Wellington-Altus Money manager Patti Dolan is anticipating better times ahead for investors, but not without some short-term pain.
“We may see one more bump in [interest] rates in the short term but expect interest rates to decrease by the end of the year or early into 2024, which should stimulate the economy and benefit the markets,” says Ms. Dolan, a senior wealth advisor and portfolio manager at Wellington-Altus Private Wealth Inc. in Calgary, who oversees more than $300-million in assets.
She then expects a “choppy” recovery. “It will take time to recover from the latest economic shocks that drove inflation and interest rates higher.”
Ms. Dolan says her client portfolios remained resilient during the challenging markets of 2022. While she could not provide specific performance data, she notes her balanced model portfolio outperformed its benchmark in 2022.
The Globe and Mail spoke with Ms. Dolan recently about what she’s been buying and selling and the financial services stock she wished she had bought, which has since doubled.
Describe your investing style.
We focus on asset allocation, including equities and fixed income, which allows us to minimize risk while providing growth and income opportunities across asset classes and regions. Our fixed income includes bonds and high-interest savings accounts. For equities, we choose stocks based on criteria including dividend consistency and growth, sector diversification, market capitalization, liquidity and analyst coverage. (A stock needs more than four analysts covering the company).
We also screen for environmental, social, governance and Indigenous factors, so ESGI. The ‘I’ is an area that’s not often addressed, but we look for companies that focus on reconciliation and responsible investment initiatives.
Name a stock you wished you bought or didn’t sell.
Intact Financial Corp.
increase
is a stock we looked at when it was trading at around $100 in 2017. I was impressed by its sustainability practices, but financial analysts had a negative outlook on the company due to a lot of natural disasters that had just taken place. There was some skepticism on how the company could get through that. It turned out that it did really well. It’s a very resilient company and has been very profitable. So, we missed the boat on that one. We’re looking at it again, but it’s currently out of our price range.