Commentaries 09 Dec 2024 “Beliefs are like possessions….” – Robert Abelson, Professor, Yale University November 2024 Commentary
Commentaries 13 Nov 2024 "To me, the most beautiful word in the world is 'tariff…” – Donald Trump October 2024 Commentary
Commentaries 09 Sep 2024 “Volatility is often a symptom of risk but is not a risk in and of itself. Volatility obscures the future but does not necessarily determine the future.” – Peter Bernstein August 2024 Commentary
Commentaries 12 Aug 2024 “Time is the friend of the wonderful business, the enemy of the mediocre.”- Warren Buffett July 2024 Commentary
Commentaries 10 Jun 2024 “We now live in a world where information is potentially unlimited. Information is cheap, but meaning is expensive.”- George Dyson, technology historian May 2024 Commentary
Commentaries 10 Mar 2024 “The Federal Reserve cannot solve all the economy’s problems on its own.”- Ben Bernanke February 2024 Commentary
Commentaries 05 Feb 2024 “Living is easy with eyes closed. Misunderstanding all you see.”- from “Strawberry Fields Forever” by The Beatles January 2024 Commentary
Commentaries 06 Nov 2023 “We are bamboozled by biases, fooled by fallacies, entrapped by errors, hoodwinked by heuristics, deluded by illusions.” - Koen Smets, poet October 2023 Commentary
Commentaries 08 Aug 2023 “Quality is never an accident. It is always the result of intelligent effort.” - John Ruskin July 2023 Commentary
Commentaries 06 Jun 2023 “If you’re not aware that you’re not supposed to be able do something, the barriers to doing it are dramatically lessened.” - Sam Zell May 2023 Commentary
Commentaries 03 May 2023 “Over the course of an investing life, stuff is going to happen—both good and bad—that no one saw coming. Instead of playing the guessing game, focus on the opportunities in front of you.” - Chris Mayer April 2023 Commentary
Commentaries 08 Mar 2023 “Experience without theory is blind, but theory without experience is mere intellectual play.”- Immanuel Kant February 2023 Commentary
Commentaries 14 Feb 2023 “The idea that the future is unpredictable is undermined every day by the ease with which the past is explained.”- Daniel Kahneman January 2023 Commentary
Commentaries 12 Dec 2022 "Cause when you worry your face will frown, and that will bring everybody down. Don’t worry, be happy."From a song by Bobby McFerrin November 2022 Commentary
Commentaries 04 Nov 2022 "I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."- Michael Jordan October 2022 Commentary
Commentaries 15 Sep 2022 August 2022 Commentary "Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt." Mark Twain In truth, I’m not a huge baseball fan. But great lessons…
Commentaries 10 Jun 2022 May 2022 Commentary "There is nothing new in Wall Street. There can’t be because speculation is as old as the hills. Whatever happens…
Commentaries 01 May 2022 April 2022 Commentary "Logic is the subject that’s helped me the most in picking stocks, if only because it taught me to identify…
Commentaries 01 Mar 2022 February 2022 Commentary "And the seasons they go round and round, And the painted ponies go up and down, We're captive on the…
Commentaries 16 Feb 2022 January 2022 Commentary “Lions and tigers, and bears, oh my!” Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz It seems appropriate to begin with a…
Commentaries 18 Nov 2021 October 2021 Commentary “Dig deep, own long” Dennis Starritt, Laurus Investment Counsel Because stocks have rebounded so strongly despite the ongoing effects of…
Commentaries 19 Aug 2021 August 2021 Commentary “I think you have to learn that there is a company behind every stock, and that there is only one…
Commentaries 19 Jul 2021 July 2021 Commentary “It's not whether you're right or wrong that's important, but how much money you make when you're right and how…
Commentaries 18 May 2021 May 2021 Commentary “Quality is never an accident; it is always the result of intelligent effort” John Ruskin Last month we briefly discussed…
Commentaries 02 Apr 2021 April 2021 Commentary “Quality Is Job One” Ford Motor Co. Campaign (1981-1998) Market pundits have expounded upon at length that, with an anticipated…
Commentaries 24 Jan 2021 January 2021 Commentary “Tell the Wolf of Wall Street that the pigeons of San Francisco are going to eat his lunch!” Quote from…
Commentaries 30 Nov 2020 The Consensus Value Rotation This month’s comment begins with another excerpt from Howard Marks, suggesting future market returns will be depressed as a result…
