Looking Back and Looking Forward With central banks around the world initiating rate-cutting cycles in 2024, it’s difficult to find a stock market that didn’t produce double-digit returns on the year. Despite this rate-cutting, North American bond markets were flat to slightly down on a price basis, but of course bonds now pay substantially more …
Looking Back and Looking Forward Q3 saw a rising tide lift (almost) all boats. As interest rates moved lower, bond prices rose. Major equity markets across the globe moved higher, with many finishing the quarter at or near peak levels. Money market rates of return were one of the few things that fell in the …
Looking Back and Looking Forward The first half of 2024 is firmly in the books. Investment-grade bonds on both sides of the border are down year-to-date by about 2% on a price basis, though it’s notable that today they are paying a respectable level of interest and hold the potential for material capital gains once …
Looking Back and Looking Forward Q1 was stellar for equites. The S&P/TSX Composite Index, for example, was up 6.6% in Q1, while the S&P 500 was up an even better 10.6% – moves that would be fine for a full year, let alone a single quarter. However, results were not so stellar for bonds in …
Looking Back and Looking Forward Glass half full or glass half empty? Glass half full = despite a large, rapid increase in interest rates, rampant inflation, wars in Europe and the Middle East and everything else, the market indices aren’t much off where they were two years ago. Glass half empty = we’ve made essentially …
