News & Commentary

Market & Economic Environment:  North American indices added to gains in June to cap their best quarterly performance in decades. The TSX Composite advanced 2.1% last month to bring its second-quarter gain to 16%, its strongest quarterly performance since 2009. Gains on the TSX were led by the Information Technology group, which rose 13.5% in […]

2020 has been an interesting year to say the least. Sometimes it takes a pandemic to force us to prioritize what is most important. This life event has brought to the forefront the reality of our mortality: hopefully a reality we will not face for many years. While death is certainly not a popular dinner […]

Back in 1930, Canadian economist Harold Innis used the Biblical phrase “hewers of wood and drawers of water” to describe the Canadian economy’s traditional economic dependence on resource production. That skewed impression of the Canadian economy lingers to this day, despite the services sector employing more than 80% of working Canadians, while less than 20% […]

On June 24, Fitch Ratings cut Canada’s AAA credit rating1 by one notch to AA+, saying the downgrade reflected “the deterioration of Canada’s public finances in 2020 resulting from the coronavirus pandemic.” Is this the harbinger of more rating cuts, and what impact will this downgrade have on your finances? Click here to read rest […]

The U.S. Federal Reserve (the “Fed”), the most influential and powerful central bank in the world, was instrumental in helping the equity market find a floor on March 23. The Fed’s actions announced on that date contributed to the about-turn in investor sentiment that enabled markets to stage a historic rebound in ensuing weeks. However, […]

The ferocity of the “Coronavirus Correction” has been matched by the velocity of the subsequent rebound, bringing the markets full circle in record time of just about 16 weeks. What comes next?On June 8, the S&P 500 briefly turned positive for the year (Figure 1), no mean feat considering it was down as much as […]