The S&P/TSX Composite Index is about break-even for the year. That’s an incredible feat, considering that nearly 5 million Canadians are receiving the Canadian Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, Canada’s Minister of Finance has just resigned, and the country’s deficit forecast has jumped to $343 billion for the 2020-2021 fiscal year. Look no further than the Technology sector for the better-than-should-be performance. Shopify, in particular, has increased its weight in the Index from 2.22% at the start of the year to 6.13% as of August 17, 2020 - leapfro ..read more

If you’ve been watching the markets in 2020, you’ve no doubt been blown away by the incredible returns of stocks in the Materials and Technology sectors. It’s hard to comprehend how North American indices have managed to break even and even post gains year-to-date, but look no further than the performance of Shopify in Canada, the FAANG + Microsoft stocks in the U.S, and the price of gold. Without these huge returns, your index ETF returns would probably be more of a reflection of the crisis we have faced (and are still facing) from COVID-19. It’s not sustainable for one or two sectors in the ..read more

The conventional wisdom when a company cuts its dividend is that it’s bad news. The company no longer has the cash flow available to continue making payments as they did in the past, and its future isn’t so bright anymore. Better to just sell your position now and invest the proceeds in another dividend-paying company with better prospects. The counter argument is that cutting dividends is actually a sign of good management. The company leadership knows that times are tough and, sometimes through no fault of their own, they just need to focus on retaining as much cash as possible. To do anythi ..read more

Check out this week’s biggest advancers and decliners by sector for the S&P 500 and the S&P/TSX below! I’ll be uploading the updated weekly return tracker file to include this week in the next couple of hours, so be sure to subscribe for free to get access ..read more

This morning, Mike @TheDividendGuy (thedividendguyblog.com) reminded me of the old saying: "Sell in May, and go away”. And I suppose that I shouldn’t have been surprised to see the S&P 500 go on lose 2.81% and the S&P/TSX Composite shed 1.09%. But for the week, it wasn’t all that bad. Check out the major advancers and decliners by sector for both major North American markets below and see how your companies made out! Remember to subscribe to get access to the full weekly trackers for 2020 for both indexes, as well as monthly trackers dating back to 2008 up until this April. Happy Inves ..read more

Things are finally starting to calm down in both the U.S. and Canadian markets as volatility was noticeably down - the S&P 500 had weekly standard deviation of just about 5%, while the S&P/TSX Composite was a bit more volatile just short of 8%. Still, a welcome relief from the 15% + figures we’ve been seeing the last number of weeks. Overall the average S&P 500 stock lost 1.60% while the average S&P/TSX Composite stock gained 2.42% thanks primarily to the relatively large number of Materials and Energy stocks in Canada. On the market capitalization-weighted price indexes, the S ..read more

Introduction In my Week 16 newsletter sent out this past Sunday to subscribers, I briefly touched on the importance of understanding industry concentration before performing asset allocation and ultimately, security selection for your portfolio. Asset allocation (i.e. the division between stocks and bonds, as well as the individual sectors in which you invest) will account for the majority of your portfolio’s return, so it’s in your best interest to get this part right. It will require you to take a step back from analyzing P/E ratios, dividend yields, and virtually all the other fundamental m ..read more

Thanks to a late Friday surge, both the S&P 500 and the S&P/TSX Composite Index ended up in the green this week. Amazon delivered (always wanted to say that) with a 16.26% gain and on the Canadian side, Shopify surged with a 42% gain after its CTO reported “Black Friday Level Traffic” with so many businesses moving online due to COVID-19. Check out the list of advancers and decliners by sector below, and be sure to subscribe to receive my weekly Sunday newsletter as well as access to the full weekly return trackers for all S&P 500 and S&P/TSX Composite companies. Have a great w ..read more

Have you ever wondered who really runs the show when it comes to the top Canadian publicly traded companies? Yes, of course it’s the CEO, but in many instances they have their hands in overseeing several other top Canadian businesses, serving as independent directors of other companies or as the Chairman of the Board of their own company as well. I began to think, who is the one person with the most influence over S&P/TSX Composite companies? What roles do they play? How long have they been in the job? Or as Danny DeVito in The Rainmaker would say: So you’re the guy, you’re the main guy ..read more

Good afternoon, fellow investors! I’m excited to announce that beginning this Sunday, I will be including the weekly total returns for the S&P 500 as well as the S&P/TSX Composite Index in my weekly email to subscribers. In addition, you’ll now get to download a single file showing all the weekly returns for all of the major Canadian and U.S. equities all in an easy-to-use format, allowing you to compare weekly performances across sectors and industries. I hope you’ll get some value out of being able to quickly see the returns of your favourite holdings across both markets. With that b ..read more