by David Baskin
May 13th, 2013
There have been a number of stories in the press in the last month speculating that the major Canadian banks are in danger of suffering the kind of melt-down that almost destroyed the American banking industry in 2008. The boom in Canadian home prices, so goes the argument, has left the banks exposed to risky [...]
by Barry Schwartz
April 29th, 2013
You can’t say that stocks are at all-time highs. Adjusted for inflation, the S&P 500 is 25% below its previous peak over 13 years ago. You can say that stocks are cheap, given that earnings on the S&P 500 are double what they were 13 years ago (even adjusted for inflation).
You can’t just put your [...]
by Barry Schwartz
April 16th, 2013
Normally, I would suggest that you run away from a cannibal but a stock cannibal is one you should embrace. In a recent interview, Charlie Munger suggested that one key to investment success is to look at cannibals — businesses that consistently buy back their own shares. A company that aggressively buys back its own [...]
by David Baskin
April 3rd, 2013
Pundits are once again commenting on the difference in performance between the Canadian and American markets, and no wonder. Since the market bottom four years ago, the S&P 500 has gained 136%, while the TSX has risen 70%, only about half as much. Why the big difference, and what, if anything, should we do about [...]
by Barry Schwartz
March 15th, 2013
Over the past few days, I have had a number of people tell me that the market is overheated and they are waiting for a pullback or a correction to get in. If only I had a dollar for every time someone told me that… I wonder if those are the same people who were [...]
by David Baskin
March 7th, 2013
One of the great things about travel is the opportunity to see how other countries and cultures work. On my annual sailing trip in the Caribbean last month I left the nation of St. Vincent and the Grenadines by boat, and entered the neighbouring country of Grenada. In each case this involved visiting [...]
by Barry Schwartz
February 23rd, 2013
One of my favourite investment quotes comes from Bruce Berkowitz, who manages the successful Fairholme mutual fund. “If you can buy a company with a free cash flow yield of 10% or better and you can’t figure out how to kill it, you should buy its stock all day”. Free cash flow is the excess [...]
by David Baskin
February 5th, 2013
Paul Samuelson won the Nobel Prize in Economics and also wrote the introductory textbook that got me hooked on the subject. Here’s what he had to say about the stock market: “Investing should be more like watching paint dry or watching grass grow. If you want excitement, take your money and go to Las Vegas”. [...]
by Barry Schwartz
January 21st, 2013
Now that the S&P 500 is back to a five year high, investors may be wondering if stocks are still cheap. It has been a nice run since March 2009 and maybe it’s time to cash in the chips. Not so fast. We must remember that earnings on S&P 500 companies will hit a record [...]
by Barry Schwartz
January 9th, 2013
In a recent white paper, famed investment thinker Michael Mauboussin raised an interesting question to shareholders, “If you own the shares of a company because you believe the stock is undervalued, why would you ever want the company to pay a dividend instead of buying back shares? Most shareholders will say, why not receive a [...]
