Quarterly Commentary

This is the time of year when prognostications bloom. The reality is that nobody has any idea what will happen in the year ahead.

Despite an extremely tumultuous start to the year that saw a surge in uncertainty as the changing of the guard in the White House threatened long-standing global economic relationships…

This is only our third review since Donald Trump returned to the White House, but it feels much longer than that.

The third quarter of the year was another rewarding one for developed market equity investors, creating excellent year-to-date returns that belie the anxiety spurred by U.S. tariff announcements only six months ago.

Looking back at the last of these reviews, three months old, instead of finding something relevant, it all seems like old hat. Three months ago, we had become used to politics as reality TV, policies pulled from the dustbin of history and waking up…

The US Federal Reserve joined the ranks of the Bank of Canada, European Central Bank, and Bank of England (and central banks for other Developed Markets and a host of Emerging Markets) in September in cutting its policy interest rate.

Equities Following two impressive years of Developed Market (DM) equity performance that was propelled by a cohort of US information technology heavyweights, early 2025 saw a reversal of market leadership. In the US, the S&P 500 Total Return Index fell 4.2% in Canadian dollar…

“I have a foreboding of an America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time — when the United States is a service and information economy…” – Carl Sagan

While it was not a simple matter of smooth sailing on calm seas throughout the last 12 months, the record books will show that 2024 was a historically solid year for global markets in aggregate with the MSCI World Index turning in its best…

“Forecasts may tell you a great deal about the forecaster; they tell you nothing about the future.” – Warren Buffet

The US Federal Reserve joined the ranks of the Bank of Canada, European Central Bank, and Bank of England (and central banks for other Developed Markets and a host of Emerging Markets) in September in cutting its policy interest rate.

When you write reviews with a quarterly cadence, sometimes it’s hard to think of new things to say. Things go up, things go down, things go sideways, or some variant thereof.

After a lengthy upswing over 2023 and early 2024, the complexion of Developed Market (DM) equities during the second quarter was decidedly more mixed.

This quotation has turned out to be prophetic, at least over the past quarter. There wasn’t any point agonizing about geopolitics or how expensive markets were; it was futile worrying about the path of interest rates or infation.

Equity markets are off to a good start this year, with stocks globally continuing to ride the momentum that began in earnest at the end of 2023.

You can never erase your digital footprint. With that in mind, we thought it might be worth revisiting the prognostications of this review at the beginning of 2023.

With it all now said and done, the financial market performance of the last year will hardly garner much attention…

When you write a review with a quarterly cadence, the onus is on you to produce something new, even when the landscape hasn’t changed that much. What has happened, of course, is that time has passed and that we are, therefore, by definition, closer…

The truth is, the house always wins at the casino. In comparison, for financial markets, history shows that the odds favour investors.