Canada’s economy had its worst quarterly showing since 2009 through the first three months of 2020 owing to the novel coronavirus, Statistics Canada said Friday, warning an even steeper drop may be coming. Gross domestic product fell at an annualized rate of 8.2 per cent in the first quarter, including a 7.2-per-cent drop in March […]
The Investment Management Corp. of Ontario is committing US$250 million to Apollo Global Management Inc.’s new Accord Fund III series B. The fund is focused on acquiring credits that have traded down due to liquidity-driven selling and non-economic reasons. “This is an example of IMCO adapting to market conditions and exploiting our liquidity very quickly so that clients have […]
Even before the coronavirus began affecting capital markets, fixed income investors were becoming more risk averse, according to Invesco’s latest survey. Close to half (43 per cent) of investors surveyed in late 2019 said they felt the then economic cycle had a year or less left to run and were adapting their portfolios accordingly. In some cases, this change […]
Financial markets are showing signs of concern about how well companies can weather the coronavirus economic crisis, the Bank of Canada said in a report outlining issues the pandemic is having on business and household debt. The central bank has spent the last two months making a flurry of policy decisions that include slashing the […]
Monetary and fiscal policy-makers around the world are taking different approaches to tackling the current economic crisis, but their actions today will pose challenges down the road, says Erik Weisman, chief economist at MFS Investment Management. Looking at combined monetary and fiscal policy responses, the U.S. is likely the most aggressive, while Europe and Japan […]
The Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec is acquiring 717,701 additional shares of Azure Power Global Ltd., bringing its total holdings in the company to 24,259,272 shares, or 50.9 per cent of the total outstanding stock. Azure Power is an independent Indian solar-power producer with a portfolio of assets generating more than seven gigawatts. “We have built […]
Financial well-being benefits are on the rise in North America, according to a new survey by WorldatWork. Among the companies surveyed, 70 per cent said they currently offer financial well-being benefits, more than half said they intend to expand these benefits and 35 per cent said they’ve increased spending in this area. “Financial benefits play a critical […]
In a low-rate world where income is increasingly tough to find, more and more investors are getting into the riskier corners of lending to companies. A financial watchdog says that might cause problems in financial markets during a downturn. The Financial Stability Board, an international group created to co-ordinate financial regulators, released a report Thursday […]
Japanification is a term describing the spread of low growth and low inflation around the world. Speaking at the Canadian Investment Review’s 2019 Defined Benefit Investment Forum in Toronto on Dec. 6, Charles Lannon, head of equities at Cidel Asset Management Inc., discussed whether Europe and the United States are destined for a similar fate […]
For intergenerational investors, such as foreign pension plans ramping up their exposure to alternative assets and leveraging patient capital, it’s worth paying attention to Indonesia’s potential. “If you follow the logic that the country’s going to be the fourth or fifth largest economy in the world . . . then, to me, it’s too big […]