2025 was another great year for equity investors, but how long will it last?
Just when you thought the world couldn’t get any more unpredictable, we have independence movements picking up steam in Canada, restructuring of the world order, acceleration of AI’s impact on our lives, and imminent war in the Middle East.
What should investors do? In this webinar, we’ll share how we’re positioning portfolios — and what we’d avoid at all costs.
Watch our webinar: Allocating Capital: Our Portfolio Playbook Amidst Political Uncertainty. We’ll cover the following:
- Separating signal from noise — the short and long-term risks that are actually worth your attention
- How to keep fear, fatigue, and headlines from quietly sabotaging your portfolio
- A look inside the playbook: how we’re managing risk and finding opportunity in this market
- Are commodities still in a bull market and how to invest prudently in them
- What NOT to do: common portfolio mistakes in volatile times (and how to sidestep them)
(Webinar recorded on March 10th, 2026)
Full Transcript
0:02
Hello everyone, and thanks for joining us for allocating capital our portfolio playbook amidst political uncertainty Seven o ‘clock right now in the mountain time zone and we’ll get started here in two minutes give folks A moment or two to come on in for the webinar Hello everyone From the police old studios in the high desert of Pahrump, Nevada This is coast to coast a.m. With Art Bell just joking.
2:06
It’s Andrew Ruland here, of course Welcome to our webinar.
2:10
I’ve always wanted to give that Art Bell introduction but I don’t have the theme for the Midnight Express music playing in the background.
2:17
We got lots to talk about here tonight so we’re gonna hop right into it of course.
2:21
We’ve cut our slide countdown a little bit because there’s so much to talk about with each of the slides that are there.
2:27
We’re gonna do our very best to keep it within an hour.
2:30
I’m gonna skip this intro piece or skip through it fairly quickly.
2:35
You know how that we do, how we do things if you are listening for the first time, you can go back and listen to the recording afterwards if you choose.
2:44
And even if you’ve listened to our webinars before, you can do that.
2:49
So of course we do everything in the context of your family’s life goals.
2:52
We’re gonna talk mostly about the investment management side of things tonight, but of course retirement planning flows from that.
2:59
And of course we always wanna pay as little tax as legally possible.
3:03
The most important thing though, is that it’s based on what your family’s values are, your family’s beliefs, values, and priorities, what we call your life goals.
3:13
All right, so for tonight’s agenda, we’re gonna talk a little bit about portfolio results from the last year going to the end of February.
3:21
When we named this webinar a couple of weeks back, we said it as if there wasn’t enough uncertainty, we kept that bullet or that agenda point.
3:32
Of course, things have gotten a whole lot more rocky since then.
3:35
We’re gonna talk about how we allocate capital and how our managers are managing risk in real time.
3:41
Talk a little bit more about the commodity super cycle and at least as importantly, what not to do.
3:52
So I’m fighting a little bit of a cough here.
3:53
So from time to time, if you hear a slightly longer than normal pause, it’s because I’ve hit the mute button to clear my throat or cough.
3:59
So apologize for that inconvenience in advance.
4:02
We can see on the right-hand side there, there’s different kinds of people who were listening to this webinar.
4:07
First of all, of course, welcome to all of our existing IWM clients.
4:12
You get to learn a little bit more about how we’re thinking about things, what we see going on in the world and what the managers are doing and how that you’ll get to see, of course, how that translates into your portfolio in real time with your online access.
4:25
But you could also possibly be someone who’s not a client yet and you might be a dissatisfied delegator, dissatisfied because you’re working with an advisor who doesn’t really see the world the same way that you do.
4:36
You might be someone who’s been self-managing and it’s stressing you out with all the volatility going on and you might be looking for some help.
4:45
Or maybe you’re that responsible spouse who has a relationship with an advisor and or you’re doing some of the managing yourself, but you don’t have a plan B and you’re becoming a little bit more wary of the fact that you don’t want to leave this situation behind for your surviving spouse to try and handle all on their own without having a great relationship with a quality advisor.
5:10
After this, of course, after the agenda, we’ll go through Q &A, which can always be fun.
5:17
And for now, let’s get rolling with the presentation itself.
5:21
So it’s always important to go back to fundamentals and base everything on solid principles and historic evidence.
5:28
You’ve seen this slide before, our forward-thinking portfolios.
5:31
All of our managers have a portfolio that is structured this way.
5:35
That’s why we use this generic term for forward-thinking portfolios.
5:39
We’re going to go through this a whole lot in a whole lot more detail later on.
5:45
So, looking at the equity returns, again, these all go to February 27th of 2026.
5:52
You can see that our pension-type managers on a year-to-date basis have done very well.
5:57
pension and dividend are essentially the same thing.
6:00
The U.S.
6:00
stock funds a little bit lower because frankly, the U.S.
6:03
stocks have been underperforming on a year-to-date basis and actually over the one-year period as well really.
6:10
Canadian stock fund done well and you can see here the one-year numbers.
6:13
This is how our equity funds have done well.
6:16
And again, these are the ones that are dominantly dividend grower-based.
6:21
And then we have the more growthy types of funds that are a little bit more momentum or growth cycle or cyclically driven, which have performed excellently over the last year.
6:32
And you can see that compared to the overall markets, we’ve done extremely well.
6:40
The dividend aristocrats index done very well over the last year.
6:44
That’s a Canadian one.
6:46
And we’ve kept pace with that rather nicely.
6:50
This is the second one, which is actually also, no, that one’s a US-based dividend aristocrats portfolio, ETF, it’s done not quite as well as we have.
7:02
And DWX is more of an international one, which has also done well.
7:06
And on a risk-adjusted basis, we’re very happy with how our managers have kept up.
7:12
And in the last year, we’ve had a little bit of a grand slam home run year in the commodities component.
7:19
We call it core and explore, but really it’s the diversified commodity strategy right now on a year to date basis to the end of February, we’re up 16.1%.
7:28
This 69.8% one year return is, well, frankly, it’s about triple of a great year.
7:36
So we’re extremely happy with that.
7:38
And in nine days, we will have our fifth anniversary of the commodity strategy.
7:45
And since inception, we have averaged just over 25%.
7:48
It’s 25.02%.
7:51
And we will have a five-year number for that very soon.
7:53
Very happy with that, obviously.
7:57
On a more balanced portfolio basis, on a year-to-date basis, depending on the manager, we’re up between three and 5%.
8:05
And on a one-year basis, the range is between 10 and 18%.
8:08
That’s quite a wide range on a one-year basis, as you can tell.
8:11
And that’s based on the fact that different managers have had different weightings to different portions of the equity markets and also how well their alternatives did outside of outside of equity.
8:26
So not just the private alternatives, but also on the real estate side of things and on the fixed income side of things.
8:32
And also, of course, the primary factor when it comes to delivering those returns is what your asset allocation is.
8:48
So as if there wasn’t enough uncertainty already out there.
8:52
When we first developed this slide for the World Outlook Financial Conference presentation that I did back on February 6th, I believe it was, the Friday in Vancouver, we had Trump, the imperialist, and of course, that’s when the snatching grab of Maduro in Venezuela was in the very recent past and also Trump was looking at trying to commandeer Greenland in his usual subtle way and we had we had this next group of countries here because these are the war consideration countries we had them in a different order we had them Ukraine Iran Taiwan and we didn’t have Cuba on the But of course, Iran is the big hot spot right now.
9:37
Ukraine is still a terrible situation with very, very high ongoing casualties and KIAs.
9:47
And Cuba now, of course, is coming up on the radar screen as the US administration has completely shut down oil imports into Cuba, and they are effectively trying to starve the Cubans out.
9:59
Very classy, of course.
10:01
And then there’s the Taiwan situation which for the time being happens to happens to be way on the back burner.
10:08
And of course right now what’s what’s been happening is that we’ve got the US MCA or the YMCA or the NAFTA agreement or KUSMA or Mauska or whatever because it depends on which country is naming it which is just asinine but that’s how these things go with Trump.
10:27
And of course, we have the whole issue with provincial sovereignty that is raising its head right now in Alberta and Saskatchewan, but also in Quebec as well.
