inaccurate, with the country actually adding 2.5 million new jobs over...
Stock Markets Global equity markets have rebounded impressively so far in the second quarter. The rally continues to be fueled by the price/earnings expansion rather than profit growth. The speed and magnitude of the rebound in the American index S&P 500 multiple, just one month into a recession, is unprecedented. The Canadian equities have also been buoyed by global injections of liquidity. So why are investors so keen to buy equities at such valuations when...
Québec Canada (excluding Québec) .
Market Review 2020 January Edition This market review provides highlights from last year and presents our 2020 outlook and the issues that may affect them. During the month of January, we will send another communication to our clients regarding our portfolio strategy. Some highlights for the year ending December 31, 2019 Canadian Fixed Income The Canadian Bond Universe (FTSE/TMX Index) had an excellent year with a return of 6.9%, a record since 2014! After four...