Insights

At the beginning of every year, market pundits make predictions about where the S&P 500 and the TSX indices will end up based on how they see the economy and corporate earnings developing. And then a surprise (or ten) comes along. That is just the reality...

Following a challenging 2022, when stock and bond markets saw notable declines, much of the damage was repaired in the first seven months of 2023. By the end of July, the S&P 500 Index was up nearly 20%, thanks to significant gains among some of its technology...

It has been a rather extraordinary six months in the stock market thus far in 2023. It is not the absolute returns represented by the stock market indices that has been most unusual, it is how concentrated those gains were, particularly in the US. The...

The first quarter of 2023 had a few notable causes for concern. There was the collapse of two sizable banks (Silicon Valley Bank and Credit Suisse), two more rate hikes by the US central bank, the ongoing Russian-Ukraine war, and elevated US-China tensions...

With the recent events regarding Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), some investors may have questions about what happened and what it means for financial markets. To help answer some of those questions, and to understand how SVB’s predicament was unique relative...

January 17, 2023 For investors that own a mix of equities and bonds, 2022 was a challenging year in the financial markets. While most people are accustomed to the occasional stock market downturn, the fixed income component of their portfolio usually...

October 4, 2022 If one only looked at the returns on the major stock market indices for the third quarter (the TSX was -2.2% and the S&P 500 was –5.3%), one might think it was a relatively uneventful three months. Quite the contrary. Stocks staged an...

July 6, 2022 The turbulence experienced by financial markets in the first three months of the year continued in the second quarter, with the S&P 500 falling 16%. The TSX, which had posted decent returns in the first quarter thanks to a 27% gain in the...

April 5, 2022 Financial markets faced several headwinds in the first quarter of 2022. In fact, for most investors it was the most challenging quarter since the first three months of 2020, when the onset of the pandemic caused stocks to slump. This time...