10:36
And then we have the shenanigans with the federal liberals with backroom deals, floor crossings, and the like.
10:43
So yeah, there’s plenty for chicken little to be talking about right now.
10:47
But let’s keep in mind that conservative minded folks tend to focus more on risk avoidance, you know, to conserve what they’ve earned.
10:56
Now, with the proliferation of independent media channels and social media algorithms, we can often find ourselves ending up in echo chambers and doom loops, if you will, or doom scrolling.
11:08
This colors our general outlook, and when our outlook is that clouded or darkened, we start to lose our objectivity regarding risk and reward potential.
11:17
It’s analogous to how clinical depression reduces a person’s ability to experience joy and pleasure day to day.
11:24
even without widespread existential angst, markets climb the wall of worry.
11:31
So wall of worry is what we call the apocalypse du jour, cause there’s always something to worry about.
11:37
So last year we presented, we showed this at the World Outlook Financial Conference and maybe even showed it on a webinar.
11:44
But this just goes to show all the nasty things that had happened in the previous five years as of a year ago.
11:50
And you can see, despite that S &P 500 went from 3400 to north of 6000.
11:56
And here we are just a little over a year later, where things are just under kind of a 6600 6700 neighborhood. And this is what ended up happening in 2025.
12:11
Of course, we had that the deep seek AI fake, and I was gonna, you know, come and take out all of the other AI programs, and I’m just gonna take you know, one of the the energy etc and of course it ended up being a head fake and then mr.
12:27
Trump brought us the Liberation Day announcement on April 2nd and we we had what we referred to as the Liberation Day flush because it felt like a flush if you know what I mean and it recovered fairly quickly oh and in here we had the 12-day war where Israel and Iran were bombing each other for 12 days.
12:50
And here we are at the end or really at the very beginning of 2026 with the U.S.
12:58
going in and doing their ****** and grab of the duly elected leader of another sovereign nation and shipping him to the U.S. for charges in the U.S.
13:09
But here we are now.
13:11
This is we’re a little bit later than this now.
13:13
and we find ourselves in the situation where we have the second edition of war in Iran, this time actively involving the US.
13:25
So what we really wanna talk about here because there is so much to worry about is how you go about separating signal from noise.
13:34
A lot of people have what we call existential angst right now, we’re pretty tired.
13:40
So, when it comes to trying to keep fear fatigue and headlines from sabotaging your portfolio.
13:47
It’s really helpful to start discerning between hyperbolic and balanced views, choose.
13:55
I would suggest that you should choose those types of new sources information sources podcasts and the like, that are a little bit calmer, not quite so shouty, if you will.
14:09
If necessary, go ahead and put yourself on a little bit of a news or an information diet.
14:15
Another thing that really helps a lot, because in this world we have so much contact that is texting or email or just voice, or not even voice, is to prioritize in-person or voice-to-voice communications.
14:32
We do the best that we can with our clients in those situations.
14:37
We want to see them in person whenever possible.
14:40
And of course, we take advantage of Zoom whenever possible.
14:43
But we think that this, it makes a big difference to actually focus on that in your personal life as well, because there’s such a thing as keyboard courage when people say and do things or react a certain way when they’re behind a keyboard and don’t have to interact with a person.
15:00
If we switch to more in-person or voice-to-voice, face-to-face activities, that tends to take the temperature down.
15:07
And that’s really helpful, particularly when the markets are so volatile and we’re already on edge and very concerned about what’s going on in the world.
15:17
Of course, something that our clients have chosen to do is to delegate the day-to-day investment management so our clients don’t have to actually focus on what’s going on in the markets and try and figure it out.
15:31
And of course, our managers have the time, the training, and most importantly, the temperament for dealing with all this market noise.
15:40
And one last thing we need to remember is that things almost never turn out as badly or as well as the most sensational predictions.
15:49
Things almost always come somewhere in the middle.
15:53
That being the case, there are definitely things for us to be concerned about.
15:57
In the short term, we know that we have key votes in the US midterm elections.
16:03
There’s the possibility of a federal election here in Canada, depending on what ends up happening with subsequent floor crossings and by-elections that look to be in safe liberal writings out east.
16:16
So we’ll see what happens there.
16:19
And until probably two or three weeks ago, the most important thing, top of mind for of people certainly here in Alberta was the the question of the independence referendum and getting enough signatures verified by elections Alberta to actually put the Alberta independence question on a referendum ballot and of course I guess now a couple of weeks ago as well a little over two weeks ago I guess it was Danielle Smith announced that there would be a referendum on October 19th with nine other questions on that ballot.
16:57
And in the next day or two, she confirmed that there, if the Alberta Independence Citizens Initiative gets enough verified signatures, it will also be on the ballot.
17:09
That’s gonna be an interesting time.
17:11
And of course we have all of the geopolitical factors out there, we’re gonna talk more on a separate slide about the wars going on.
17:18
We still have tariffs and trade going on.
17:23
tariffs and trade deals, and how many trade deals are without tariffs, and how many tariffs are imposed unilaterally.
17:31
The Trump administration got a partial slap on the wrist from the US Supreme Court in terms of how they can implement and enforce tariffs on a country by country basis.
17:47
And as it turns out, the Supreme Court basically said, You can do tariffs without congressional approval as long as you do them on an even basis across all countries.
18:01
So we’ll see how that works out.
18:03
And of course we have concerns with the Canadian economy.
18:06
That’s very definitely an issue.
18:08
Just today I got a survey results from FP Canada.
18:13
That’s the professional association here in Canada.
18:17
They’re the holders and the keepers of the Chartered Financial Planner, or sorry, Certified Financial Planner designation here in Canada.
18:27
And they did a Canada-wide survey asking what the biggest stressors are for people in Canada.
18:34
And for 64% groceries, basics, was a stressor for them.
18:42
for 51% rent and real estate, that is housing prices are a big concern, and 32% over gas prices.
18:51
And the survey was conducted before the recent increase in gas prices due to the war in Iran.
18:59
Over the longer term, mid to longer term, rehab concerns, of course, about the K-shaped economy or what’s referred to as a boom session in some circles.
19:08
A boom session or a K-shaped economy is basically where the top 15 or 20% of income earners and those who have assets and are benefiting from inflation, they’re fine, and they’re able to spend nicely, and the increases in the cost of living don’t make a big difference or any difference to them.
19:28
And then there’s the bottom 80 or 85% of income earners in North America and probably actually in Europe as well, who are having a great deal of difficulty meeting the basics of life.
19:40
That is a longer term and midterm stressor in addition frankly to the to the short term And of course government finances and sovereign debt is always an issue Sometimes it’s not thought about as other things take over the news cycle, but it is very definitely a big issue Over time we’re concerned with slow slowing earnings growth that hasn’t happened just yet Which we’re thankful for but over time we could see some of that happen, especially now that we have things happening in Iran and the Persian Gulf.
20:14
And of course, there’s always over the mid to long-term, the consideration of the acceleration of the changing world order, the formation of the bricks or what’s been dubbed as the Don Roe Doctrine.
20:28
This is actually from one of our 2024 webinars looking out over the horizon where we said, are you ready for the changing world order?
20:36
And this is actually coming into effect or showing itself to be very important right now.
20:44
Of course, BRICS is Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa for an S on the end.
20:53
But of course now BRICS has a second I, which is Iran and a total of 10 different countries in it.
21:00
And I think about 15 on the waiting list to get in.
21:04
And of course the connection between China and Russia and India is extremely important from a military standpoint right now.
21:14
So let’s talk about that big elephant in the room, which is the war in the Persian Gulf.
21:21
And of course, we always have to remember that in war, truth is always, always the first casualty.
21:28
So of course, in the short term, we have an energy price shock.
21:33
Now, crude prices, WTI and Brent spiked at about $118 on Sunday night, and things were looking awfully terrible. They backed off considerably during the day yesterday. WTI and Brent have settled back in kind of the mid-80s range, which is interesting.
21:53
Something of note though is that Western Canada Select, which usually has about a $15 discount somewhere in that neighborhood to West Texas.
22:04
Last, Western Canada Select pricing that I saw had basically no gap. So no discount for Western Canada Select.
