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What We're Reading
Update on the Russia/Ukraine Situation
Drummond Brodeur, CFA February 2022 The Russia/Ukraine situation remains fluid and will likely continue to deteriorate with a series of escalatingactions from Russia matched by sanctions from the west. This will continue to dominate headlines and bea driver of market volatility in the coming days and weeks and we are monitoring the unfolding situation.But for…
Read MorePausing at the Peaks
By Drummond Brodeur This year’s second quarter represented the peak of just about everything. A year ago, we were in the epicenterof pandemic-driven lockdowns. This year, Q2 encompassed the reopening and relaxation of restrictions acrossmost developed economies. As a result, economic data comparisons will be lapping the weakest data withrapid improvements.
Read MoreA New Season – What Opportunities are Driving Renewed Investor Optimism?
March 2021 Alfred Lam, CFA, Senior Vice-President and Chief Investment Officer and Marchello Holditch, CFA, CAIA, Vice-President and Portfolio Manager, CI GAM | Multi-Asset Management Spring has sprung! While this spring may not have the usual fever, the potential for a normal summer or fall is improving as over 300 million vaccine doses have been…
Read MoreBubble, But for How Long?
January 2021 Alfred Lam, CFA, Senior Vice-President and Chief Investment Officer and Marchello Holditch, CFA, CAIA, Vice-President and Portfolio ManagerCI GAM | Multi-Asset Management Without a doubt, 2020 was a “loss” year. Individually, we lost the ability to live our normal way of life. Globally, currencies lost their purchasing power as central banks added US$9…
Read MoreTurning the Corner
November 2020 Alfred Lam, CFA, Senior Vice-President and Chief Investment OfficerMarchello Holditch, CFA, CAIA, Vice-President and Portfolio ManagerCI Multi-Asset Management Christmas is almost upon us, which means we will soon close the book on 2020. It was a tough year for everyone as the COVID-19 pandemic drastically changed our lifestyles. Thankfully, humans are creative and…
Read MoreWhere Do We Go From Here?
September 2020 Alfred Lam, CFA, Senior Vice-President and Chief Investment Officer and Marchello Holditch, CFA, Vice-President and Portfolio Manager CI Multi-Asset Management The last few months have been one of the most unusual periods in memory regardless of your age. Many sectors within the global economy shut down and the impact has been even more…
Read MoreAll That Glitters is Not Gold
August 2020 By Alfred Lam, CFA, Senior Vice-President and Chief Investment Officer and Marchello Holditch, CFA, Vice-President and Portfolio Manager CI Multi-Asset Management The price of gold has rallied this year from US$1,517 an ounce at the start of the year to US$1,975 as of July 31. What was the driver behind this recent surge?…
Read MoreBeware the Ides of March
April 2020 By Alfred Lam, CFA, Senior Vice-President and Chief Investment Officer and Marchello Holditch, CFA, Vice-President and Portfolio Manager CI Multi-Asset Management Much like the soothsayer in William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, governments warned individuals in the middle of March to stay home. Social distancing measures have undoubtably reduced the spread of COVID-19 and saved…
Read MoreSignature Commentary: Coronavirus update
By Gorlen Zhou, Director of Research, CI Global Holdings AsiaFebruary 3, 2020 The 2020 Chinese New Year holiday in Hong Kong is quieter than usual. Chinese restaurants are usually fully booked during the holiday season, but most of them are half empty nowadays. Even though there are only 15 identified cases of the coronavirus in…
Read MoreIs it time for a revival of the value style?
By Alfred Lam, CFA, Senior Vice-President and Chief Investment Officer and Marchello Holditch, CFA, Vice-President and Portfolio Manager CI Multi-Asset Management I’ve written in the past about an extreme divergence between the performance of value and growth styles of investing. In brief, value style investing is the selection of securities that are underpriced or undervalued…
Read MoreWinter is Coming: The Geopolitical Recession Begins Now
By Drummond Brodeur I expect to see a significant global economic slowdown in the next 12 months, with a high chance of a recession around this time next year. I’m not concerned whether we see back-to-back negative quarters; a recession is defined as a significant slowdown in aggregate demand, which is highly likely in the…
Read MoreTrade War: What is it Good For?
