We are dedicating todays Blog article to the US Dollar and how it has been tracking almost inversely to the US stock market this year. At the height of the COVID onslaught in March and April of 2020, we saw a steep rise in the US dollar to a new 3 year high as investors rushed to safety in the worlds reserve currency while US and global markets fell in rapid succession as the impact, risk and global spread of COVID was priced into the markets. Conversely, as stock markets rallied back to their pre-COVID highs we have seen the dollar steadily fall. A vast injection of liquidity by the Federal Reserve which dwarfed Bernanke's quanititative easing during 2007-2009 eased concerns, risk and pressures on the financial system which in conjunction with close to zero interest rates has fuelled a wave of money seeking higher yields.

At some point in the future, the Fed will reign in its uber generous bond-buying and liquidity injections. However, that point is unlikely to arrive in the next two years which means that investors appetite for seeking yield is unlikely to taper off until that point. An IPO boom coupled with strong market growth is likely to continue into 2021 not-withstanding any new black swan events.

A weaker dollar eased conditions after the 2007/8 financial crisis and it appears that this trend will be mirrored in 2021/2022. We expect the US economy to pick up considerable steam as we come out of a brutal 2020/2021 Winter and optimism around emerging post-COVID lifts people's spirits and business investment. A strong US economy coupled with a weaker dollar and close to zero interest rates should provide the impetus for the stock market to perform well.

Thanksgiving roots are not in 1621, Plymouth as you might have been accustomed to think.

The Day of Thanksgiving was originally conceived in England in the English Reformation during the reign of Henry 8th. Prior to the reformation there were 95 church holidays and 52 sundays when people were required to attend church and forego work. 95 church holidays! That is not a typo.The priorities during that era were certainly very different from today.

The 1536 reforms reduced the number of holidays to just 27! Some wanted to eliminate even these holidays and replace them with Days of Thankgiving and Days of Fasting. Positive events such as winning a great war, the birth of a royal heir and so forth would be followed with a day of Thanksgiving whereas terrible crisis such as drought, plague or floods would be followed by days of fasting. Great Negative and Positive events were given divine significance that either required pennance to ensure the continued Blessings of the Divine or Thanks to the Divine.

When somone in the investment world refers to "generating alpha" or "beating alpha" they are referring to out-performing a given market indexes annual performance. Alpha is a performance indicator and a component of MPT (Modern Potfolio Theory). The objective of modern portfolio theory (MPT) which was developed in the 1950's is to find the best possible diversification strategies with the objective of achieving a greater expected return with a lower amount of risk. In order to do this it evaluates the following five risk variables:

• alpha
• beta
• standard deviation
• R-squared, and
• Sharpe ratio.

The overall objective of MPT, as it has evolved, is for investors or rather investment managers/advisors to find a combination of non-correlated investments that have the best potential expected level of return for an appropriate level of risk. 

Investors want to be able to assess the level of performance vs. the risk they are taking. If an investor is taking outsized risk they will expect outsized performance in the event the investment performs as anticipated. If that is not the case, one would naturally have to assess whether taking outsized risk is worth it. 

In a sea of constantly moving variables, navigating the markets (an art and science unto itself) and your financial future ( think taxation, IRA's, life insurance, pensions, other critical insurance, the amount needed for your retirement, estate planning) and the situation can be over-whelming. We cannot see the future, so at best we can imperfectly try to predict it based on historic data and patterns that can often repeat.

In order to successfully navigate and compute all of the above variables and potential changes so that you can both protect and maximize your financial future, you need an uncommonly clear head which comes from experience, expertise, knowledge and the ability to adapt. It's not unlike any profession. However, when it comes to your finances the wrong decisions can have an irreversible impact on your life and loved one's.

As a former airline pilot many years ago, you qickly learn there is no room for "error". The entire process from take-off to landing requires meticulous attention to detail and any flaws in judgement can have life and death implications. This training has served me well over the 28 years of my financial advisory career. We have a significant ammount of money under management for our clients and this alongside each families complex financial situation and requirements requires precise calculations, ongoing calibration and clear navigation.

With so much talk in the news of day traders and investors, we thought it would be useful to discuss whether the allure and excitement of short term trading outweighs the more boring strategy of long term investing. On the surface, day trading or short term trading appears to be a relatively easy way to make money. With Tesla and Apple and other tech stocks posting such enormous gains in a relatively short time frame, what is so complicated about doing that?

The reality is that timing the markets and individual stocks in the short term is very challenging for the professional traders with all the tools and technology at their disposal, which makes the odds of success even more stacked against non-professional short term traders. There are periods in time where short term trading strategies can work swimmingly but this this is not the case over the long term.

It is well documented that in general for the most part, buy and hold investors often outperform short term traders (after tax and other costs are factored in) by 6-7% per annum. There are always a small number of day or short -term trader success stories that are promoted by the media of course, but the reality is that over the long term most day or short term traders are not successful and eventually lose money.