22:12
So what’s terrible for world oil prices is good for the province of Alberta at this time, which is a terrible thing, a terrible way to potentially balance a budget instead of having fiscal discipline.
22:28
The big thing here that I see as the primary risk with the war in the Persian Gulf, and I’m talking about from an economic standpoint, is the duration of the war.
22:41
Right now, the market is basically assuming that it’s going to be a short war. Right now, as we’re doing this webinar, is the beginning of the 12th day of this version of the war, this Israel-Iran 2.0.
23:01
And, of course, back in June of last year turned out to be a 12-day war before the Israelis asked the U.S. to try and broker a ceasefire with Iran.
23:14
This time around, my concern is that this has gone, this has been escalated several notches up the escalation ladder, and that it’s going to be very difficult for Iran to climb down.
23:29
The US and Israel have called for basically wiping out Iran as an entity that can survive.
23:38
Of course, the first strike was to take out the previous Ayatollah Khamenei and his daughter-in-law and a grandchild.
23:50
And that was the very first strike.
23:52
And then, of course, the US and Israel have been sending hundreds and hundreds of missiles and drones into Iran, wreaking huge damage, including yesterday or Sunday, Israeli airstrikes blew up a refinery in the south of the southern suburbs of Tehran.
24:21
This time around, Iran has continued to fight back and in return for that particular refinery strike, Iran actually blew up a refinery in Haifa, which is the, I guess it’s the port city, obviously for Israel, but I believe it’s actually larger than Jerusalem now, but of course, Tel Aviv being the capital.
24:49
But the difficulty with all of this is that neither side wants to stand down, at least from a pride perspective.
25:01
And for Iran, survival is actually victory because they’ve been told that unconditional surrender is the only solution.
25:12
And of course, if you’re told that unconditional surrender is the is the only way to end the war, basically, that’s saying give up your sovereignty, they’re not prepared to do that.
25:25
What’s also not making a lot of news in North America, due to heavy censorship out of Israel and by the US, as well, is that Iran is having basically having their way with getting the majority of of their missiles and drones through to attack Iran or sorry to attack Israel and the Patriot missile system and the the Iron Dome and David’s sling systems in in Israel are shown to be rather ineffective.
26:01
Now of course this time around Iran has chosen not just to bomb Israel but also to bomb the U.S.
26:09
military bases in the Gulf States on the other side of the Persian Gulf for Myren.
26:16
And they’ve taken out numerous important missile defense systems there and they’ve heavily damaged if not disabled the port in Bahrain, which is the home of the U.S. fifth carrier fleet.
26:34
So, essentially, that carrier strike group, which is supposed to be keeping the Persian Gulf safe, is basically pinned down and is unable to actually provide any kind of safe transit through the Straits of Hormuz, which remain effectively closed for the time being.
26:55
And of course, the longer this goes on, the worse that the supply disruptions are going become.
27:02
Roughly 20%, some say 25% of the world’s oil transits through the Straits of Hormuz and for right now that’s effectively stopped.
27:12
There are unintended consequences that blow from this of course. Refineries have been blown up.
27:19
There’s been talk of targeting desalination plants which would be a mistake certainly for the U.S.
27:26
and Israel to attack because Iran is 4% dependent on desalination for its fresh drinking water whereas the Gulf Cooperation Council states so the Gulf states are between 30 and 40 percent dependent on desalination for fresh drinking water and they also have food that is running out food and water that that are running out so that’s a pretty big deal for for everybody in the Gulf states and of course if things continue to get really terrible.
27:57
There is always the risk of the nuclear option being used.
28:01
We have two countries who are nuclear powers, meaning Israel and the US, who are continuously attacking Iran with conventional weapons.
28:16
But if things get desperate, if Iran continues to pummel Israel and bring them to the edge of being what I’ll call an unviable state, then it’s possible that Netanyahu and his merry band of crazy Zionists will actually choose the nuclear option.
28:40
That’s a whole different level of crazy, but let’s hope we don’t go there.
28:46
Now, latest developments today, a good thing is that Trump actually called Putin about the Iranian situation, because of course Iran and Russia are allies, separate and distinct from their BRICS association with each other.
29:08
And Trump has actually asked Putin to be of help when it comes to maybe winding down this conflict.
29:15
If that happens, that would be wonderful for everybody, obviously, because there’s massive amounts of death and destruction that are taking place. But we’ll see if that happens this time.
29:27
The longer this goes on, the worse it is for the US elections.
29:32
And for Trump, if the Republicans lose the House and the Senate in the midterm elections in November, then not only will the Republicans be very unhappy, but there’s also a pretty good probability that Trump will actually end up getting impeached.
29:49
And even if he’s not forced leave office, he will be a complete lame duck president after that, of course.
29:57
So that’s a big problem.
29:59
Longer term, though, there is the risk of, or not the risk, the US is losing credibility longer term around the globe as an ally and protector.
30:10
There’s a saying that has been kind of a cynical saying that’s been used in international diplomatic circles for a long time.
30:18
And that that is that it’s dangerous to be an enemy of the US but it is deadly to be their ally and certainly the Gulf States are finding out that right now because the Gulf States allowed military bases US military bases on their soil in exchange for protection and that protection has been meager at best.
30:45
So there’s that issue.
30:48
The worst hit region from an energy price shock side of things, particularly natural gas is Europe.
30:56
In fact, the end of Germany’s industrial economy could be right around the corner. Pardon me, could be right around the corner, which is a horrific thing.
31:13
On the other side of things, the US is now actually the world’s leading producer of energy.
31:20
Of Of course, global prices do affect what is paid at the pump in the US, as it is here in Canada, but at least there is supply, so that is a positive factor.
31:32
But of course, longer term, there is continued Middle East instability and things are going to continue to get worse, even if this current round of military hostilities is actually stopped in the near term.
31:58
Sorry about that.
32:01
So how are our managers playing this?
32:03
Well over the last few weeks, our managers, actually even before this current round of military conflict had begun, had actually started easing up their market beta.
32:18
So reducing the sensitivity to the volatility in the market so that their equity portfolios are less volatile than the market, racing cash, one of our managers had started to put some put options on, which is good.
32:32
And there’s actually been very little downward movement in our client portfolios in the last 11 or 12 days here, which is very good.
32:42
Now, there is an assumption out there in the marketplace that because the midterm elections are very much at risk with this going on in the Gulf right now, that Trump is going to put an end to the war and make that happen, and certainly he’s trying that right now with Putin, trying to get a little bit of mediation going there.
33:09
My big concern that flows from that is that I don’t think the US is in as much of a position of control to stop the hostilities as they think, and as the markets are thinking.
33:24
The Iranians actually have a big advantage here because of course they control the choke point with the bottleneck for hydrocarbons coming out of almost all of the Persian Gulf.
33:35
Oman is an exception because it has ports on the Arabian Sea, not just in the Persian Gulf itself, but the vast majority of them are controlled there by Iran and everybody knows that low gas prices are key to Trump and the Republicans getting re-elected and keeping us out of foreign wars is what Trump promised.
34:01
Iran knows that too and it’s in their best interest to drag things out.
34:07
So in the short term and probably going forward in the longer term as well.
34:13
Europe is going to be one of the hardest hit regions because of their dependence on Persian, or sorry, on Qatari gas, liquid natural gas, which gives me a horrible flashback to the Prime Minister Justin Trudeau saying that there is no business case for liquid natural gas to Europe from Canada.
34:45
So what we know, of course, is that history doesn’t repeat itself, but as Mark Twain said, it sure does rhyme.
34:50
And as much as this current market volatility can be a little bit unnerving, it hasn’t really played out in our client portfolios.
34:59
But as you can see here in the yellow highlight box, over the past 20 years, on average, there’s always a minor correction in mid-March for the past 20 years.
35:13
And certainly last year it happened starting at the very end of March because April, April 2nd, I believe was the first, April 2nd was actually a Tuesday, I believe, so April, so the Liberation Day flush happened slightly later last year.
35:31
But on average, this kind of volatility in, in the mid-March period is actually pretty normal.
