Everyone seems to be predicting an imminent market crash, should we be concerned? There is also going to be a tornado, hurricane, and blizzard one day, someplace on earth. The markets will crash one day but for reasons most people do not expect which no one can accurately time. As recently as this past April, markets dropped 20% on the “Tariff Tantrum” fears. Markets quickly rebounded, recovered, and appreciated to much higher levels. Many thought this was going to be 2008 all over again, they panicked, sold and are now sorry for it. Those that reacted either remain in cash today or had to buy back at higher levels. We analyzed the situation, saw it as an opportunity to add to great positions on sale, we locked in low prices and high yields clients can enjoy forever.

It’s July, which means we are halfway through 2025 already. It also means we are halfway through the decade. Think about this for a minute. We are now closer to 2050 than to the year 2000, which seems like it was just yesterday. I’d like to recap performance for the year, as well as assess our most impactful recommendations, and non-recommendations, since the beginning of this decade that started January 2020.

Saturday, May 3, marked Warren Buffett’s final shareholder meeting as CEO of Berkshire Hathaway. After 60 years of investment brilliance, Warren Buffett announced his retirement. He is passing the baton to Greg Abel (a proud Canadian, former hockey player, current coach, hockey dad and an expert in capital allocation, energy, and utilities). Big shoes to fill, but Berkshire is in great shape. With over $300 billion in cash ready to deploy and Abel is well suited to replace the greatest investor the world has ever known. I first recommended the stock and have been a shareholder since 1992 when we bought our first shares for “just” $12,000 each.

It has been a busy month. In response to Trump’s tariffs, U.S. markets experienced the 5th worst sell-off since 1950 on Thursday, April 3rd and Friday, April 4th. Going into the weekend and the coming week, markets went into full panic mode. That weekend we reviewed all our client accounts. Though not immune to volatility and chaos, I have been more than pleased with how well portfolios have withstood the onslaught of bad news, as expected, because this is what we prepare for.

Investment highlight, South Bow Corporation (SoBo); A high quality Canadian oil pipeline with US denominated earnings and 7.5% dividend yield. Our, when “the market throws you lemons, then make lemonade” investment. We like SoBo because it has a “mote” that protects it from and may benefit from tariffs. The market agrees with us as, SoBo shares have “appreciated” while the rest of the market was in Trump dump panic mode. SoBo is unique because they ship Canadian “heavy crude” oil that cannot be easily replaced with US domestic “light sweet” crude. The US needs what SoBo ships and cannot easily be produced domestically which provides some degree of protection from tariffs.

2024 was a banner year for the markets, and I am pleased to provide your 2024, year-end Wealth tracks & Income tracks reports. With only a month into 2025 and I’ve lost track of things to worry about. There is always something to worry about. When there isn’t something to worry about, that’s the time to worry.

Is it just me or is this Deja vu all over again? Think back 25 years to 1999. The political world was transfixed on the Bill Clinton impeachment trial, the internet was coming into its own, ‘dotcom’ stocks were the rage, and everyone was worrying that the world would end at the stroke of midnight with Y2K. 1999 and 2024 share similar fears of political turmoil, potential for a global crisis and from a market perspective, the ‘dotcom’ hype of 1999 was very similar to the AI hype today.

The surprise attack by Hamas on Israel is certain to dictate market reaction more than anything else. With such a harrowing deeply human story, data and economics are often out of date within hours. With that as a back drop, I will do my best to put things into perspective.

We better stand up and pay close attention because Bloomberg, CNBC and Jeff Bezos himself are about as credible and knowledgeable as anyone with a pulse on the economy. One minor detail I left out was the date of both headlines. The Bloomberg headline was from one year ago, July 2022 and the CNBC story was from November 2022. Time will tell but the timing perfectly matched what many observers are now calling the market bottom and the beginning of a new bull market.

If something is predictable, is it preventable? This is a continuation of a few themes I’ve been talking and writing about since the start of the Covid saga. History has shown that attempting to make predictions is futile, especially to avoid risk. As it relates to finance, risk can be systematic or unsystematic.

With 2022 now in the books, this year has gone down as one of the worst years on record for the bond market and a very rough year for the stock market. Low interest rates were a tailwind until about March, then turned into a headwind or even hurricane for certain assets. No way to sugar coat it, 2022 was ugly across the board.

Rebound they did. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 13.95% for the month of October, which is its 13th best month ever and the best month in 45 years! Who saw that coming?

