As earnings season ramps up, broad market consensus is seeking the middle way, suggesting the likelihood of a U-shaped recovery, as opposed to a roaring revamp or a genuine depression. “I think what the market consensus is expecting is reasonable,” says David Souccar, portfolio manager for international equities at Vontobel Asset Management’s quality growth boutique. […]
Canadian equities were the worst performing traditional asset category in the first quarter, according to a report that sizes up the financial impact of the novel coronavirus pandemic and concurrent decline in world oil prices during the first three months of 2020. The CIBC Mellon report says Canadian equities had a first-quarter median return of […]
Last August, I wrote about whether central banks were creating a financial bubble with their coordinated easing programs intended to spur economic growth and/or lift inflation. In January 2020, I wrote about the end of the economic cycle, the potential for a recession and what that might mean for positioning an investment portfolio. Little did I […]
The Investment Management Corp. of Ontario reached $70.3 billion in assets under management at the end of 2019, up from $63.3 billion at the end of 2018. In its latest annual report, the organization, which manages assets for certain broader public sector institutions, shared its growth in assets under management, but didn’t report its 2019 investment returns. “It’s important […]
Canadian defined benefit plans saw a median return of negative 7.1 per cent in the first quarter of 2020, after enduring a historic period of market volatility and economic turmoil resulting from the global pandemic crisis, according to both the Northern Trust Canada universe and the RBC Investor and Treasury Services universe. Northern Trust Canada […]
The British Columbia Investment Management Corp. is aligning itself with other global pension investors by signing a new joint letter calling for long-term sustainability to become a more prevalent concern for corporations and asset managers. The letter was co-signed in early March by three institutional investors — Japan’s Government Pension Investment Fund, the California State Teachers’ Retirement Scheme and […]
The Nova Scotia Teachers’ Pension Plan is bracing for the effect of the coronavirus pandemic on its assets as it reported a 78.2 per cent funded status on a going-concern basis — up from 75.3 per cent at the end of 2018 — and a $1.497-million deficit in its 2019 annual results. “While the plan remains […]
It’s no surprise that Canadian pension funds had a rough first quarter of 2020 and the latest data from Morneau Shepell Ltd.’s universe of pension managers’ pooled funds confirms just that. During the quarter, diversified pooled fund managers saw a median return of negative 10 per cent before management fees, which was 0.9 per cent […]
With crude oil futures contracts crashing through the floor into negative territory at the beginning of the week, what opportunities are opening up for institutional investors? Panic set in on commodity trading floors on Monday because physical storage options for oil were filling up fast, with much less demand for petrol from consumers due to […]
Even amid the global chaos created by the coronavirus pandemic, China is too big an economy for institutional investors to ignore. A recent report by Greenwich Associates found the two main drivers for China allocations among institutional investors are diversification (54 per cent) and potential for alpha (31 per cent). But just as markets in Europe […]