A Comment -- General Comments From an Expert (A Commentary)

Weekly Market Update:

Canadian inflation cooled to 3.8% in September, down from 4.0% in August amid a continuing relief of grocery prices, leaving room for the Bank of Canada to keep interest rates unchanged. On the other hand, in a recent meeting, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell validated a pause in policy tightening in November while being open to a further interest rate hike if necessary, putting pressure on the equities market. The Canadian dollar was 73.03 cents USD. The U.S. S&P500 ended the week down 2.2%, while the TSX was down 1.5%.

This week had more reds than green. Real estate slid by 4.0%, while financials gave up 3.2%. Industrials ended the week down 2.3%, while consumer staples and information technology slid by 1.9 and 0.4%, respectively. On the other hand, materials gained 2.1%. Consumer discretionary and energy both ended the week slightly up 0.4%. The most heavily traded shares by volume were  Canopy Growth Corporation, Baytex Energy, and Argonaut Gold.
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Despite big challenges in markets and in the economy, exiting could be the biggest mistake investors make. Lots of fear circulating. Rapid changes in interest rates have had big impacts on the economy, on both businesses and consumers. Easy to get sideswiped by negative sentiment.

There are a lot of bargains today. If you own good companies, you'll do quite well over the long term. Over the short term, there could be some volatility.

There were some views of interest rate cuts later this year. Because inflation has been stickier than thought, that pushes out the likelihood of rate cuts, even into the back half of 2024.

The Fed puts out the dot plot every quarter. You can clearly see that the view right now is that rates will trend down. Higher rates have had a big impact on a lot of stocks. There will be some relief down the road, but not right now.

Absolutely. Starting to see it with central banks around the world diverging, as they all have different nuances in their economies. That slight diversion is likely to continue. Tightening and easing to steer the economy will be a more important feature of economies going forward.

You can find value in a variety of sectors. Some of the ones that have been hit the hardest because of interest rate increases are the income-sensitive stocks: utilities and banks. Because the market is so volatile, you can get your opportunity in almost any stock. Keep your shopping list handy, and your buy prices lined up.

Absolutely. We're so lucky in Canada to have a number of companies that pay out a high percentage of earnings to shareholders. You get the dividend tax credit, which is preferential. In the US, there is some withholding tax.

Tough. So many ways to get access via ETF or individual companies, but they all depend on the commodity price. Infinite number of reasons to invest in gold. Recently, it's been the Ukraine-Russia war, as central banks have bought gold to diversify their payment systems. 

He steers clear of the sector. Look at streaming, such as FNV. It is quite expensive, but if you have your heart set, add on a pullback.

Pros & Cons of Utility Companies:

In the last few years, central banks around the world have consistently raised interest rates to tamp down global inflation which resulted from easy monetary policies during the pandemic. However, given inflation seems to be quite persistent due to the oil supply shortage and a strong labour market, economists are currently expecting rates will stay higher for longer in order to tackle inflation completely.

Consequently, the utility sector in general has been under tremendous pressure due to that sentiment change. Historically, the utility industry is a direct competitor for capital with bonds, given that the industry has historically been a stable, predictable dividend grower, investors largely consider it to be a “bond proxy”. However, a persistently high interest rate environment not only squeezes the profitability of these utility names, as interest expenses for the general industry become more expensive (most of these companies have high debt levels), or even worse is a liquidity issue for some highly leveraged names. The interest rate hikes also reduce the attractiveness of the dividend yield, as income investors can now get a relatively risk-free yield of around 5% without taking the equity risk.

That said, the industry is quite attractive for income investors seeking dividend yield and dividend growth, but most of these names have limited capital appreciation potential. In addition, the industry usually involves a high level of debt in order to make the industry economics appealing, which not every investor would be comfortable with.
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Bond yield keep rising, but remember that they're returning to where they were before, like 2008. Between 2008-2020, yields were very low. Investors have a choice of investing in a GIC or bonds and get 5%, or stocks. Certain sectors are seeing multiples contract because of investment in bonds, and that's good for investors who can buy businesses at lower multiples. Inflation is hard on those who spend a lot of their income on food and energy, so inflation needs to get down to 2%.

It's the right time to be in bonds, because it pays a good income, and bonds and trading at a discount to their par value, which will result in a capital gain. Interest rates will stabilize and maybe decline in the coming year. Possibly, both stocks and bonds will go up at the same time.

Markets seem unconcerned about geopolitical risk in the Middle East (expecting more conflict). Advising investors to hold investments. Portfolio should be able to weather all economic scenarios. Selling stocks on fears is a bad idea. Buying safe assets like gold a speculative bet on direction of markets. Earnings decline is occurring outside of Big Tech names. Expecting decline in markets to occur within the next 1-2 years. Margin pressures will take their toll on corporate bottom line.

Do It Yourself Investors:

"Core & Explore" strategy involves "core" holdings + "explore" strategies with higher risk. Would recommend core holdings include ZEQT to get exposure to TSX. Canada Pension Plan also a good investor to mimic with REIT's and Canadian Bank exposure. "Explore" strategies might include dividend paying stocks to provide extra yield. 

Does society and government have a newfound love for large companies? 

Prior to COVID, one of the largest risks facing FANG names in our view has been that of regulatory intervention. Given that society has been able to continue to function through this pandemic in large part because of these large companies must place them in a better light post-COVID. This might create a newfound appreciation for large companies and neutralize one of the larger risks standing in their way.

Of course, there’s no concrete answer in the above questions, nor is it simply a binary answer. Further, what ends up being true can be less important than what ‘the market’ believes to be true. If the market thinks that governments across the world are going to do what they can to support economies and the markets going forward, this would have a big impact on how an investor views risk when investing in equities. In the future, governments may or may not be there to help out and there could be larger unintended consequences down the road because of such action. BUT, if the market views this type of support as lowering the risk in equities, this has big implications on valuations across the board. Put another way, should an investor begin to think that governments and other institutions will/should do all they can to neutralize future recessions? Whether or not they are always successful in doing so, should this backstop not almost certainly lower the overall risk in equities compared to history?

All of the above essentially comes down to whether the overall risk in equities is being lowered. If this is the case, lower risk means an investor is willing to accept lower returns. These lower returns are reflected in stock prices through higher valuations. Bottom line, no one knows what markets are going to.

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It has been one year since the October 2022 lows or optimistically speaking one year of the new bull market. We are seeing some rotation into other sectors and broader market participation. Tech is still OK but some companies are expensive. Sectors he likes are consumer discretionary, energy, tech & communications, health care. With consumer discretionary be selective. Health care tends to be more conservative with stable earnings and mostly decent dividends. He likes the strong growth names in this space.