35:36
And as you can see, average over the past 10 years, with the S &P 500 is still ended up with a 10.4% return.
35:46
Now, one of my clients had a little quote underneath the email signature in his emails.
35:56
And that quote read, objects in history’s mirror are closer than they appear, which can be taken a couple of different ways.
36:05
So things that we don’t think are gonna happen in history could be a whole lot closer to happening, but also when we’re looking at things, they appear to be a whole lot closer, but they are further away.
36:19
So that’s my kind of my segue into saying, let’s take a longer term perspective.
36:24
So if we see this graph here, it shows that the S &P total return, the percentage of times that have been positive over various timeframes going back since 1928, so a full 98 years now.
36:37
So, if we’re looking on a one-month basis, 62% of the time returns have been positive.
36:44
We go up to a one-year level, three-quarters of the time, two years, 80% of the time, five years, almost 90% of the time, and it gets up to almost 100% of the time over the 15-year range. And longer than 15 years, it’s been positive returns 100% of the time.
37:08
So this is why we say we need to take a long term perspective and not focus always on just the negatives and on the short term stuff that’s going on. Because this too shall pass.
37:22
Now I mentioned a little earlier that you should consider media sources, podcasts, etc.
37:29
That a little bit more of a balanced view.
37:31
So we’re going to take a look at some of the positive factors that are in plain sight. Inflation is currently in check in both Canada and the US.
37:40
We do have a couple of red question marks there because that one might be changing if we have an energy shock that lasts longer than anticipated.
37:51
Declining or favorable interest rates before the war in the Gulf, the US was certainly scheduled or it was predicted by the bond market to have at least two more interest rates cuts.
38:03
And of course, Canada is in a very favorable situation.
38:08
If the conflict between Iran and the US and Israel could be kept to a relatively short time, then hopefully that continues forward as well.
38:20
There’s been a lot of deregulation in the US as a result of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
38:28
And those cuts really all kick in here in 2026.
38:34
One of the big ones is a CapEx tax policy change.
38:38
Most people don’t know what this is.
38:40
Basically, what that is allowing is for corporations that build major projects, They’re allowed to expense the entire cost of buildings and machinery purchases in the year that they spend them.
38:57
They don’t have to actually write them down through a gradual capital cost allowance or depreciation schedule.
39:06
And that is a huge bonus. And that’s actually led to a lot of companies reshoring into the U.S.
39:13
Right now, valuations outside of the cap tech stocks are actually quite reasonable.
39:19
There is a tremendous amount of fiscal stimulus from governments in Canada and the US.
39:25
There’s also stimulus from AI earnings and also all of the investments that’s happening from the large cap tech companies.
39:36
There’s been more of a rotation to value types of stocks recently, which is why the dividend grower stocks have really perked up.
39:44
We also have a reawakening of animal spirits and that’s showing in the small cap companies waking up.
39:52
And of course we have materials, which includes all the base metals and industrials and precious metals.
39:58
And of course now we have the energy companies waking up with the increases in prices due to what’s happening overseas.
40:07
Mid to longer term, again, deregulation and that capex tax policy are very, very positive in the US.
40:17
They have still relatively low unemployment. They had a slight tick up in unemployment with this past Friday’s print.
40:25
Nothing alarming just yet, but it’s still relatively low, which is good.
40:30
We had only modest declines in, or we have had modest declines in debt to GDP in the US most recently, not in Canada, but in the US, and there are some individual tax cuts that we’ll show you in a moment here as well.
40:45
There are a lot more efficiency showing up from AI deployment of both US and Canada, particularly in the US though.
40:51
More money continues to flow in to North America from Europe because Europe is turning into more and more of a train wreck with each passing day.
41:03
In Canada, we do have the possibility of new infrastructure projects.
41:06
We’ll have to see some follow through here in the next three weeks or so from the federal government to see if they follow through on some of the specific approvals and such that were listed out in the memorandum of understanding that the Fed signed with the province of Alberta back in November.
41:25
So we’ll have to see about that.
41:27
And of course, Canada has a great abundance of commodities.
41:30
The U.S.
41:31
also does as well, particularly on the energy side of things, but Canada has many more commodities and, of course, we have a larger land area and a population that’s only about one-ninth the size of the U.S., so we have a whole lot more open space and the ability to actually harvest and extract those resources without being in populated areas, frankly.
41:57
And again, materials and energy awakening. So there’s definitely a lot of positive things going on as well right now.
42:05
They’re not getting talked about as much, simply because of the fact that other things are dominating the news cycle.
42:11
And frankly, they should be dominating the news cycle, particularly with what’s going on with, with Iran and, and Israel.
42:21
So here are some of the US tax cuts that are going to provide more stimulus in 2026. Salt, that’s the state and local tax deduction.
42:35
There’s an increase in that.
42:36
That basically means that you get you get a you get a tax credit on your federal taxes in the US for a certain percentage of the state and local taxes that you pay and that cap has been increased, so effectively it’s like increasing the personal deduction. There is an overtime deduction, basically it’s not being taxed now.
43:04
There’s an increased seniors deduction.
43:06
There’s the standard, so the basic personal deduction or what we call the basic personal exemption here in Canada has increased.
43:14
The interest on auto loans is now tax deductible.
43:20
Tips are no longer taxable, which was, again, one of those, those 2024 presidential campaign promises from Trump.
43:28
There’s an increase in the child tax credit, which is worth about 7.3 billion.
43:33
The Trump accounts, which, frankly, I think should actually be called the, the Dell accounts, because it was Michael Dell that actually donated over $6 billion to set up these savings accounts.
43:45
It’s similar, I would say, to what Alberta did back in 2005 with the Alberta Savings Bond that was provided to those who had registered educational savings plans.
43:58
It’s a little bit similar to that, and a handful of other tax deductions that are increasing the take-home, or the after-tax take-home of most Americans, total of about $191 billion.
44:12
And for the vast majority of people in the U.S.
44:16
who are living from paycheck to paycheck and sometimes falling behind paycheck to paycheck, those tax, that tax relief is actually a really big deal and will help out a lot, and that flows through into the economy because any extra money that ends up in their pockets gets spent on either covering the basics or maybe having a few discretionary items.
44:39
This one, interest rates have been falling for 18 months and will keep falling.
44:44
That’s how the slide read from one of our portfolio managers back when we were looking at this in kind of late, late January, early February.
44:54
And this is the fact, the graphic is from the fact set from January 6th of 2026.
44:58
This, we’ll have to see what ends up happening, whether or not the U.S. will continue to come down.
45:05
This is the U.S.-fed overnight rate.
45:09
Down here at 225 is the Bank of Canada rate, which is obviously very, very low.
45:16
And so we’ll see if the Iran-Israel war can be held in check, then hopefully we’ll get a continuation of declining interest rates.
45:29
So, let’s talk a little bit more about how we allocate capital.
45:33
I know we’re at 746 right now, so we’ll keep going here as fast as we can.
45:39
So everything that we do with client capital is based first and foremost on your unique circumstances.
45:46
And that is, that comes down, the primary way that that is managed risk and return is through the asset mix and targets and ranges.
45:56
So the way that that works out is every client gets a customized investment strategy. You can see each of the different asset classes here. You know, cash, there’s a benchmark and a range, a pretty wide range that you can see that’s fairly typical, stable income, which could be private alternatives, corporate bonds, preferred shares and the like. In this case, it’s a benchmark of 45%. And again, a really wide range.
46:22
And then on the equity side of things, rounding out the 100% total here, of these bold numbers, equities with a range again down to 35 to 65.
46:33
In almost every client portfolio, we’ve got a, an overweight to the, the, the dividend grower side of things and, and growth as well.
46:43
But of the dividend piece and the growth stock, large cap growth stock piece, it would tend to be, you know, 60-plus percent of that 40% would tend to in, in dividend growers just because of the stability in the income, and the opportunity-seeking portion, which would be like that commodity strategy that we talked about.
47:05
So these are the ranges, and these get adjusted in real time according to what’s going on in the marketplace.
