It appears that employers and consumers did not get the recession memo. Employment is strong, and the Canadian consumer is spending at record levels. We have the same economic events playing out south of the border. The recession can wait. Perhaps we can revisit the recession talk and watch in the Fall or Winter. It’s […]
Buying the big Canadian banks, plus the debt ceiling on the Sunday Reads.
The U.S. debt ceiling standoff stole most of the headlines the past week. And “this just in” as they say on the nightly news – the Democrats and Republicans have potentially reached a deal. The debt ceiling will be increased and there will be no U.S. default. Phew! Of course most knew how this game […]
Sticky inflation on the Sunday Reads.
While we had some initial success in getting inflation down from the 8% range, we are now getting stuck in a zone that is much higher than the 2% “target”. I’d even suggest that rate hikes have had little to nothing to do with that inflation-fighting success. For higher rates to have a real impact, […]
Checking in on our U.S. stocks on the Sunday Reads.
Eight years ago, I bought 15 U.S. dividend growth stocks as a real-life portfolio demonstration. More than a demonstration, it was the total value of our U.S. holdings in our retirement accounts. The strategy was to create a more defensive and retirement-ready portfolio. The portfolio slants to quality, profitability and business moats. The 15 stocks […]
Building the Canadian stock portfolio on the Sunday Reads.
It is so easy to build a simple but very effective Canadian stock portfolio. Canadian self-directed investors will often hold a few financials, telcos, utilities and pipelines. At times they will also (wisely) add some of the lower yielding stocks, including the railways and grocers. Other favourite picks are Alimentation Couche-Tard, Canadian Tire, Restaurants International […]
Big U.S. tech earnings to the rescue on the Sunday Reads.
I was back at MoneySense for another week – making sense of the markets. So I had to pay attention to what the heck was going on. Big tech came up big in the U.S., moving the markets higher. And the more times you mentioned AI (artificial intelligence) in your earnings conference call, the greater […]