Commentaries 15 Nov 2020 November 2020 Commentary “…the low interest rates represent the dominant characteristic of the current financial environment, creating the dominant consideration for investors: the…
Commentaries 31 Oct 2020 Small Cap Allocations In a recent consultant conversation, I wondered why Canadian investors had shied away from small cap strategies over the past…
Commentaries 31 Aug 2020 Specific Market Risk Listening to the “experts” on the TV or, heaven help us, reading their opinions in the newspaper, one might believe…
Commentaries 31 Jul 2020 What’s it worth? True, there are those who don’t really try to answer that question. For example, some momentum strategies have a valuation…
Commentaries 31 May 2020 All things must pass As many of you know, our key message to clients and allocators is that investing begins, and ends, with people…
Commentaries 30 Apr 2020 The Pandemic Lockdown The devastating blow of the pandemic lockdown continues to unfold on the global economy, causing a near-stop to travel, migration,…
Commentaries 29 Feb 2020 Goodhart’s Law Our February comment was released following a difficult final ten days of the month - not that it relates to…
Commentaries 31 Jan 2020 Appealing to Interests This month our CIO, Linda Lebrun, outlines why we believe management ownership of corporate stock best aligns them with shareholders.…
Commentaries 30 Nov 2019 The Narrative This month we speak to the narratives that pervade the investment ecosystem. Skimming through Damodaran’s “tribes” (storytellers and number crunchers)…
Commentaries 31 Oct 2019 Oils Not Well In a stunning announcement November 1st, Pengrowth Energy Corp. announced its sale to Cona Resources Ltd. for five cents a…
Commentaries 31 Aug 2019 Time to Slow Down The four most dangerous words in investing are “this time it’s different” according to John Templeton. At stock market tops,…
Commentaries 31 Jul 2019 Dear Prudence The CFA standard notes “Members and Candidates have a duty of loyalty to their clients and must act with reasonable…
Commentaries 31 May 2019 Understanding Embedded Risk Over the past few years the Canadian investment industry has hollowed out, with far too many independent investment firms being…
Commentaries 30 Apr 2019 Unpredictable Risk In an interview last week, the great Charlie Munger said “more damage to the world comes from the cognitive glitches…
Commentaries 28 Feb 2019 The Small Cap Bias Accepting that investing is really hard, true investing – which we define as the allocation of capital to either entrepreneurs…
Commentaries 31 Jan 2019 The Decline of the Canadian Empire “In the business world, the rearview mirror is always clearer than the windshield.” Warren Buffett With the recent acquisitions of…
Commentaries 30 Nov 2018 Snakes & Ladders “Let others believe markets can never be beat. Abstention on the part of those who won’t venture in creates opportunities…
Commentaries 31 Oct 2018 If We tend to believe October was a revaluation exercise; simply put, as interest rates rise so do discount rates reducing…
Commentaries 31 Aug 2018 Late Cycle Bull Markets While the equity investing landscape has admittedly turned more volatile in the past six months, we continue to believe most…
Commentaries 31 Jul 2018 The Head and the Heart We have contended for some time that clients are best served owning small cap investments equally proportionate to traditional large…
Commentaries 31 May 2018 Refining Knowledge What investment style will be best suited to markets where returns are limited? This month we suggest that business culture…
Commentaries 30 Apr 2018 Skew This months comment is a continuation of our series on future equity returns. There have been a number of articles…
Commentaries 28 Feb 2018 Rethinking Asset Allocation This month our comment looks toward the next couple of decades, contending that current market returns combined with a reversal…
Commentaries 31 Jan 2018 Measuring Quality Made famous by Benjamin Graham back in the 1930s (who postulated that one’s loss would be greater buying a low…
Commentaries 30 Nov 2017 Why Capital Allocation Matters As we noted in our last commentary, the intrinsic value of any investment rests on the free cash flow the…
Commentaries 31 Oct 2017 Buying a Castle Over our past few monthly commentaries, we’ve discussed investments using Game of Thrones metaphors: castles (the company), moats (competitive advantage),…