47:12
And the way that we arrange, or sorry, the way that we arrive at what your benchmark would be in the ranges are based on what your objectives are with, with the money, when do you need it. So that’s the time horizon. What is your psychological risk tolerance? What is your financial risk tolerance?
47:32
How much liquidity do you need in the portfolio?
47:34
And do you have certain preferences, particularly on the exclusion side of things, if people don’t want certain types of companies, certain industries we have with the different managers, we have some different levels of flexibility on being able to do exclusions on that basis.
47:51
But also on the preference side of things, it could be that you want a higher component of, say, a commodity strategy.
47:58
All of these things are mapped out in something we call the Investment Policy Statement, or an IPS.
48:04
This is standard operating procedure for all of our managers.
48:08
It is considered the best practice in the financial world to have an Investment Policy Statement, because what it does is it defines the parameters of how much risk can be taken in your discretionary portfolio, based on your unique circumstances. So it’s, it’s not technically a contract. It’s laying out the parameters of risk and reward.
48:32
And managers manage within that.
48:34
But of course, as discretionary managers, they have what’s called a fiduciary duty of care, which is the legally enforceable duty of care to act in your best interests.
48:45
And the investment policy statement is like a set of guardrails for, for how much risk they can take in your portfolio.
48:52
And then within each of these asset classes, particularly within equities, but also within the stable income component, there’s active management within each of the asset classes. So that’s how we do that.
49:06
Again, mapped out in the investment policy statement, and within each of the asset classes, but particularly within the equities component, but also within the commodities component.
49:17
There’s ongoing adjustments of the types of companies that are in the portfolios.
49:22
How much risk, how much cash is there, whether or not we’re using put options to protect against the downside of portfolios, or whether or not there’s even some covered calls being written on stocks that are held.
49:37
The overarching theme with these forward-thinking portfolios mapped out in your investment policy statement is this theme.
49:46
It is structure plus flexibility equals durability.
49:51
So when an airplane is designed like a commercial jetliner but any aircraft really it has to be strong but if it’s not flexible it becomes brittle and becomes vulnerable to extreme turbulence.
50:06
If it’s flexible, it becomes very durable.
50:10
Same thing applies to say bridges and also skyscrapers as other examples.
50:16
So structure plus flexibility equals durability.
50:22
So again, coming back to what we showed you a little bit earlier, the structure within the investment policy state that is basically expressing this theme which is forward thinking portfolios, where we have the stable income generation component with private alternatives like private credit, real estate, infrastructure, and even some royalty streaming in certain cases, but also corporate bonds and preferred shares.
50:52
It’s extraordinarily rare for our clients to own anything beyond a 90 or six-month government treasury bill because we’re not real, real keen on government debt.
51:03
And actually, when I say that we’re not real keen on government debt, what I really mean is that we’re staying away from anything over a six-month government debt like the plague because we see that that is the greatest risk long-term in these markets is a sovereign debt crisis unfolding.
51:24
And of course, the longer on the yield curve you are, the further out you are, the longer duration you have, the more risk that you have in a rising interest rate environment.
51:33
caused by one last upheaval in loss of confidence of government, so to speak.
51:44
Also, income and growth stocks, stocks you can tolerate.
51:46
Again, it’s going to be, you know, the dividend grower stocks, but also some of the more actively managed momentum stocks.
51:56
And on the opportunity-seeking side of things, again, you know, growthier, mid-cap stuff could be more aggressive sector stuff, could be small caps, cyclicals like the commodity strategy that we mentioned, but also private equity.
52:13
So having this structure is really, really important because it gives stability.
52:20
Again, structure or strength plus flexibility equals durability.
52:25
So let’s talk about a little bit of the flexibility, which is the use of signals and real-time decision making.
52:33
We’ve mentioned, especially in the equity side of things, that our managers are actively managing risk and reward in real time.
52:42
This photo that you see here, of course, is the flight deck of a modern airliner.
52:47
Looks awfully complex to those of us who are not familiar with flying any kind of an aircraft.
52:54
One thing I can say is that this is actually a Boeing, because you can still see the yoke on each side, as opposed to a joystick on either side, which is the sign of it being an Airbus.
53:07
So that much I do know.
53:10
This is the dashboard of key risk indicators that one of our managers uses and shares with us on a monthly basis anytime we wanna see it.
53:18
We can, of course, but this gets covered.
53:21
And we’re looking at things like the VIX on the top left, and then there’s credit spreads between corporate and government bonds.
53:30
And then there’s the bull bear sentiment down here, and honestly, I cannot tell you because it’s a little bit too fuzzy for me to read. I can’t tell you what these are. To me, this looks actually like stocks versus bonds. But that’s, that’s just, just from memory. But this is another example of one of the dashboards that our equity managers are using, particularly in real time.
53:58
And this is another one of the sets of proprietary signals from another one of our managers, where they look at each of the different asset classes.
54:07
So they look at whether or not they want to be in global stocks versus cash, or the TSX versus cash, or the S &P 500 versus U.S. bonds, the TSX versus Canadian government bonds, U.S.
54:20
bonds versus cash, et cetera, and whether There’ll be overweight in green here, neutral in blue, or underweight in the orange, and then throughout all of the equity components, which we prefer, you know, the TSX to the S &P, or EAFE, which is Europe, Australia, and the Far East, compared to the S &P 500, or emerging markets to the MSCI World Index, sickles versus defensive, et cetera, et cetera, as you see.
54:47
And the same thing on the fixed income and on the commodity side of things.
54:52
So this is one of the sets of proprietary signals that our managers use for how they are waiting portfolios.
55:00
And this was a snapshot of an actual asset allocation signal as of December 31st from one of our managers.
55:10
We’ve been asked by numerous people if the commodity super cycle is done.
55:18
We started the commodity, the commodity focused strategy with one of our managers, as I said, in eight days, it will be, it will actually be a full five years.
55:31
During the World Outlook Financial Conference that I attended and presented at in Vancouver back on February 6th and 7th, I was listening very carefully to the mainstage speakers to hear what they had to say in terms of the commodity super cycle and where it’s at.
55:47
Well, none of the main stage speakers use this particular phrase.
55:52
What I got from listening to all of them is that we’re basically in the fifth ending of a nine inning game when it comes to the, when it comes to the run up in commodities.
56:07
There’s just so much going on in the world.
56:09
And of course, with fossil fuels, now we had this before supply risk, But of course, it’s in red right now with, with, with crude oil, but also with natural gas.
56:20
And of course, even though we have slowing, a slowly growing demand globally, the fact is, is that, and that’s because the economy, the global economy is, is kind of flatlining right now, with possible exception of the US, which has been growing fairly robustly.
56:39
The fact is, is that second and third world countries, and there are a lot of them, they want to become first and second world countries.
56:45
And the, the primary correlation between standard of living, GDP per capita, and GDP per capita, it correlates with access to fossil fuels, access to clean, cheap, reliable and scalable, beautiful, beautiful fossil fuels.
57:05
In fact, fossil fuels are responsible for lifting more people out of poverty than any other factor in human history, which is a great thing, which is why we should be very proud of what we, what we produce here in, in Canada. We’re also going to have precious metals demand continuing.
57:22
We’re going to, we’re going to continue to have central bank demand, because central banks around the world, which have been buying a lot of precious metals, they certainly want to have more reserves in an asset, which does not have counterparty risk.
57:40
Any other currency, like the US dollar, or the euro, or the yen, or the yuan, or any other currency like that, or even the Canadian dollar, those are fiat currencies, and they have counterparty risk.
57:53
Gold does not.
57:54
Silver, of course, is referred to as the poor man’s gold.
57:59
but silver of course has had a tremendous, tremendous run.
58:03
In fact, we had a parabolic move going into the last few days of January and it’s come back down obviously from that spike, but there will continue to be a lot of demand on the silver side of things because not only is silver the poor man’s precious metal, it is also an industrial metal.
58:22
So that dual characteristic, which has been kind of what has held it down for some time is now actually becoming a tremendous, tremendous benefit.
58:32
And of course, there’s been chronic underinvestment in new base metal production.
58:36
That is very much true of all the base metals, but especially of copper, which is in huge demand for electrification, not just for electric vehicles, looking at the amount of copper that’s required for an electric vehicle, but of course, the amount of electricity that has to be generated and copper transmits that electricity.
