March 31 Newsletter to Clients

Alphabet Is Worth Far More than its Stock Price

Last month, Alphabet (formerly Google) hosted an event in Paris to show off its new artificial intelligence chatbot, Bard. The event came one day after Microsoft made a similar presentation of its own AI technology. The market was not impressed and shares dropped over 7%, closing at $100/share. Some had higher hopes that Alphabet’s AI […]

Is the Collapse of Silicon Valley Bank a Repeat of 1907 or 2008?

Last week, the U.S.’s sixteenth largest bank, Silicon Valley Bank (“SVB”), collapsed. Following Washington Mutual in 2008, SVB is now the second largest bank failure in U.S. history. As its name implies, SVB was highly concentrated to the technology sector. In fact, some estimate that half of all venture capital dollars flowed through SVB over […]

Nordstrom, We Hardly Knew Ye

Back in 2015, we all read the announcement that Target made the fatal decision to close its Canadian operations. At the time, that meant shutting down 133 stores and laying off 17,000 people. Three years later in 2018, Sears Canada closed its doors, eliminating 12,000 jobs. In 2022, Lowe’s sold its Canadian operations, including Rona, […]

2023 Has Been a Rocky Road So Far

While we are only two months into the year, the market has exhibited heightened volatility. In fact, the S&P 500 has moved more than plus or minus one percent in 46% of the trading days so far this year. This compares to 24% of the days since 1930 that posted a daily return which exceeded […]

Blog: Only Fools Rush In

“Only fools rush in” is a great lyric from the King of Rock, Elvis Presley, and also happens to be wise words for investors like us to live by. Many years ago, while I was still a young student studying law, I owned shares of Suncor. Take my word for it that as a student, […]

January Newsletter to Clients

We’re Fighting the Fed

We’ve written before that stocks predict the future. However, the bond market has much better accuracy. On Wednesday, the U.S. Federal Reserve increased interest rates yet again in its effort to combat inflation. After this week’s 25 basis point hike, the Federal Funds Rate now ranges from 4.50% to 4.75%. Usually, however, the yield on […]

After this Stock with a 6.5% Dividend Yield Lost 8% in December, We Bought It

Someone once told me, “there’s more than one way to get to heaven.” Not looking to have a religious discussion, he meant that there are people who focus on the charts, others trade momentum stocks, and some prefer to buy great companies. That is not an exhaustive list, but it’s what makes a market: a […]

Banking on the Past & Why We Bought Canadian Western Bank

Investors that pay close attention to historical market trends note that the strategy to purchase the prior year’s worst-performing Canadian bank stock relative to its four domestic peers has accompanied an impressive track record of growth over time. (Note that we are only looking at RBC, TD, BMO, Scotia, and CIBC here). Consider the following […]