Many families struggle with conversations about money. When this includes potentially large inheritances, it can be very difficult knowing when to begin these discussions with the next generation. Do they have the skills to manage large amounts of capital? How will you help them understand this is more about passing on a legacy than money?…

A well-known adage is that risk and reward go hand in hand. To increase your potential upside, you must be willing to withstand increasing levels of uncertainty as to whether that upside will be achieved. The prospect of becoming a famous actor in Hollywood sounds enticing, until you realize that there are very few leading…

Machine learning and artificial intelligence have seen a precipitous rise in popularity and noteworthiness over the past few decades, and with increasing vigor over the past few years. It seems like everyone and their dog is doing machine learning to solve some sort of problem. This herculean rise in popularity can be quantified by the…

Just over a year ago, we wrote about a behavioural bias called the “freak-out” effect where sharp market downturns cause investors to “panic sell.” The authors of the paper studying the freak-out effect found that of the investors who engaged in panic-selling behaviour, 30.9% of these investors never reinvested in risk assets (i.e., the stock…

Guest Author: TC Carling, President, Canadian Men’s Health Foundation The Canadian Men’s Health Foundation (CMHF) is a national, registered charity providing information, tools, and motivation for men and their families to live healthier. Canadian men are dying at an alarming rate from chronic illness and leaving their loved ones behind. Yet, 70 percent of men’s health problems are preventable by…

The concept of alpha is the bedrock of financial markets. Without getting into the nuances of the active versus passive debate, investment managers aim to provide alpha to investors for which they charge a fee for their services. At its core, alpha is generally defined as excess return relative to a benchmark. The excess return can come from…

Back in February, I wrote an article called FOMC Gymnastics and a Potential Policy Misstep, which explored the likelihood that the FOMC (Federal Open Market Committee) could make a policy misstep that would have negative implications for asset prices. That piece explored five factors which made the current tightening cycle more difficult to interpret:An inflationary spike…