59:03
And of course, now with the increase of AI and the increasing processing power that is required by, say, an AI search, which is between eight and 10 times that of a typical Google search, that requires more electricity.
59:21
And of course, that demands more power generation of that electricity and copper is essential for that.
59:28
And as we know, ore grades have been decreasing substantially.
59:35
The ore grades of untapped reserves are very much lower and there are massive regulatory delays in most developed countries.
59:43
It could take anywhere between 12 and 15 years from the discovery of a new copper deposit that is financially viable at given prices and cost estimates, it can take up to 15 years to get that mine into production.
59:58
And so that’s why we’ve had a real squeeze on the copper side of things.
1:00:03
But it also applies to nickel, aluminum, bauxite, all kinds of different base metals that are required for different industrial processes.
1:00:16
And certainly as we see global military conflicts escalating. Military equipment requires vast, vast amounts of those of those base metals as well.
1:00:30
And of course, then there’s also the the AI push, you know, again, requiring more copper, natural gas as a great power generation type of fuel, nuclear power, of course, and rare earths.
1:00:47
And of course, here in Canada, we have what I would call almost an embarrassment of riches of natural gas and not the biggest uranium deposits in the world.
1:00:59
I believe that Kazakhstan is number one, Australia is number two, and Canada is number three.
1:01:05
But here in Canada, particularly in the Athabasca Basin of Saskatchewan, we actually have the highest concentration of uranium of any country in the world, which is fantastic.
1:01:17
So that’s why we think that there is still lots of upside left in the commodity supercycle and we will continue to invest in that prudently for our clients.
1:01:29
Other sectors that we see some opportunities in the US and in global markets, there’s the pharma and healthcare piece. Financials have been doing rather well and we think that’ll continue.
1:01:40
Consumer discretionary, particularly in the US, we think is going to continue to do well even if consumer staples are suffering based on that K-shaped economy I mentioned earlier.
1:01:51
And with, again, the increase in artificial intelligence, there’s the picks and shovels around the edges.
1:02:00
So not necessarily the big tech companies, but the companies that will actually be providing some of the tools literally for AI expansion and adoption.
1:02:14
as well as companies that will actually benefit from the efficiencies from those.
1:02:19
And here in Canada, of course, we have industrials, which if we can get a decent KUSMA or NAFTA deal struck with the US in the coming months, we’ll actually be very good.
1:02:37
They will be beneficiaries of that.
1:02:41
So we’re looking at that as an opportunity.
1:02:44
There’s select office real estate because there’s very much a continued back to the office push.
1:02:50
And as we mentioned, materials, base metals, and precious metals, and of course, on the energy side of things.
1:02:56
So lots of good opportunities out there.
1:02:59
One last thing before we wrap it up and take question and answer is what not to do.
1:03:05
So we told you some of the things that we’re doing, some areas to watch out for, some areas where we think there’s opportunity, how our managers do things, doing things.
1:03:14
But if you’re doing it for yourself, so if you’re self-managing, some most important things to make sure that you don’t do because you can mess up the good things that you’ve done by doing some of these pitfalls, by letting yourself fall into some of these pitfalls, we’ll say.
1:03:31
First of all, don’t let emotions drive your decision-making. That’s typically going to be letting headlines be your guide, whether it’s fear of missing out on the upside or fear of loss of capital.
1:03:42
FOMO is sometimes referred to, often referred to, frankly, as greed, and fear of loss of capital is just often referred to as fear, so greed and fear.
1:03:52
Whatever you do, don’t take on unnecessary risk with too much sector concentration, even if you think that, you know, energy stocks are going to continue to do well after a little bit of a pullback if tensions ease with Iran and Israel.
1:04:07
Make sure that you are not over-concentrated in one sector.
1:04:11
Again, make sure you don’t have too much single stock risk with your serious money, with some of your play money, that’s a little bit different, but that’s typically under 10% of an overall portfolio.
1:04:23
And don’t make the mistake of running and hiding in GICs or having excessive amounts of cash that you set aside that you’re not going to invest in the pullback.
1:04:33
And I guess probably the last thing here is not to let your dogma or your worldview rule your decision making because price is the only thing that we can trade everything else’s opinion.
1:04:50
Even if you’re someone who let’s say got the precious metals story or the energy stock story.
1:04:56
right, early and invested in it, you have to make sure that you continue to manage risk by reducing your concentration and having a stop-loss order in place on, on those types of investments, because it doesn’t matter what you think.
1:05:13
All that matters is price.
1:05:15
As Jim Dein said, in investing, price is the only objective truth and everything else’s So you don’t want to let your attachment to the story, your, and the, how the story attaches to your investment.
1:05:31
You don’t want to let that hurt your returns by holding on stubbornly to, to investments as they fall back, because you think your story is still intact. So that’s what we have for you tonight.
1:05:45
One thing of note, last week, I actually did a, about a 50-minute interview with Sean Newman on the Sean Newman podcast, first time doing that podcast.
1:05:55
Hoping to be doing that, I don’t know, every few months or so. Not sure just yet.
1:06:00
And we’ll be attending the Cornerstone Forum here in Calgary at the end of March.
1:06:09
Featured speaker will be Martin Armstrong.
1:06:12
And the, I believe, the opening speaker will actually be Premier Daniel Smith’s, so that should be interesting.
1:06:18
But if you’d like to search up the Sean Newman podcast or just search it on YouTube or on Spotify, wherever, you can find that interview there and give you an opportunity to get to know us a little bit better if that’s something that you’re curious about.
1:06:33
All right, so of course, what do we do with this?
1:06:35
Well, it depends.
1:06:36
If you want progress, if you want improvements, it takes equal parts of time, money, and willingness to change.
1:06:43
That’s how you get the progress in the center.
1:06:46
And some impediments to that might be that you’re clinging to outdated investment strategies, or you’re tolerating suboptimal investors with your current advisor because you like him or her, which is absurd, because it’s, it’s always about the results that are being produced.
1:07:02
And of course, if you don’t have a comprehensive financial plan, you might be taking on more risk than you need to, because you think you to, because you don’t have a comprehensive plan that shows you the return that you actually need.
1:07:16
So, you can apply that knowledge by clicking or taking the exit survey as you leave the webinar tonight, and we’ll certainly send out a follow-up email tonight with the link to the recording of this webinar.
1:07:29
We’re happy to offer you a complimentary consult.
1:07:32
You can, of course, sign up for our video and webinar library, which is quite robust now, now that we’ve been doing these podcasts for the last six plus years.
1:07:43
So there’s, I don’t know, there’s 18 or 20 of them on there now.
1:07:46
And of course, you can always just reach out directly to Sandor at that email address that you see there, or through the contact form at i-wealth.ca. So thank you for your time and attention here.
1:08:03
I’m going to take a minute break and I’m going to have Sandor bring in any questions that the attendees have here tonight. So we’ll be right back. All right, welcome back.
1:09:36
We have a number of questions here, so we’ll start with them in order.
1:09:40
First question here from Sean is how are your metal mining stocks doing at this time, Andrew?
1:09:50
Well, we’ve been investing in precious metals miners off and on for the last four years.
1:09:57
We rode and we’ve been going from a full position to a half position, depending on overbought and oversold conditions.
1:10:06
We actually got out of our gold mining stocks back in late January, a few percent about on a net basis, 6% before the top, but that was great cause we locked in like a 65 or 70% return on those and then sent the money over into what we call a parking lot, which is an actively managed long flat commodities fund.
1:10:34
So we’re doing very well with that.
1:10:36
And in fact, we just bought back into the gold stocks and gold and silver bullion this past week, about a week ago, a week ago today and tomorrow actually averaged over two days.
1:10:49
Next question here from Linda.
1:10:51
Do you invest in auto-callable bonds? Now, that terminology, I’m not exactly familiar with auto-callable bonds.
1:11:00
There certainly are, you know, there are certainly preferred shares and, and other forms of debt that are callable at any given time.
1:11:12
But I’m not sure of that exact term.