Commentaries 15 Aug 2017 In Management We Trust In our commentary last month, we introduced the concept of moats and knights - companies with defendable, competitive moats and…
Commentaries 15 Jul 2017 Moats and Knights With the highly acclaimed television series “Game of Thrones” beginning their seventh season in July, we are reminded of the…
Commentaries 15 May 2017 Artificial Intelligence It’s hard to fathom that Y2K was seventeen years ago. Remember the widespread fear that technology would collapse around us…
Commentaries 15 Apr 2017 Evidence-based Investing The new issue of Research magazine is now available and its theme is evidence-based investing. The issue included a great…
Commentaries 15 Feb 2017 Cash is King If you were investing your own money, what type of investor would you be? Are you the conservative type –…
Commentaries 15 Jan 2017 So Sayeth Charlie Ellis I’ve always been a fan of Charley Ellis. He has constantly challenged our industry to be better, criticizing the inability…
Commentaries 15 Oct 2016 Active vs. Passive Investing A great deal has been written and discussed about the move toward passive investment. A recent Bloomberg article written by…
Commentaries 15 Aug 2016 High Quality Businesses “In money management what sells is the illusion of certainty.” ...John Hempton There has been a great deal of chatter…
Commentaries 15 Jul 2016 The Dreamy Business “In Ajit, we have an underwriter equipped with the intelligence to properly rate most risks; the realism to forget about…
Commentaries 15 May 2016 Luck vs. Skill “Most of the annual variation in [investment] performance is due to luck, not skill.” ...Bradford Cornell, California Institute of Technology…
Commentaries 15 Apr 2016 “Chicks Dig the Long Ball” “Chicks dig the long ball” ...Greg Maddux, 1998 Nike commercial In a recent call with investors, Byron Wien, chief strategist…
Commentaries 15 Mar 2016 Price Stability “A turkey is fed for a thousand days by a butcher; every day confirms to its staff of analysts that…
Commentaries 15 Feb 2016 The Fishing Lure “Don't gamble; take all your savings and buy some good stock and hold it till it goes up, then sell…
Commentaries 15 Jan 2016 Bias Blindness “The investor’s chief problem and even his worst enemy is likely to be himself.” ...Benjamin Graham There’s an old saw…
Commentaries 15 Nov 2015 Fundamental Investment “There are two different types of people in the world, those who want to know, and those who want to…
Commentaries 15 Oct 2015 Re-thinking Home Country Bias “The thing I find most interesting about investing is how paradoxical it is: how often the things that seem most…
Commentaries 15 Aug 2015 Taking the Long View “Far more money has been lost by investors preparing for corrections, or trying to anticipate corrections, than has been lost…
Commentaries 15 Jul 2015 Investor vs. Speculator “The speculator’s primary interest lies in anticipating and profiting from market fluctuations. The investor’s primary interest lies in acquiring and…
Commentaries 15 May 2015 Porter’s Five Forces “In business, I look for economic castles protected by unbreachable moats.” -- Warren Buffett Webster’s dictionary defines a moat as…
Commentaries 15 Apr 2015 Evaluating Outcomes “[…] more thoughtful decision-making will lead to better overall results, and more thoughtful decision-making can be encouraged by evaluating decisions…
Commentaries 15 Feb 2015 Thinking Short Term We couldn’t help smiling at the recent Dilbert cartoon, especially given this past month’s 7.2% return. Scott Adams’ sardonic humour…
Commentaries 15 Jan 2015 The Fat Pitch “Confronted with the challenge to distil the secret of sound investment into three words, we venture the motto, Margin of…
Commentaries 15 Nov 2014 Oil’s Not Well “Successful investing is anticipating the anticipations of others...” -- John Maynard Keynes Unless you’ve spent the last number of weeks…
Commentaries 15 Oct 2014 Volatility and Risk Are Different “The four most dangerous words in investing are: 'this time it's different.'” -- Sir John Templeton In his book “The…
Commentaries 15 Aug 2014 Waiting for Godot? “Far more money has been lost by investors preparing for corrections, or trying to anticipate corrections, than has been lost…
Commentaries 15 Jul 2014 The Road Less Travelled “The world of finance hails the invention of the wheel over and over again, often in a slightly more unstable…
Commentaries 15 Jun 2014 Introduction to Laurus “I believe that to have a great company you have to make two things great – the culture and the…
