Stephen Takacsy - BNNEarlier this week
We believe there will be a “soft landing” in Canada and the U.S. as their economies remain resilient with low rates of unemployment. Investor sentiment has been very bearish which is a great contrarian indicator with lots of cash on the sidelines. Our fixed-income portfolio is mainly comprised of higher-yielding short-term corporate bonds and yields over seven per cent with a duration of only 3.5 years, while our stock portfolio remains well diversified in recession-resistant businesses most of which are generating record profits. We also own many safe high dividend-yielding stocks like telecoms, pipelines, utilities, and banks which look particularly attractive at the moment. We also own companies benefiting from long term trends such as aging demographics (Savaria, Park Lawn, Neighbourly), digitization and automation (CGI, Tecsys, and ATS), and infrastructure (Stella Jones, AG Growth, Logistec). We have been taking advantage of volatility to add to our holdings in high quality companies at more reasonable valuations such as Pet Value, Jamieson Wellness, Richelieu Hardware, CCL and Colliers International.