Bonds are the adult in the room. And when they speak, we should probably hear them out. This week bonds went on a tear. What were bonds trying to say? They were listening to the ‘Fed Speak’ in the U.S. that left many confused. Of course, the Federal Reserve and the Federal Reserve Chairman set […]
The Permanent Portfolio.
The traditional balanced portfolio is built for the current economic environment. It is built upon the premise, or guess, that we will remain in a disinflationary environment. It is all that today’s investor has known. In a disinflationary environment US and Canadian stocks and other developed markets perform well. US and Canadian bonds perform well. […]
Everybody hates bonds, on Weekend Reads.
It was a few years ago that I suggested that “the greatest threat to stocks is bonds”. Bonds are starting to follow through with that threat, taking down the stock markets. And they have a peculiar taste for US stocks, and high flying US tech stocks in particular. It’s just more than increasing bond yields […]
The Balanced Portfolio barely felt a thing in this pandemic.
It’s been a wild ride for the stock and bond markets. But if we step back and look at the performance over the last year, the traditional Balanced Portfolio is in positive territory. If you’d been living under a rock and did not check your portfolio statement for a couple of months, you might think […]
Get ready for the economic restart on Weekend Reads.
Provinces across Canada begin the process of opening the economy. We’ve also relaxed some of the social measures designed to keep COVID-19 under control. The US is ahead of us with many States opening up more sectors and businesses. Are we entering the other side in the battle against SARS-CoV-2? Or are we just getting […]
What the heck is going on with Canadian bonds and bond funds?
The answer to the headline just might apply to the broader ‘what is going on in the stock markets?’ Ditto for the gold prices and bitcoin and so on. Trying to make sense of any asset price is more than tricky business these days. Nothing seems to make sense. The velocity of price movements is […]