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If there were an Olympic Games for the equity markets, Team USA would be dominating this year’s medal count. While nearly every major global index has rebounded since the late-2018 selloff, few markets have rallied like those in the U.S. The following chart shows the relative performance of the S&P 500 compared to the rest […]
If you know what the FANG stocks are, then you’re probably aware that over the last few years the markets have been especially kind to technology companies with outsized growth prospects. Just the fact that a subset of these companies have their own acronym demonstrates how popular it has become to invest in high-growth companies. […]
The U.S. housing market had been rising steadily after bottoming in 2010; however, recent data suggest that it has hit a soft patch. This weakness has us wondering whether this is just a temporary pause or whether the economic backdrop is still supportive of continued growth in U.S. housing. As the next chart shows, both […]
Last year wasn’t a great year for investors. In Canada, the S&P/TSX Composite Index was down 11%, with the energy sector responsible for more than one-third of that decline, thanks to lower oil prices. However, it wasn’t all bad news for Canadians when it came to lower oil prices. The energy industry is such a […]
The market selloff in December caused a lot of people to get really bearish really quickly. The following chart, from Google Trends, shows that searches for “recession” hit a five-year high last month. And it’s not just the average Google user who is increasingly worried about an economic downturn: a recent survey of U.S. CFOs found […]
The Bank of Canada has increased its key policy interest rate five times over the last year-and-a-half. This represents the largest sustained increase of the rate in almost 13 years. Over these 13 years, Canadians responded to the downward trend in rates by increasing their borrowing (rationally, some would say). Mortgages, which account for 70% of all […]
October was… well it was something. For the second time this year, global equity markets had a substantial selloff. Also for the second time this year, the financial media tried to one-up each other with inflammatory headlines: Source: Business Insider, CNBC, ABC News, CNN, news.com.au, The Chronicle Herald Taking a step back from the bearish headlines, the […]
What’s better for the environment: driving or biking? We’re going to assume that you chose biking. Your analysis probably went something like this: cars burn gasoline and emit exhaust. And gasoline is produced by oil companies who turn pristine pockets of nature into industrial sites. Bicycles, on the other hand, are much simpler. You just […]
Thinking about share buybacks can make your head hurt. The act of a company buying its own shares can resemble art created by M.C. Escher. Because of this, there are misconceptions about what buybacks actually accomplish. Do they slow economic growth? Do they inflate share prices? Are they some form of evil financial engineering? Before we […]
People have a hard time sitting still. “All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone,” said Blaise Pascal. Perhaps this has never been more evident than the present day: the next time you see someone sitting alone, observe how long it takes before a cellphone is pulled out […]
