Market Bounce Woohoo! Investors can rejoice as March 2016 was one of the best months for the stock market in recent memory. The S&P 500 and Dow Jones gained 6.9% and 7.1% respectively. Even the commodities-heavy S&P/TSX Composite in Canada managed to end the month 4.9% higher than it started. What do all these numbers mean? Well let’s pretend to be… Read More »
Wall Street Cuts S&P 500 Estimates One reason investors have made so much money in the last 7 years is because the stock market has done well since the great recession. The total annual returns for the S&P 500 stock index have been positive every year from 2009 to 2015 inclusive. But recent earnings reports suggest that the bull… Read More »
The Current State of Canada’s Economy The economy isn’t so hot these days. Oil is down and so is the Loonie. The issue isn’t that we’re at a low point in the economic cycle. The problem is how quickly this happened and caught most people off guard. The price for a barrel of oil fell from $100 to… Read More »
Sick Days A recent Financial Post article suggests that the most important determinant of your sick leave use is whether or not you work for the government. On average, public sector employees take about 10.6 sick days annually, which is a 47% increase from 7.2 sick days back in 1987. Meanwhile, sick leave use in the private sector is only… Read More »
Big Turnaround It was a huge win for the markets in October. 🙂 Most stocks performed very well. The technology sector in particular experienced the most appreciation. Intel shares increased 12% over the past month. Alphabet (Google) shares jumped 15%. And Amazon shares soared 22%. Both GOOG and AMZN prices are now at new highs. As a shareholder… Read More »
Stocks Continue to Fall Stock markets in September continued to head lower. The Dow Jones dropped 2% during the month. The S&P500 fell 3%. And up here, the TSX Composite fell 5%. This isn’t inherently good or bad. It’s good for beginner investors who are thinking about buying their first index fund. But it can be bad for… Read More »