1:11:17
And if you like, we can deal with that question offline and get a more specific answer for you, Linda. Sorry, I don’t have a detailed answer for you. But you had a second question here.
1:11:28
What opportunities are available in private investments?
1:11:31
Well, that is going to be a combination of private credit, infrastructure, private real state, royalty streaming, and the like. So that’s the nature of the private investments. Matt has a question here.
1:11:46
In your opinion, are most people satisfied if they can make 10% to 20% return annually?
1:11:52
My question would, or my answer to that question would be, if that’s the average return over time, most people would be satisfied with that.
1:12:00
And then does time in the market versus timing the market fall into dogmatic thinking?
1:12:09
And that’s a really interesting philosophical question, Matt.
1:12:12
And I actually am inclined to agree that timing the market is difficult, but it is something that does need to be done to a certain extent.
1:12:25
We’ve talked often about our managers actively managing risk in real time, taking money off the table, buying back in when opportunities are created by market volatility.
1:12:38
So I think that, you know, sticking with a target asset allocation range, but having the flexibility to move around within that range, and actually to move around within the equities that you’re in within that range, is actually the happy middle ground between saying, you know, just buy and hold, which I don’t agree with and hyperactively managing.
1:13:03
So active management is kind of the hybrid or the, I’ll call it the happy middle ground between the two of them.
1:13:10
Because I think that, again, doing everything on a market timing basis is difficult and simply buying and holding to me is not a wise strategy because things change over time.
1:13:25
So very good question.
1:13:26
Thank you, Matt.
1:13:28
All right here.
1:13:33
John says, Martin Armstrong has said there’s a chance the Canadian dollar may not exist.
1:13:37
What does he mean by that?
1:13:38
Will it crash or be replaced with a central bank digital currency?
1:13:43
Is there any timeline on the central bank digital currency at this time?
1:13:48
Well, the first question, I follow Martin Armstrong pretty closely and I don’t recall him saying there’s a chance the Canadian dollar may not exist. So that’s a new one to me.
1:13:59
I’m happy to go look and try and find out what he meant by that.
1:14:03
I don’t think that he means that it will be replaced by a central bank digital currency.
1:14:08
That’s just a digital version of the Canadian dollar that is more controlled.
1:14:15
But certainly Canadian dollar weakness could, could certainly continue to happen.
1:14:22
Canadian dollar has been pretty strong the last year, year and a half relatively speaking.
1:14:27
But of course, any fiat currency is essentially a report card on the confidence level that global investors have in the way that the country is run.
1:14:36
And if things go south, your currency can go south that way again.
1:14:43
Of course, any timeline on the central bank digital currency?
1:14:48
I know that there’s been more rumblings in Europe moving forward, and of course, war and the possible disintegration of the European Union are being used as kind of the reasons behind wanting to go to a central bank digital currency.
1:15:06
I would not be surprised if the Europeans try and sneak this in in the midst of their crumbling economy due to the energy spike resulting from the Iran-Iraq-Israel war.
1:15:20
but we’ll have to see. That’s just me. But I wouldn’t be surprised if Europe tries to slide it in before the end of 2026.
1:15:29
But that’s just my opinion.
1:15:41
Anthony has a question here about, Why is the Canadian insurance sector getting beaten up right now? That’s a question that I don’t have enough, enough knowledge to answer credibly, Anthony.
1:15:54
So Sandor is going to that question and we’re going to try and get a bit of an answer for you and we see your email address there and we will try and answer that for you separately. Thanks for the question.
1:16:14
Justin’s question, it’s been reported the G7 and the IEA are in talks of having a coordinated release of oil from the strategic petroleum reserves.
1:16:21
Do you feel this will have a meaningful effect in keeping energy prices lower or is the loss of supply just too big?
1:16:30
The answer to that question is it depends how long the supply disruptions continue from the Persian Gulf crisis.
1:16:43
The longer it lasts, the less meaningful that a coordinated dump from the SPRs in the G7 would be because, as your question implies, the loss of supply would just be too big for that.
1:16:59
So, we’ll have to see, and by the way, Canada doesn’t have a strategic petroleum reserve, at least not one that is already extracted fuel, I guess you might call the oil sands our strategic petroleum reserve, really.
1:17:17
William asks, would you please speak to your fee structure?
1:17:21
I’ll speak in general terms.
1:17:23
The larger your portfolio, the lower the management fee, just like you pay less per pound of chicken rest at Costco when you buy 40 pounds of it, then you do if you buy three of them at Zobis or Safeway or the like.
1:17:38
But we can get back to you offline with more specifics around your question, because it does depend on the size of your portfolio. Another question from Anthony. After this one, you’re cut off because you’ve got too many questions.
1:17:56
Just joking. Canadian sector du jour right now.
1:17:58
I would say that the two to watch are, actually the three to watch would be the base metal sector, the precious metals, miners slash bullion, and also the energy side of things right now.
1:18:12
Energy stocks in Canada and the US on the small, mid cap and large cap basis are quite overbought right now.
1:18:21
We held energy stocks all the way in our commodity strategy. We held those all the way through 2025.
1:18:28
Those energy stocks were actually the only laggard in our entire commodity strategy portfolio last year.
1:18:35
But we made a conscious decision to hold them because we could see that energy prices would be kind of the wild card despite flat or slowly growing global demand because of the risk of supply shocks.
1:18:51
And of course, that’s what has actually happened in the last little while here.
1:19:02
David’s question, regarding recent domestic policy announcement, how do you see agreements between federal and provincial levels of government and Indigenous groups affecting investment in natural resources sectors, real estate and the overall economy, especially regarding Western provinces?
1:19:20
Well, David, and David, I mentioned his last name on purpose, because David is one of our clients. That’s a darn big question. And I really wish that I had a really sound answer for you.
1:19:34
Of course, the Richmond Cowichan decision, if you play that one out, is earth shattering, I would say, because it essentially erases the dominance or the superiority of fee simple title, which is the basis of private property ownership, and follow that up with the recent disclosure of the federal government and the Musqueam Nation basically technically seeding most of West Van, North Van and the Lower Mainland basically most of the way out to Langley and the south side of Richmond maybe not including Delta and South Surrey and White Rock that is absolutely destabilizing.
1:20:27
I’ve listened to a number of different legal experts on this, and all I can say is that this is something which absolutely has to be addressed in the very near term, because it does shake confidence in the idea of, again, home ownership, property ownership, most especially in the province of B.C., but of course, it does translate when it comes to mineral development resource development in not only BC but in Western Canada.
1:21:03
And this is one of the big questions that frankly is facing our country right now and a big part of the reason why Alberta is likely to have an independence referendum. Oh, very interesting.
1:21:20
And Sandra just showed me a little something that showed up.
1:21:23
I was mentioning the potential for four crossings with, with the federal liberals. And the Nunavut MP, Laurie Idlout, crosses the floor from the NDP to the liberals.
1:21:35
So there you go.
1:21:37
Once those three by-elections in safe liberal writings go through, you could have your liberal majority, which in my opinion is highly likely to actually pump more oxygen and a whole lot more fuel onto the Alberta independence fire.
1:22:06
So a couple of questions from Sean.
1:22:10
I like that you follow Armstrong and Joseph Schachter.
1:22:13
Did you side with Armstrong or Schachter recently?
1:22:17
I ended up going with Schachter and building up cash.
1:22:20
Ouchie.
1:22:21
Uh, we actually, uh, we’re willing to, and what you’re referring to, I believe, John, is that, uh, at the World Outlook Conference, Schachter said that there should probably be a pullback in, in the coming weeks, uh, from the, uh, low sixties level where West Texas was at the time back into the, uh, into the mid sixties range.
1:22:42
A number of our clients that, uh, that followed that advice, uh, we’re sitting on cash and so we’re waiting for that pullback.
1:22:50
We stayed invested with our energy stocks.
1:22:53
It wasn’t specifically against Schachter’s recommendation or in favor of what Armstrong was saying, but we just felt that things could move too quickly, and we didn’t want to be in a position where we were trying to get too fancy and trade our energy stock position and miss out on a run. So, sorry that you did that.