By Alfred Lam, CFA, Senior Vice-President and Chief Investment Officer and Marchello Holditch, CFA, Vice-President and Portfolio Manager, CI Multi-Asset Management At the beginning of the year, an escalating trade war between the U.S. and China was noted as a risk to our outlook, which was that global economic growth is likely to remain positive…
Read MoreThe Power of Zeros
By Alfred Lam, CFA, Senior Vice-President and Chief Investment OfficerMarchello Holditch, CFA, Vice-President and Portfolio Manager CI Multi-Asset Management It has been 10 years since stock markets bottomed in 2008-09 following the financial turmoil caused by excessive leverage. Since then, many central banks globally have reduced interest rates to zero and collectively injected over US$10…
Read MoreSeizing opportunities
By Alfred Lam, CFA, Senior Vice-President and Chief Investment OfficerMarchello Holditch, CFA, Vice-President, CI Multi-Asset Management Over the first quarter of 2019, global economies continued to slow, Brexit and U.S.-China trade remained uncertain, but the key theme was the pivot in U.S. Federal Reserve policy. Expectations went from rate hike to rate cut within a…
Read MoreThe Fed is the new macro
By Alfred Lam, CFA, Senior Vice-President and Chief Investment OfficerMarchello Holditch, CFA, Vice-President, CI Multi-Asset Management Stock markets have rallied significantly and consistently since 2009 when central banks cut interest rates to zero and increased the money supply through quantitative easing (QE) programs. Ten years later, these measures are largely still in place. Even though…
Read MoreThis is what it sounds like when doves cry
By Alfred Lam, CFA, Senior Vice-President and Chief Investment Officer andMarchello Holditch, CFA, Vice-President Markets roared back in January from December’s steep sell-off. The S&P/TSX Composite Index was up 8.7% – it’s best month in a decade. In the U.S., the S&P 500 Index had its best January performance in over 30 years. International equities…
Read MoreHow did investors do in 2018?
By Alfred Lam, CFA During any extended stock market rally, a curious thing tends to occur: several close acquaintances – who aren’t professional investors – enjoy offering me their unsolicited advice on how to make money. But when markets fall, the same group often panics, demanding to know what they should do. This mixed bag…
Read MoreIs it time to cue the raven? Nevermore?
The time has come for the annual rite of forecasting. What will 2019 bring? If you believe the stock market, the time has come to price inan economic slowdown. Whether or not what evolves is a “slow patch” or a full recession is up to the Federal Reserve Bank (Fed) in the United States.
Read MoreThe Signature Position: Latest Equity Market Sell-off
By Jean-Philippe Bry, October 12, 2018 To quote the market’s most stable genius in chief, Donald Trump, a stock market correction was overdue. A correction was something we have been anticipating, and highlighted as recently as early October at our conference in Scottsdale, Arizona. The premise is that as rates normalize at higher levels, volatility…
Read MoreAre We Witnessing the End of the Unbridled Globalization Era?
By Eric Bushell After living through a year of confrontational statements from President Trump, I can understand why investors have tuned out from the daily Washington beat. It paid well to consider it all a distraction in 2017. That is no longer the case. With the loss of centrists from positions of power in the…
Read MoreMarket Commentary on The Return of Volatility
The latest sell-off marks the first substantial increase in volatility after a lengthy period of relatively quiet markets. While it may be disconcerting for many, it’s critical to understand the background and context – what’s driving global markets – and what this means for our (we’re invested alongside you) investments going forward. The key advice:…
Read Morevolatility has returned
In February 2018, stock markets experienced more volatility in one month than in all of 2017. Last year, the maximum drawdown of the S&P 500 Index was -2.8%, meaning that any investor who bought at the top of the market and sold at the bottom would have lost 2.8%. In February, the maximum drawdown was…
Read MoreThe Importance of Risk management in a late investment cycle
We had another solid year in 2017. Equity markets were very generous; fixed income – not so much. The U.S. dollar depreciated significantly against the Canadian dollar and cut into U.S. market gains experienced by Canadian investors. Our decision to invest more in foreign markets and hedge a portion of foreign currencies added value. In terms…
Read MoreMarket Commentary on U.S. Election
Last night’s election results remind me of the1971 Monty Python album “And Now for Something Completely Different.” Donald Trump is president-elect of the United States. The good news is that we have a clear winner with a clear mandate to “Make America Great Again.” Trump is the polar opposite candidate to President Obama. His election…
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