News & Insights
Unveiling Hidden Risks: How Shifts in Stock-Bond Correlations Impact Investment Portfolios
When investors are contemplating how best to achieve their financial goals, the discussion generally centres around the required return needed to meet those goals, along with how much risk an investor is willing to bear. Once those two related topics have been decided, attention then turns to portfolio construction. While one might think this is […]
News & Insights
If It Isn’t Hurting, It Isn’t Working
Having experienced the sharpest rate hike cycle ever seen in the United States, it is shocking to many that the impact has been so limited. Figure 1 shows the incremental monthly increase in the Fed Funds rate from the initiation of rate hikes. (Federal Reserve Economic Data, 2023) This chart shows that the 2022 rate […]
News & Insights
Wanna Bet? How Much?
What is the largest amount of money you would bet on a fair coin flip? I like asking people this question, because the answers I get are often very interesting and very diverse. It gets at the heart of a person’s risk tolerance, as it is a bet with an expected value of 0, given […]
News & Insights
Oranges to Aliens: Divining the Future of the Commodities Complex
Commodities markets are where raw material producers (farmers, miners, etc.) and consumers (grocery stores, bakers, manufacturing facilities, etc.) come together to trade their respective resources amongst one another. Here, the market reflects a relatively pure example of supply and demand dynamics, where changes in the agreed-upon price of transactions is largely driven by alterations in […]
Research Notes
Make Sure the Free Lunch Isn’t Moldy
Speed Read: The concept of diversification has a long history and is often considered “the only free lunch” in investing. The benefits of diversification are well studied in academic literature, but in practice, correlations between traditional assets like stocks and bonds can change, affecting the effectiveness of diversification. The correlation between U.S. stocks and U.S. […]
News & Insights
Weathering the Storm: Navigating Elevated Macroeconomic Uncertainty
Over the past three years, the macroeconomic landscape has been remarkably volatile. A non-exhaustive list of events includes a pandemic, a war in Ukraine, skyrocketing inflation, and a regional banking crisis in the United States. These macroeconomic surprises have translated into heightened volatility in financial markets, and how to allocate capital in an increasingly uncertain […]
News & Insights
We Have a Moral Obligation to Support Canadian Oil & Gas
Please note, none of the information contained in this blog post should be construed as investment advice. The opinions expressed within the content belong solely to the author and do not reflect the opinions and beliefs of Viewpoint or its affiliates. I come from an oil & gas family. After World War II, my engineer […]
News & Insights
Whale Watching in the Financial Seas
As our regular readers might ascertain from prior pieces like FOMC Gymnastics and a Potential Policy Misstep, Walking a Tightrope with the Fed, and Policy Pivots & the Federal Reserve Reaction Function, it has always been important to consider the Federal Reserve (the “Fed”) and actions of its Federal Open Market Committee (the “FOMC”) when […]
News & Insights
Own the Commodity, Not the Company
The question of whether inflation is transitory (or is facing a structural shift higher) continues to dominate the narrative in financial markets. Alarm bells are sounding that a hyperinflationary environment is unavoidable and right around the corner, given that the “base-effects” have rolled off the year-over-year readings while consumer prices have nonetheless remined high. The […]