It doesn’t take a genius to point out all the bad stuff going on in the world. The stock market isn’t the economy, but it can explain why the S&P500 is down 9.2% in September and down 25% in 2022 so far. Even safe haven bonds are having one of the worst years on record.

One of the unexpected financial consequences of Covid was a housing bubble, not anymore.

You may be wondering, why is bad news good news and good news bad news? Good news like higher growth could lead to higher interest rates and markets are worried about anything that could lead to higher rates, but are relieved with any news that leads to lower rates.

There is an old saying, “you make money during Bull markets but earn it during Bear markets”. Bear markets are defined as a market drop in excess of 20%; they aren’t much fun, but can be profitable and in this note I am going to explain how.

“It’s an extraordinary moment; we have our first pandemic in 100 years. We have our first invasion in Europe in 75 years. And we have our first inflation around the world in 40 years." - Notes from Morgan Stanley analyst Ted Pick

No place to hide from market volatility, or is there? Stock and bond markets are down a record amount so far in 2022 but our Income Accelerator has held up nicely.

Last week we experienced an “inverted yield curve” and many market prognosticators have been talking about this as forecasting a recession. What does that mean?

For the month of January, the tech heavy NASDAQ was down 19% peak to trough while the S&P500 finished down 5% to start off the year. This may be the start of the hangover after the low interest rate party appears to have ended and has provided a wakeup call to the markets.

Is the stock market (S&P 500) considered over-valued after providing a 26.9% return in 2021 and can this last?

At the end of November, news of a COVID-19 variant was identified in South Africa, and the announcement of new travel restrictions sent markets reeling. I think it’s safe to assume this is not the last variant to be expected.

Inflation has been a hot topic for months and expect it to get hotter. The crown corporation that sets the price that dairy farmers get for their milk is recommending an increase of 8.4% starting in February, to make up for big jumps in the cost of feed, fuel and equipment.

The earliest Thanksgiving celebration was held in 1578 by European explorers to give thanks for the safety of their fleet and a bountiful harvest.

I hope you are enjoying this weather and getting out now that things have started to opened up. Let us know if you discover any patios or other hidden gems we should visit because before we know it, there will be snow on the ground…I can’t believe its September already, where did the summer go?

We are half way through summer and hopefully also over the pandemic hump as well. The stock market and real estate market are at all-time highs predicting a full economic recovery while lower yields in the bond market are telling us maybe the recovery and a return to normal is “on pause” for now.

When the scientists said “15 days to slow the spread,” some of us actually believed that by Easter 2020 the shutdowns would end. It’s gone past Easter 2020, and Easter 2021 with many areas still locked down, a full year, and several trillions in government spending later.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

To many it was unimaginable that 2020 would turn out to be anything but a disaster but here we are with less than a month to go and we are on track to do better than a 9.9% rebound with the potential for a pretty good year.

It's natural to be concerned about the recent global developments. I want to share some perspective on the current market volatility.

Recall one year ago markets went into a tailspin during the second half of the year. Everything was near the bottom on December 28th, 2018, with U.S. markets dropping almost 19% and Canada down almost 16% by year-end. That got 2019 started on a very low base during a year dominated by plenty of dramatic newsworthy events, such as US/Canada/Mexico/China on and off trade issues, Brexit, a Canadian federal election and the impeachment proceedings of a U.S. president! There was lots to worry about, but other than a few speed bumps along the way 2019 turned out to be a great year to be an investor.

When I think of fall, two things come to mind; the beginning of football season and time to go back to school. As a lifelong Lion’s fan, in September at least, there is still hope. And I may no longer be starting a new school year, but I am still eager to learn and share my insights with friends, colleagues and clients. This past October I was very pleased to be one of 130 investment managers from around the world invited to attend the 2018 Walter Scott Investment Conference, held in Edinburgh Scotland. In this letter I would like to share a few of the insights gleaned from the event.

2015 gave us lots to worry about and is now behind us. Barely a few weeks into the new year and we’ve already had our fair share of bad news. Mid-January capped off one of the worst weeks that the equity markets have ever seen, and the worst start to a year, ever.

Volatility over the past few months has certainly been gut-wrenching. In August, stock markets around the world more or less crashed. After churning in a choppy and violent trading range for most of September, stocks swooned to new lows on October 4, only to reverse course sharply in the final half hour of trading. Nine days later, the S&P 500 rallied 14%, a record month with a backdrop predominated with bad news.