Happy Friday from BMWM!

North American equities were trading higher into Thursday's close. This comes after three of the four major US indices rose over 1% on Wednesday, along with Canadian equities. December headline and core CPI in the US came in this week in line with consensus, which supports slower pace of Fed rate hikes, although the labour markets remain tight.

Brenda is returning today from our three day Portfolio Management Conference, which featured a range of thought provoking speakers, including analysts, portfolio managers, strategists, and executives. She will be back in the office Monday armed with knowledge and having spent the weekend thinking about how best to put this information to work for our portfolios, as we continue to deal with increasing interest rates, inflation, and a somewhat subdued housing market.

The Current Account (click here to read) features a computer outage that disrupted thousands of U.S. and Canadian flights, Jair Bolsonaro fueling protests in Brazil by questioning the outcome of its election, Canadian Nexus enrolment centres reopening in the spring, and employees working from home foiling their companies’ efforts to keep tabs on them.

Taylor’s word of the week is fortuitous, meaning “happening by accident or by chance”. For example, if you win the lottery twice in a lifetime, that would be considered a series of fortuitous events.