Knowledge Centre

During the first quarter of the year, investor optimism has been freckled with plenty of worries. Still, the world’s financial markets have been buoyant. While a bullish mood can be a self-fulfilling prophecy and lead to continuing gains, the opposite is just as true. Certainly there are numerous harbingers of...

Dramatic twists and turns in politics, economics and finance have turned 2016 on its head. Extreme events have bombarded investors virtually every day of late but thankfully they appear to be isolated occurrences. Still, the potential blight on the global economic and financial markets (i.e. political uncertainty; the steep increases...

The tranquil summer that investors were enjoying came to an abrupt end towards the latter part of the quarter as negative events triggered a brief wake up call and volatility crept back into the picture. While short term news may twist the market's tail, it will be the major fundamental...

Uncertainty has always been the main source of angst for investors and there has been no shortage of that lately. The last few months have been a frenzy of dire predictions and hyperventilated commentary which has caused significant swings in the financial markets. However, at the end of the day,...

The past quarter was another lesson in the benefits of long term investing as the markets were particularly volatile in the course of reflecting the January recessionary scare, to the grudging acceptance that returns might be limited by slower growth, to a flat out bull market surge at the end...

Global economic growth once again disappointed in 2015. This was largely due to the poor perfor- mance of emerging markets which appear to be entering a new and dangerous phase. Developed nations were not immune as they were also subject to wild swings in stock and bond prices, com- modity...

In the span of three months the global equity markets have gone from contentment to dread. Even the formerly invincible U.S. stock market started to show cracks. There has been no specific reason for the selling but a collection of interconnected concerns: the slowing Chinese economy, the continuing commodities collapse,...

Investors who slept through the first half of 2015 did not miss much with regard to the global financial markets. The world continues to be swept up in the Greek crisis with every twist and turn played out in the press and the financial markets. The global economy barely achieved...

Global growth in the first quarter 2015 was essentially the same as it was at the end of last year. With a cursory glance at the headlines from around the world one could conclude that the global marketplace is on the precipice of calamity; however nothing is further from the...

The global economy experienced another year of modest growth yet with a lot of uncertainty going forward. Limited clarity in the marketplace will lead to a period of greater volatility for stocks and bonds around the world. And yet, despite the market uncertainty and relatively mediocre performance, the rays of...