Below are a few of our recent fund updates. Log in or subscribe to see all of them.
Red Sky Canadian Equity Corporate Class
With a year to date loss of 3.6% (at November 30), this fund has lagged the 11% rise in the S&P/TSX Composite by a considerable margin. What a difference a year makes, as last year, it gained more than 27% and was one of the stronger Canadian focused equity funds out there. Things started to go bad for this fund in September and it never really regained its footing. Much of that can be attributed to its overweight exposure to energy and financials, which have both been hit in the past few months. It also holds a significant overweight in...
read moreDynamic Real Return Bond Fund
When I first saw that this fund had lost 2.29% to the end of November, I honestly thought it was an error. I was surprised for a number of reasons. First, real return bonds tend often have very long time horizons, and at times trade much like a traditional long bond. Therefore, with yields dropping, one would expect a positive return. Second, the real return bond index was up more than 14% so far this year, so a loss is pretty much inconceivable. However, digging a little deeper I found the managers have sold Government of Canada bond futures...
read moreNational Bank Long Term Bond Fund
With bond yields moving substantially lower this year, it is not surprising to see that long term bonds outperform. At the end of November, the FTSE TMX Long Term Bond Index had gained more than 17%. That is why it is not really a shocker to see this National Bank offering as the top performing bond fund. It invests in a portfolio of bonds issued by Canadian governments and corporations that have a term to maturity of at least ten years. At the end of November, it held 42% in corporate bonds, 40% in provincial bonds, and 15% in government of...
read moreDynamic Power Global Growth Class
The overwhelming majority of the time, I focus on funds that do a great job at managing volatility and protecting capital. This fund is definitely an exception to that, with a standard deviation that is nearly double the MSCI World Index, a beta that is well north of 1, and upside and downside capture ratios that will leave you shaking your head. Managed by Noah Blackstein, this is a concentrated portfolio of 20 to 30 companies from around the world that he believes to have the best growth prospects, strong earnings momentum and a history of...
read moreMackenzie Ivy Foreign Equity Fund
I have long said that this is the global equity fund you want to own when markets get volatile, and that point was driven home by recent market activity. Between September 1 and October 16, the MSCI World Index dropped by nearly 6% in Canadian dollar terms. During the same period, the Ivy Foreign Equity Fund dropped a little more than 3%, or roughly 56% of the downside movement of the market. This is in line with its historic average. The managers run a concentrated portfolio of high quality companies from around the world with strong balance...
read moreTrimark Canadian Small Companies Fund
Invesco recently announced that this fund would be closed to new investors effective October 8. It is a “soft cap”, meaning that those investors who already held the fund could add to their holdings. While it is unfortunate that one of the best small cap funds in the country is being capped, it really is in the best interest of the current investors for them to do so. The managers run a very concentrated, high conviction portfolio that is made up of the managers’ best 25 to 40 ideas. They are disciplined in their approach and will not make...
read moreFidelity Canadian Large Cap Fund
One of the things I like about this fund is manager Dan Dupont is disciplined and sticks to his value focused style. He runs a portfolio that looks nothing like its benchmark, and in a rarity for a Canadian focused fund, has no exposure to Canadian banks or golds. It is also significantly underweight in energy. The result is a return stream that is much different from the index, which helps explain why it has struggled to keep up with its peers so far this year, as energy and materials have been rallying sharply. However, when these sectors...
read moreDynamic Global Real Estate Fund
I had become increasingly concerned about the risk reward metrics of this fund for a few quarters now. While I don’t believe it to be a bad fund, I don’t believe it is the best in the category. It has struggled for a couple of years, on both an absolute and risk adjusted basis, and when I look at the metrics of the underlying portfolio, I don’t expect that there will be a rapid turnaround.
read moreCI Global Health Sciences Corporate Class
I have long been a believer in the health care story, and that hasn’t changed. What has changed is how I want to access the sector. The CI Global Health Sciences Fund had quite a run, however, the tide turned on it back in February when the entire sector sold off. However, while the other funds in the sector have made up their losses, this fund has continued to languish and the risk reward characteristics have eroded significantly. I am currently reviewing the other healthcare options and will determine which I believe to be the best way to...
read moreRenaissance Global Markets Fund
I have been growing increasingly concerned about this fund for the past few quarters. Manager David Winters uses a fundamentally driven, deep value approach that looks for undervalued and distressed companies of any size, that are out of favour with the broader market that have strong prospects for a significant return. The portfolio looks nothing like the benchmark, and neither does its performance. Unfortunately, recent performance has lagged by a significant margin, and the risk / reward metrics have continued to erode. The manager is...
read more