If you’ve been dismayed and concerned by the blurring of the line between investing and gambling in financial markets, this post is for you. During 2025, there has been a sharp uptrend in the popularity and use of prediction markets. Prediction markets (run by companies such as Kalshi and Polymarket) are exchanges where people can […]

Welcome to December! The last month of the year always feels a bit overwhelming doesn’t it? The combination of a sharp turn in the weather, holiday to-do’s, and the looming change of the calendar does something to our nervous systems! One way I help soothe my overwhelm is to make lists (there are quite a […]

April wasn’t all that long ago but fortunately for us, we as humans tend to have very short memories. As a result, many of us have already forgotten the extreme market volatility we experienced just over six months ago. The recovery from that swoon has been remarkably quick (matter of months) and remarkably strong (S&P […]

It’s never too early to formulate your savings plan for 2026 so I was happy to talk with clients this week about the recently announced retirement contribution limits for next year. Let’s look at the updated limits and a some new rules (from the Secure Act 2.0) that will take finally take effect in 2026. […]

Several years ago, when I was leasing my first car, a good friend (who had considerable knowledge of the car industry) gave me considerable advice to help me negotiate with the dealership. His first piece of advice – “they will try to sell you on payment. That is just math. What you care about is […]

After another year of strong performance for US markets, there is increasing chatter regarding what will lead to its demise. This is just how markets work – the more they go up, the more participants look for reasons they will soon go down. One common refrain from bears (ie: those betting the market will decline) […]

If you followed the financial news this week, you undoubtedly heard the story about a US investor named Michael Burry, famously known for the bet he made against the US market prior to the 2008 financial crisis (focused on the complex instruments linked to the US housing/mortgage market). Spoiler alert – he was right (despite […]

For years (perhaps decades), the US market has consistently outperformed US markets. US stocks represent over 60% of global equities and one US company (Nvidia) now has a market cap that exceeds the value of the entire Canadian and UK stock markets. However, a quick glance at global market performance in 2025 shows a changing […]

This week’s Fed meeting reminded me of the often-asked refrain “do you want the good news first?” The Fed meeting started off with good (albeit fully expected) news for markets when the Fed announced a 0.25% rate cut (taking the range to 3.75-4% range). The Fed also confirmed an end to quantitative tightening (discussed in […]

A client reached out with a question on a line in an article released after Wednesday’s Fed meeting – asking what a certain sentence was saying. Here was the quote: The Fed said it would soon end a 3 year effort to reduce the size of its $6.6 trillion balance sheet in a bid to […]