We wanted to give you and our community partners an update on what we are doing to protect you and your portfolio.
Communication - We want to do our part to help keep our community, our clients and our team healthy
- We’re here for you – We are fortunate to have a private office, with very low traffic, where we can directly control the cleanliness of our environment. This allows us to practice social distancing at work and allow us to be accessible to our clients through these tough times. We also have the ability to work remotely, so that we can take care of our family as well as our clients.
- Staying connected - We believe trust is built and maintained through face to face meetings, but for the time being, we have decided to leverage technology and move to email, teleconferencing and WebEx meetings to keep you informed.
Your Portfolio – Protecting your wealth has always been a high priority for us. Here are some examples of strategies we’ve put in place:
- World Class Portfolio Specialists – We’ve employed some of the best portfolio specialist teams from around the globe to monitor your portfolio every day and adjust positions when needed. They have the resources to continue to provide best in class research and analytics from their home. For example, they are still meeting with the management teams of the companies their investing in, but through video conferencing.
- Currency Gains – History has shown that in times of market uncertainty, the US dollar (USD) appreciates compared to the Canadian dollar (CAD). This is a good thing, as the majority of the portfolio’s global stocks are priced in USD, and therefore experienced a gain in CAD terms.
- Fixed Income – High grade bonds and other fixed income investments in the portfolio have had gains to offset some of the stock declines.
- Automatic Rebalancing – Last year, as stocks were rising, we were taking profits and adding it to the bond portion of the portfolio. This capitalized on some gains and kept the risk profile intact. This has helped tremendously to reduce the impact of the stock market decline. On the flip side, we are now taking profits on the bond side and investing in stocks while they are at a discount. Don’t worry, we are not taking any big bets, we are doing this systematically in small amounts.
What can you do to help?
- Stay healthy physically, mentally and emotionally
- Take the time for you - We live in a city with lots of outdoor space that allows you to keep socially distant while gaining the benefits of fresh air, sun and exercise.
- Practice social distancing – The faster we can flatten the curve, the faster the economy can get back on track.
- Control what you can control – We can’t control the market’s reaction to COVID-19, but we can control what we do with our time. As humans, we tend to divert twice as much emotional and mental energy to negative news than to positive news. This is elevated during uncertain times, especially with 24/7 media coverage. It’s important to keep up to date but it’s equally important to take breaks from the continuous media noise and spend time on you and your loved ones.
- Patience – We believe trying to time the market is a fool’s game. When markets recover, they will recover a good portion quickly and there will be no time to react if you’re not already invested. See the chart below to show how missing some of the best recovery days can negatively impact your portfolio long term.
