Articles

The most recent federal census found that 33.5 per cent of Canadians were renters. Those rental properties are owned by individual landlords, as well as corporate and institutional investors like Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) and pension plans.

My younger brother has more money than I do. Do you have any idea how hard that is to admit? My “baby” brother, at the ripe age of 18, who has barely worked a real job, while I’ve worked more than ten, has more money than I do. He has more money because early on, he “got it” and I didn’t. He was smarter with his money than I was, and so now, he has more than I do. What a humbling and terrible thing to accept as an older sibling.

Share buyback or share repurchase is one of the key options in capital allocation that a company can choose to allocate cash flow in addition to paying dividends, implementing acquisitions, or paying down debt.

In a share buyback, the issuing company repurchases its shares on the open market from any investor interested in selling, which reduces the amount of shares available, and increases the value of remaining shares.

You have seen commercials and advertisements for reverse mortgages. The players in the field have utilized instantly recognizable Canadian celebrities such as Kurt Browning and Peter Mansbridge to promote their products. That’s right—those ads! For younger adults, especially those with high six-figure mortgages, reverse mortgages might seem like irrelevant products.

Are you one of the extremely fortunate investors sitting on significant accrued gains generated during the market run-up over the last few years? Nvidia is a common name which has skyrocketed over 750% in the past 2 years alone. Are your gains from stocks such as Apple, that you have fortunately held for many years? Couple these returns with the currency gains, and you are even further ahead.

Canada is rumbling with construction equipment. In downtown Toronto, dozens of tower cranes pierce the skyline, lifting buckets of concrete and other building materials off trucks far below that seem to block every major street. Outside Toronto, bulldozers and backhoes rumble across fields, building new highways and turning farms into subdivisions.

Over the past few years, it has become increasingly challenging for Canadians to buy new homes, and maintain payments on homes they have already purchased. The cost of living, higher interest rates, and the tight housing supply in certain Canadian cities have all contributed to the challenge. Further, according to a report1 from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC), more than 1.2 million mortgages are coming due in 2025, meaning many Canadians will be renewing mortgages, potentially at higher rates than when they first qualified for them.

The markets were exceptionally kind to investors in 2024. Nvidia (154%), Palantir, (344%) MicroStrategy (500%+), and Bitcoin (all-time high of USD $73,000+) are just a few examples. Recency bias leads us to believe the good times will roll into 2025 and beyond. On the surface, things look rosy. The interest rate regime is dovish with regular quarter-to-half-point drops. A more business-friendly stance and a looser regulatory environment from the U.S. government are likely to give small-to-midsize companies the boost they’ve been waiting for, and possibly pull up the other 493 companies in the S&P 500 that missed the capital bonanza. What could go wrong in these halcyon days?

Last summer I interviewed more than 50 leaders (male and female) in the global finance industry across 31 cities and 25 countries in research commissioned by Kensington Capital Partners. The focus was on alternative investments as a class, and the alt subsectors that appealed the most to women investors.

It wasn’t a surprise to me that although women also prefer to invest in causes and concerns that matter to them, their main focus is to make money!