At the end of 2020, a year of exceptionally volatile and unpredictable markets due to the coronavirus pandemic, the Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology pension plan was 119 per cent funded with $3.3 billion in funding reserves and its assets had grown to $15.8 billion from $13.5 billion on Jan. 1, 2020. “In the heart […]
With bond returns tied to interest rates, it’s no surprise Canadian pension funds are increasingly seeking other ways to boost fixed income yields. Canadian interest rates have been trending downward for the last 30 years, from a high of 10.3 per cent in 1990 to around 1.75 per cent in early 2020, according to the […]
It’s likely that investors seeking the potential higher returns and the lower downside risks of private equity in their diversified portfolios already know that, historically, private equity has outperformed stock market indices by two-to-three per cent per year. They might also know that, from 2007-2020, the S&P 500 was up 9.5 per cent per year […]
What a difference a year makes. At this time in 2019, initial reports of a novel virus to be called COVID-19 were just beginning to come out of China, and the pandemic was still months from becoming front-page news around the world. Investors were busy instead planning for another regular year in 2020, setting return […]
Institutional investors are focusing on equities and global markets as the economic effects of the coronavirus pandemic continue in Canada, according to a webinar hosted by Franklin Templeton Investments Corp. on Tuesday. In the keynote address, Stephen Poloz, former governor of the Bank of Canada, said the pandemic is amplifying the economic effects of five pre-existing […]
Despite several bumps in the decade since the 2008/09 financial crisis, the swift and brutal crash in global equity prices when the coronavirus was declared a pandemic sent pension investors reaching for their playbooks to implement defensive strategies to mitigate the damage. “People have worked very hard at just acting on the set strategies that […]
The Toronto Transit Commission Pension Fund Society has been reminded of the importance of liquidity during the coronavirus pandemic, according to Sean Hewitt, the fund’s chief executive officer, during a virtual roundtable hosted by the Canadian Pension and Benefits Institute on Thursday. “COVID-19 was a really interesting test study in liquidity,” he said, noting the TTC plan […]
Despite several bumps in the decade since the 2008/09 financial crisis, the swift and brutal crash in global equity prices when the coronavirus was declared a pandemic sent pension investors reaching for their playbooks to implement defensive strategies to mitigate the damage. “People have worked very hard at just acting on the set strategies that […]
With the prevalence of high-frequency trading, some financial market exchange platforms have imposed speed bumps to delay trading orders and slow these traders down. “Of course, the details will be different from exchange to exchange, but basically, they slow down or [they] impose some time lags between the order placement by high-frequency traders and order […]
The impact of powerful trends, including aging populations and growing debt levels in the world’s largest economies, has been somewhat mitigated in recent years by the ongoing involvement of central banks in markets and declining interest rates. However, with rates at historic lows, this is not something that can be relied on over the next […]