Personal Wealth

Over the past couple of weeks, the stock market has recovered some of the ground it lost when the seriousness of the COVID-19 crisis became clear. We don’t know where the markets will go from here, but one thing investors have always been able to count on is dividend income.

Welcome back to the Canadian Portfolio Manager podcast, where we’ll continue on with our Spaceballs-inspired exploration of the new CPM model portfolios. I’m your host, Justin Bender, and in today’s episode, we’ll introduce our moderately complicated Ridiculous portfolios.

With stock markets down significantly across the globe as a result of the novel coronavirus in a matter of a month, it’s tempting to think stock markets are on sale and that you need to take advantage of that. Most don’t have large amounts of cash lying around, so borrowing to invest is one way to access that cash.

In this episode, we take a less analytical position on the current situation to focus more on the behavioral side of things. Joining us are two returning guests, Dr. Moira Somers and Dave Goetsch, who share their unique perspectives in a very real and at times refreshingly comical conversation about how people could most beneficially respond to this moment in time.

We have just gone through one of the most difficult months for investors. The worst part of it wasn’t the steep decline in our portfolio values, it’s been not knowing what’s coming up next. While it is surreal to see the world economy freeze up due to the global pandemic, it’s important to remember that equity bear markets, and the damage they inflict on portfolios, are part of an investor’s life.

Over the past weeks, we’ve received a number of calls and messages from clients about the sudden decline in the stock market caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Stocks have fallen approximately 25% since the start of the year. Does this mean my retirement plans and other financial goals are in ruins?

The current bear market is unique. The global coronavirus pandemic has brought large segments of the world economy to a halt. Some economists are forecasting a 25% decline of the U.S. GDP (annualized) for the second quarter.

PWL invests in fixed income markets with high-quality bond ETFs and/or mutual funds for our clients’ portfolios. The bond ETFs and mutual funds generally act as a counterweight to the greater risk of equity investments.

In our second special release episode during the 2020 COVID-19 bear market we discussed a broad history of US bear markets from 1900 to 2020, the recent volatility in the bond market, bond ETF NAV spreads, a nuance in the legislation on tax-loss harvesting, and some of the tax-related changes that Canada has rolled out in light of the current situation.