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PH&N Total Return Bond Fund
Fund Card Starting the quarter with a duration that basically matched the FTSE/TMX Universe Bond Index was one of the factors that allowed the fund to outperform its peers in the third quarter. This longer duration allowed it to see a nice gain after the Bank of Canada cut its benchmark overnight lending rate in July. As the quarter progressed, the focus shifted to the market’s expectation over a potential move for the U.S. Federal Reserve to begin moving rates higher. Because of this, management became concerned over the increasing pressure...
read moreBrandes Emerging Markets Value Fund
Fund Card To say this fund has struggled of late would be a bit of an understatement. Over the past year (to September 30), it has lost more than 20%, significantly underperforming its peers. In the past quarter alone, it was down 14%, again lagging both its peers and its benchmark. Does that mean the fund has lost its mojo? No. The problem the fund is experiencing at the moment has more to do with its deep value style, than the manager’s skill. Brandes has a well-deserved reputation as being a very strong, deep value manager. They also have...
read morePH&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%. Unfortunately, with a mutual fund, cash flow does not equal quality. I am placing the fund UNDER REVIEW immediately, and will be looking for signs of...
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 attributed to its cash position, which at the end of September sat just shy of 30%. The rest of it is the result of stock selection, with consumer...
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 of September, it held nearly 30% in energy compared with an 18% weight in the index. Most of the energy names are pipeline or infrastructure plays,...
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 economic review combined with a bottom up credit analysis. The process looks to generate returns by focusing on sector allocation, credit quality and...
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 rate that is fixed based on the prevailing rate of interest, fixed resets were sold off as investors worried that future dividends would be pushed...
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% in the last six months, with nearly half of that loss coming in June. It has underperformed the benchmark and has lagged its peers and is the worst...
read moreMarquest Explorer Fund
Generally I don’t like to write anything bad about a fund. I will try to keep to that, but it may be difficult to do. So far this year, it has lost nearly 27%. But digging deeper, it is not that difficult to see why. This fund is a bit of a special situation in that it invests in small and mid-cap mining stocks that are rolled into upon expiry of Marquest flow through funds. Flow through shares are a uniquely Canadian investment. They are a special type of common share that is issued by Canadian oil and gas or mineral exploration companies....
read moreAGF U.S. Small-Mid Cap Fund
With a gain of 24.6%, this fund captured the bronze for year to date performance from a Canadian mutual fund. Managed by Tony Genua using a bottom up, earnings growth momentum driven approach, this concentrated portfolio’s performance seemed to turn a corner in May 2014, when began outpacing not only its peers, but also the Russell 2000. Much of this outperformance can be attributed to the overweight technology exposure, which made up 43% of the fund at the end of May. Given the momentum approach used, it is possible that the fund may...
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