Author Archive
Yuan to make money?
Mark Hewlett wishes everyone would leave Europe alone. The managing partner with London-based Anello Asset Management is frustrated by all the attention his part of the world is getting when the “big elephant” is really America, its massive deficit and its depreciating dollar. “That’s what everyone’s most scared of,” he says. As a currency expert, he’s carefully watching what’s...
The time is now
If you can’t wait for 2011 to end, you’re not alone. For money-conscious Canadians, this has been another difficult year. We’ve been told that we need to save more, that housing prices are unsustainable, that bailouts in Europe will help solve the globe’s economic problems, only to see Greece and Italy descend further into despair. The stock market has been jumpy too, and low bond yields...
Survival Guide: Investing
Dave Richardson has always been an equities guy, but even he knows that convincing people to invest in the stock market today is a tough sell. The vice-president of RBC Global Asset Management is convinced that troubled markets offer opportunities. But, he acknowledges, “it’s understandable that people would be nervous about holding equities at all.”
Since Jan. 3, the S&P/TSX composite...
Safer than gold
At $27 an ounce, silver’s price is nowhere near as high as the nearly $1,400 an ounce that gold is going for. But if you’re looking for quick gains, look again: believe it or not, silver’s meteoric rise has actually outpaced that of the seductive yellow metal — silver’s price has climbed 185% over the past five years, while gold has jumped by 133%. Why the rapid growth?...
Outlook 2011: Investor playbook (RRSPs)
If you heard a giant sigh of relief when the clock struck midnight on New Year’s, it likely came from Canadian investors, thankful that 2010 had come to an end. The year was a trying one. After shooting up by nearly 3,500 points in 2009, the market climbed only about 1,500 points last year. Daily talk of a double dip, soaring sovereign debt and uncertainty around the global economy’s...
The Performer: Canadian musician and producer Daniel Lanois
Examine any list of the past quarter–century’s best rock albums and you’ll find Daniel Lanois’s fingerprints. A native of Hull, Que., and an acclaimed musician in his own right, he’s also one of music’s most sought–after producers. He’s been behind the sound board for the likes of Peter Gabriel, Bob Dylan and Neil Young, and worked on six albums for U2,...
Investing Guide 2011: Global markets – Many happy returns
Over the past decade, investors would have been wise to stick to Canadian stocks. The S&P/TSX composite index saw a 10–year annualized return of 4.4%, while the MSCI EAFE — an index that measures equity market performance of developed countries outside North America — shrank 1.3%. But the good times can’t last forever, especially when the United States, our biggest trading partner,...
Investing Guide 2011: After the gold rush
In a normal economic climate, most people would not turn to former Tonight Show sidekick Ed McMahon and ’90s rapper MC Hammer for investment advice. But, in a Super Bowl commercial two years ago, there they were, talking about the high price of gold and how viewers should liquidate the contents of their jewelry boxes to make money off the commodity’s rising value. The ad for Cash4Gold,...
Bryan Borzykowski is a Toronto-based writer and editor working mainly for business and entertainment publications. He regularly contributes to Canadian Business magazine, Globe and Mail, Toronto Star, PROFIT, MoneySense and the Advisor Group. Bryan's the editor of Review magazine and is a senior editor with Connected for Business magazine. He's also a contributing writer with Hello! Canada and was once a weekly music columnist for Metro News. He's been nominated for several National Magazine Awards and recently co-authored