DM Market Update II – Mar 2020
STOCKS FALL FURTHER AS COVID-19 REACTION LEAPS FROM CONCERN TO PANIC –Each comment on the state of the market we’ve published in recent weeks seems to have become obsolete in just a few trading sessions; nonetheless, in our desire to help clients and readers steer through this difficult period, we’ll give it another try. To put the current market debacle into proper context, and to ensure that a potential short term dislocation isn’t cemented into a long term portfolio mistake, it’s useful to break the in-vesting time horizon into interim phases:
Click here to read more: DM-Market-Update-II-Mar-20
Cardinal Update – March 2020
When Fear Goes Viral – Fear of the Coronavirus (Covid-19) has caused most markets around the globe to fall into correction territory, meaning a drop of 10% or more from highs.
As of this writing, the TSX has fallen by 10% from its high and the S&P 500 is down 12.5%. Markets have probably not bottomed out yet. New Covid-19 cases are spreading rapidly outside of China and we suspect that there will be clusters of new cases in certain cities of North America, similar to what has happened in Northern Italy and in Daegu, South Korea. China has proven that it is possible to control the
spread of the virus, but this has involved an almost complete quarantine in Hubei, where 90% of its infections are, as well as a fair amount of restrictions in the rest of the country.
Click here to read more: Cardinal Update – March 2020
DM Market Update
HEALTH AND MARKET CRISES ACCELERATE – Just days ago, we issued our March comment outlining our thoughts on COVID-19 and its likely effect on in-vestment portfolios. Like virtually everyone at the time, we vastly underestimated the ability of the virus to cross seas, proliferate, and wreak havoc on our economy and markets. The reckoning has been swift, with in-dices staging their most rapid decline in history and measures of internal market stress reaching and, in some cases, exceeding levels marked during the 2008/09 financial crisis. This has left little room to gather one’s thoughts, let alone reorient portfolios holdings or adjust allocations.
Click here to read more: DM-Market-Update-Mar-20
Cardinal Update – Feb 2020
Is Inflation Coming out of Hibernation? We have been in a relatively benign inflationary environment for many years now where the Bank of Canada has, for the most part, kept inflation contained within its 1-3% target range.
Last year, inflation spent most of the year very close to the midpoint of that range. The first quarter of 2019 was the low point of the year with the headline CPI posting readings in January and February of 1.4% and 1.5%, respectively. It then rebounded and spent the rest of the year around 2%. Currently, inflation is sitting at 2.2% and does not appear to be an issue, but what would happen to our portfolios should things change and inflation starts to rise?
Click here to read more: Cardinal Update – February 2020
