Even the best of public-traded companies can periodically experience significant drawdowns, and a successful investor should be prepared to react — or not react — accordingly, Herman VanGenderen writes.
Tag Archives stock markets
Managing through market or individual stock declines
Investing for Fun and Profit: Understanding how stocks behave should enhance our own behaviours
What factors historically boost stock returns?
Investing for Fun and Profit: Valuation, momentum and profitability historically drive returns
Drivers of stock values can be summed up in four positive terms - valuation, momentum, quality and profitability - and four negative: growth in assets, turnover, company size and share price volatility, Herman VanGenderen explains.
Is it best, when investing, to stay politically agnostic?
Investing for Fun and Profit: Besides, how much influence do governments really have on the markets?
I began this column the day after the great Harris/Trump debate. Based on the publishing schedule, you might be reading it just before the U.S. election. A lot can happen in both politics and the markets over a six-week period, but I thought it would be an appropriate time to review how politics may or […] Read more
Markets are dispassionate to our human disasters
Investing for Fun and Profit: While headlines may exalt a unique situation, to markets it's 'same as it ever was'
The first public stock exchange opened in Amsterdam in 1611, trading one company, the Dutch East India Company. Twenty-five years later, coincident with tulip mania, the company had a market cap of 78 million Dutch guilders, which translates to $9.7 trillion current U.S. dollars, putting Microsoft’s and Apple’s near-$3 trillion valuations into perspective. The London […] Read more
Investing opportunities in alternative energy
Why can’t we have a rational debate in search of pragmatic goals?
Some of my past writings may have left you with the impression I exhibit Luddite-like attitudes toward new sources of cleaner energy. That wouldn’t be an accurate impression as I have been investing in alternative energy for a long time. I simply wish there was a more fact-based, rational discussion on the pros and cons. […] Read more
A few things I don’t like about corporate behaviour
Pet peeves about stock option awards, share buybacks and more
Generally, I write very supportively of our capitalist system as in last September’s column, “Profit is not a four-letter word.” This time I will outline several items that often reduce shareholder returns and provide fodder for socialist attacks on the capitalist system that is responsible for our high standard of living. Excessive stock option rewards […] Read more
Interest rate herky-jerky
What led to the demise of Silicon Valley Bank?
Here’s my definition of herky-jerky: an overreaction of equal magnitude but opposite direction to previous overreaction. Disclosure: I am in no way an expert on the nuances of money supply and the inner workings of bank policy. What follows is my layman’s perspective of what caused the March bank panic. To say I am puzzled […] Read more
Do you have to sell in order to profit?
Investing for Fun and Profit: Measuring and benchmarking are key to understanding performance
According to a Bloomberg article, average retail investors lost 30 per cent in 2022, significantly underperforming the 17 per cent loss of the S&P 500. While this is U.S. data, it seems unlikely that Canadian investors fared much better given the excitement around technology and disdain for energy. This was by no means an anomalous […] Read more
Value investing is dead … long live value investing
“Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated” — Mark Twain
As I was cleaning my desk clutter, I came across a Globe and Mail article titled, “Five reasons why value investing may never regain its appeal.” It appeared Aug. 27, 2019, after a decade in which growth stocks had significantly outperformed value stocks. It isn’t unusual to see these types of headlines just before a […] Read more
More stock option strategies: follow the math
Buy options when there are big price moves
Puts and calls can be both bought or sold. A call is the right, but not the obligation, to buy shares of a company at a certain price up to a certain date. For example, 3M at the time of writing is $200 per share. Calls expiring on January 21, 2022, with a strike price […] Read more
Cyber-Savvy Farmer
