PowerShares Canadian Preferred Share Index Class
Fund Card Preferred shares were long thought to be less volatile than common equity. Well at least they were until 2015, when investors sold off their preferred holdings indiscriminately on worries that the lower interest rates would affect the coupon rates of their preferred shares. Hit hardest were the fixed reset preferred shares, which have a coupon rate that is reset periodically, and uses...
Read MoreFront Street Growth Fund
Fund Card With a one year loss of just under 38%, this concentrated, energy focused, small cap offering lagged its peers by a pretty big margin. Looking at some of its holdings, it’s not hard to see why. Baytex Energy has a one year loss of -81%, Journey Energy is down 74%, and MEG Energy is down 72%. This type of performance is not out of character for Front Street. They tend to take...
Read MoreTrimark Energy Growth Class
All energy funds were hit pretty hard in 2015, and unfortunately this was hit hardest, losing more than 38%. There were a few reasons for this underperformance, including its higher exposure to small and mid-cap names which were sold off more violently than their larger cap brethren. It also had a higher portion of the fund invested in Canadian names compared to its peers, resulting in less of a...
Read MoreTop Funds Report – January 2016
Download a PDF Copy of this report 2015 was a Year to Forget Volatility returned with a vengeance, dampening investor confidence… 2015 was one of the more challenging years in recent memory. It had a little bit of everything for investors, but perhaps the most impactful was the return of extreme market volatility. Global equity markets were largely flat in U.S. dollar terms. The S&P...
Read MoreDecember 2015 Portfolio Review
Despite the uptick in market volatility, December ended up being a decent month for the portfolios, all posting gains, except the Moderate Balanced Portfolio, which was flat. You can download our standard monthly portfolio report here. For those looking for even more detail, I am also providing additional reports generated from Morningstar which show even more detail regarding the portfolios. A...
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