1:23:17
That was one of the mistakes that we mentioned about holding on to too much cash.
1:23:20
Sorry to hear that. Winona asks, what a nice Dutch last name it looks like there, Winona.
1:23:36
I’m of Dutch heritage as well so that last name jumps out at me.
1:23:41
What is your minimum portfolio amount where it makes sense to have it manage fees versus performance for the core and explore?
1:23:48
It depends on your age. Our typical minimum for those over the age of 50 is $500 ,000.
1:23:54
We make an exception for people who are a little bit under the age of 50 and a little bit under that level.
1:24:01
For the Core and Explore as a standalone account, it’s $250 ,000.
1:24:05
But you would also have to be in a position where you have the other funds to make up that difference to that $500 ,000 level if you are over the age of 50.
1:24:19
Sean, another good question here.
1:24:22
Will you vote pro-Alberta independence and how do you handicap its success?
1:24:29
First of all, I believe that right now we’re in the 34%, 35% pro-independence support neighborhood right now in Alberta.
1:24:40
It’s two, perhaps three points higher in Saskatchewan.
1:24:44
So, if Alberta goes, I think Saskatchewan will likely go with us.
1:24:53
Just by way of a historical note, when Alberta and Saskatchewan came into confederation, Saskatchewan and Alberta actually wanted to come in together as the province of Buffalo, but the folks in eastern Canada figured that we would be too powerful because of our resources, And then that was back in over 100 years ago, about 120 years ago now.
1:25:19
And, and so we came in as two separate provinces for that reason. How do I handicap its chances of success?
1:25:28
I would say, right now, that it’s probably a 40% probability of going through, but with every action or inaction by the federal government, the odds of that will go up.
1:25:48
And I’ve been asked this question before, would I vote in favor of Alberta independence?
1:25:56
And my answer was a very clear, it depends precisely on what the federal government does between now and when that independence vote happens.
1:26:07
So I did sign the petition for the referendum, the one that requires just under 178 ,000 certified signatures, certified by Elections Alberta.
1:26:21
So I did sign that quite happily, because I believe that Albertans need a voice.
1:26:27
But it would depend on what the federal government does between now and then.
1:26:31
My hope is that Daniel Smith and Scott Moe can negotiate a better deal for Alberta and Saskatchewan to the point where Albertans and Saskatchewanites or, or Saskawanders or whatever we’re going to call you, riders fans, would be happy enough to, to stay in Canada. It would be less disruptive.
1:26:57
But if there isn’t a better deal to be had for for the Western provinces.
1:27:03
I think that an independence vote would just squeak through barely.
1:27:11
All right, so that is it for our questions.
1:27:15
We managed to touch on basically everything.
1:27:18
Oh, there’s one question here from Roy.
1:27:22
What would you recommend a young person start to invest in?
1:27:26
We’re a big fan of getting people started very early with saving and investing. It depends on that young person’s financial circumstance, what the money is actually for.
1:27:37
Is it for retirement? Is it for saving for a house, which is a big one these days?
1:27:45
So of course, the, the objective of what that young person is saving for is the primary driver of the time horizon.
1:27:55
And of course, the time horizon dictates how much, you know, shorter-term volatility risk that you’d be willing to take on.
1:28:02
If it’s saving for a house in the next 5 years, it should probably be in a conservative balance portfolio.
1:28:09
And if it’s for retirement, for a young person, anything more than 10 or 15 years, we have young clients that are close to 100% equities.
1:28:21
I myself, even though I’m 58 years old. I am 100% in equities and always will be equities and cash because I have no problem tolerating volatility.
1:28:31
So I’m completely good with that. But again, it comes down to clients individual circumstances.
1:28:38
So it looks like we have maybe a couple more questions that have come in here. I want to scroll up. And John, a different John has a question here.
1:28:47
Martin Armstrong says, If Canada breaks up, Canada becomes third world. Is that possible?
1:28:52
I know it’s related to all unskilled labor we let walk into our country, which is very concerning.
1:28:57
I can’t disagree with the last part of your comment there.
1:29:02
Martin has been very, very clear that both the US and Canada will separate into smaller regional states, that is to say, new countries.
1:29:14
He first showed that on a screen in 2015 when I was attending the first live in-person World Economic Conference in Princeton, New Jersey in November of 2015.
1:29:26
I remember sitting at a table with five other people, all of whom were Americans, and their jaws hit the floor, or sorry, hit the table, when, when Marty showed a map of the U.S.
1:29:37
breaking up into three distinct regions, basically the left coast, and the, the northeast, basically from Virginia North all along the coast.
1:29:50
And, and a couple of Great Lakes states staying with, with the Northeast Coast folks, and then everywhere else basically being its own country. And that’s kind of how the vote gets split.
1:30:03
He’s more recently said on multiple occasions that Canada will split, based on what I said a few moments ago about hoping that Alberta and Saskatchewan can negotiate a better deal, so that enough Albertans will want to stay.
1:30:20
That, so that’s, that’s what I hope for.
1:30:25
And so I would say that it concerns me that, that as models are showing that Canada will break up.
1:30:31
When he said that Canada will become a Third World country, what he was really referring to was Eastern and Central Canada will become a third world country.
1:30:40
Because even as even the Premier of Manitoba, the NDP, Premier Wab Kanu said, Alberta, and I would add Saskatchewan, Alberta and Saskatchewan are the capitalist locomotive that makes the Canadian socialist train run.
1:31:01
And so without Saskatchewan and Alberta, Eastern and Central Canada would be cooked goose, in, in my opinion, Canada goose, as, as the case may be. But that’s what I would see that. Yeah.
1:31:20
And last question here from Keith, where do you see the Canadian telecoms are heading?
1:31:26
Again, that’s a more detailed sector question and we’ll earmark that and get you an answer offline on that.
1:31:34
Telecoms are actually a little bit of a safe haven right now, certainly in the States because they’re utilities.
1:31:44
Google is technically considered a communications company, even though it’s a tech company.
1:31:49
But, of course, you know, we’re talking about the Horizons and the AT &Ts and the like for communications companies and some of the other regional phone players that are telecom players in the U.S.
1:32:06
But we’ll get you a more robust answer than that offline.
1:32:12
And one last question from Winona of Dutch Descent.
1:32:18
Where would that leave BC if Alberta and Saskatchewan separate?
1:32:25
Would you avoid investing in BC?
1:32:29
Even if Alberta and Saskatchewan do not leave, I personally would not be buying real property in BC because of the big questions around the Richmond-Cowichan decision as well as the more recent federal government Musqueam Nation decision.
1:32:48
So that’s just me.
1:32:51
We have a couple of clients who live in different parts of British Columbia who are prepared to actually move from BC to Alberta if nothing is done about those decisions. But we’ll have to see how that plays out.
1:33:07
If Alberta and Saskatchewan do separate from the rest of Canada, BC would be free to decide what it wants to do, just like Alberta and Saskatchewan are.
1:33:20
And so you can have a situation where, where you have part of the country that is, like BC could still be part the rest of Canada, but would have a little block in the center.
1:33:32
And it would be kind of a larger scale version of how Kaliningrad is, is Russian sovereign territory on the Baltic Sea.
1:33:42
But it is not directly linked to, to the rest of Russia. There is an easement that, that goes through. I believe it’s either Latvia or Lithuania.
1:33:56
Don’t have the map up front of me.
1:33:58
But it could be a similar situation to that where, you know, again, British Columbia is still part of the rest of Canada.
1:34:05
But honestly, I’m just kind of, I’m answering off the top of my head, because I don’t know what BC would want to do. So anyways, we’re gonna wrap it up here. Thank you.
1:34:17
We kept the webinar presentation itself to 66 minutes, which was, which was great. And now here, almost 28 minutes of question and answer.
1:34:27
So I want to say thank you very much to everybody who stuck with us here all the way through the Q &A.
1:34:32
And to everybody who has attended, we look forward to hearing back from you.
1:34:36
And if you think that you might be a little bit curious about seeing if we can be of assistance to you and your family when it comes to your wealth management, please reach out to us.
1:34:47
And we look forward to connecting with you then. Thank you very much. And bye for now.
