Investing | Crawford • Ashwood Financial

It has been a couple of difficult weeks for global markets. Volatility is soaring. The World Health Organization declared COVID-19 as a pandemic on March 11th. It is now spreading quickly across the United States. The selling pressure last week is comparable to some of the worst selloffs in market history: 1929- 1932, 1987 and 2008. At times like these, investors can easily get lost in the headlines. As stewards of your capital, our primary job is to make sense of it all, keep the right perspective and, importantly, avoid big mistakes. Often that means keeping things simple. At present and looking ahead, what…

We have been spending a lot of our time talking to portfolio managers, economists and market strategists with decades of experience, to get a handle on what has been going on in the stock and bond markets. Although we haven’t seen a market sell off due to a pandemic on this scale in our lifetime, there have been lots of other ‘never before seen’ events. Just think back to the 2008 market rout. Lots of folks thought that was the end of making money in markets too. Then, the S&P went up 26% in 2009. Of course, everyone wants to…

The Bull market rolls on. At least that is what we have been hearing from our economists, strategists, and portfolio managers (PMs) on how they are feeling for the coming year. There has been much discussion in our client meetings recently about how their portfolios and the overall markets might be impacted by things like the US Election this fall (will Trump be re-elected?), or the newsworthy impact of the Coronavirus on world markets. The short story from the industry professionals we hear speak regularly is that 2020 should end the year with positive returns, with some increased volatility throughout…

Given the focus on the environment during our recent election, and the ongoing global attention to climate change, I thought this would be a good time to address how the investment community is responding. You may be surprised. Pension and investment managers have always screened for risks before purchasing any company’s stock or bond issues. These risks were typically financial in nature; like how much debt the company has, where they stack up against their competitors, the quality of the company management, and whether there is future growth for their product or service, and ultimately more profit. Increasingly we are…

We wanted to share this short video from one of our favourite investment companies, EdgePoint. The video shares one person’s experience of being invested over the past 10 years, through the ups and down, and why it pays to think “long-term” when investing your hard-earned money. Many of our clients have had a similar road to the character in the video, and we continue to buy these funds for our clients and our own personal portfolios, as we believe in a long-term investment strategy. The take-away is to be patient; and know that both good and bad years don’t last…

Well, here we go again. After nearly a decade of rising markets, with only a few bumps along the way, it seems we are back to more normal market fluctuations. It probably feels worse for many people because we have become used to more positive days, weeks and months. One of the guarantees in investing is that volatile markets will persist. Our job as investors is to ensure we do not act irrationally. Volatility is actually a friend to us as investors. For example, if you were to see that your favourite food at the grocery store was on sale…

2018 was one of very few time periods in investing when investors experienced a one/two hit. You likely received a year-end investment statement reflecting that you experienced some negative returns in your investments over the past year. If you have a non-registered investment account, you may also get a tax slip with a large capital gain showing, which means you may owe more taxes. So why, if your investments lost money over the year, are you having to claim and pay tax on capital gains? First, let me explain how capital gains and losses within a mutual fund work. The…

As a follow up to our last Market Update blog, we wanted to share a short & fun questionnaire from EdgePoint Wealth, testing your potential response to the next market crisis. How will you fare? Click the image below to take you to the full survey on page 2:

We recently attended our national investment conference and met with various investment & market strategists, and some of your Portfolio Managers. There was much talk around the recent market sell-off that we have seen over the past couple of weeks, so we thought this a good time to share a summary of what has been happening, and the feelings moving forward. The recent sell-offs are thought to be linked to the Federal Reserve (Fed) hiking interest rates, which in-turn negatively affected the bond market. This causes uncertainty and emotions have been running high in day-to-day stock traders who think there…

We are moving into a period of uncertainty with mounting tensions over trade wars, and continued surprises via Tweets from the U.S. President. I thought this a good time to share what the effects may be on your investments. 2017 was the year of calm, with little volatility in the markets; surprising – given the almost constant flow of tweets and government chaos south of the border. In fact, business enjoyed lower taxes and improved earnings in the U.S. throughout the year. This was reflected in their stock market. Lesson: the noise and silliness from Trump has largely been ignored…

Category Archives: Investing

Keeping The Right Perspective

Market Volatility Update

Market Update 2020

Are Your Investments Helping or Hurting the Planet?

An Investor’s Journey : A Video

The Rewards of Volatile Times

Capital Gains on Investments

Investor Affirmations

Market Update

Trade Wars and the Tweet Effect