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The world has changed a lot in just the past seven months. In this article, Barry explains that, despite this, our long-standing perspective on the appropriate portion of fixed income investments in your portfolios has not changed but actually been reinforced.

At the time of writing, most investors’ stock portfolios have recovered significantly from the precipitous drop in late February through March, 2020 and with the worst of it over – hopefully – Benjamin outlines 3 lessons can we learn from the COVID-19 crisis that can guide us through the next one.

With its wealth of businesses that are asset light or price makers in their market, the U.S. has been and will continue to be an area of focus for Baskin Wealth Management in building portfolios for our clients. Barry explains in this video how these characteristics make for an attractive investing opportunity.

Barry describes the technology giants Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Facebook and Netflix as “digital toll booths on global growth”. He goes on to explain how these companies have benefited from an amazing technological shift and why they have an unbelievably long runway for growth.

Death, debt and dividends are 3 factors we have been putting an increased emphasis on during this period of extreme uncertainty. David explains how each is considered by the Baskin Wealth Management Portfolio Management Committee as we carefully assess the holdings in our client’s portfolios.

To answer a question that is on many investors minds these days, David outlines 4 key reasons for why there has been such a contrast between stock market performance and the overall economy so far this year.

Ernest tackles the question on everyone's mind these days - "Why is the market going up when the outlook is so grim?" - and then explains what investors should be focused on.

It is easy for an investor to have home country bias: I live in Canada, I get paid in Canadian dollars, and I know and understand Canadian companies—as a result, my portfolio contains mostly Canadian assets. Even if you are stuck within Canadian borders until the Covid-19 pandemic slows down, it doesn’t mean your portfolio has to remain 100% Canadian.

The COVID-19 pandemic is upending a lot of assumptions and giving forecasters fits as they try to assess what life is going to look like going forward. One area that is of interest to us as investors is the relative value of the Canadian dollar against the US dollar. High on the list of things that are hard to predict is the value of currencies. Forecasters, traders and economists spill oceans of ink and spend hours of time trying to guess (really, it is a guess) if the yen, the pound or the euro will go up or down, and how much. It is tempting just to ignore the whole question, but in order to do our job, we can’t.

Ernest outlines the defensive approach we are taking during this crisis and reiterates the importance we place on monitoring what we already own for you.

On April 14th, two more alternative lenders announced that they were freezing all redemptions on their products, that cash distributions would likely fall and perhaps end, and that they would undoubtedly be taking substantial losses on some of their mortgages. As interest rates on savings accounts and GICs fell over the last few years, yield seeking investors searched high and low for more rewarding places to put their money.