PH&N Monthly Income Fund
Fund Card I continue to be disappointed by the performance of this fund. After a solid 2011 and 2012, it has lagged dramatically. I am a fan of PH&N on the fixed income side, and had hoped that was enough to offset middle of the road equity management. To date, I have been wrong. Right now, the only positive I can find in the fund is the cash flow it generates, which is currently about 5.4%....
Read MoreMackenzie Ivy Foreign Equity Fund
Fund Card I have said it before, and I will say it again – when global equity markets get rocky, this is the fund you want to own. With markets on a rollercoaster, the MSCI World Index lost 1.6% in the third quarter. According to Morningstar, the average global equity fund was down 3.4%. Yet this high conviction, quality focused offering managed to gain 2.6%. Part of this outperformance can be...
Read MoreIA Clarington Canadian Conservative Equity Fund
Fund Card It is taking an increasing amount of patience to keep recommending this fund. Year to date, it is down more than 15%, and is off nearly 20% in the past year. In comparison, the S&P/TSX Composite is down 7% year to date, and 8.4% over the past year. The biggest reason for this dramatic underperformance stems from its significant overweight in high yielding energy names. At the end...
Read MoreManulife Monthly High Income Fund
Fund Card I added this high quality Canadian balanced fund to the Recommended List in December 2015. It is managed by the team of Alan Wicks and Jonathan Popper, with an equity approach that is rooted in a value philosophy that looks for businesses that generate high and sustainable profits that are trading at attractive valuations. The fixed income sleeve is managed using a combination top down...
Read MorePowerShares Canadian Preferred Share Fund
I’m a little surprised to see a preferred share fund on the worst of the year list. Typically, prefs are thought of as fairly conservative investments, and they tend to hold their value fairly well. Unfortunately, this year has been an exception to that, with preferred shares, particularly fixed rate reset preferreds being hit especially hard after the Bank of Canada’s rate cut. With a dividend...
Read MoreAston Hill Energy Growth Class
In hindsight, it would have been pretty tough to find a worse time to launch an energy fund. Launched back in March 2014, oil was trading north of $100 per barrel. Investor demand was strong, and all looked good. The fund was doing okay, keeping pace with its peers. Then in June, the oil market started its free fall, taking this fund down with it. In the past year, it has lost 61%, losing 21.3%...
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