“We do not have government by the majority. We have government by the majority who
participate.” – Thomas Jefferson
Although the opening quote refers to the US election, we do not offer any opinions on
the election. You cannot know for sure which party will win and more importantly whether they
will follow through on their election promises. It is appropriate that our reflection section
discussed how the same facts could be taken to mean different thing to different people and
result in different investment outcomes. Take TD bank, the stock dropped after restrictions were
placed on their US expansion, given other US banks have received a similar penalty this should
not have been a surprise but it was. Despite a 10% decline in a week the stock is still provided
investors with a positive return over the past 6 months. Don’t even think about the benefits to
the economy of immigration and the problems created by immigration. Depends from which side
of the street you are looking.
We try to look past short-term events. Despite the recent rally in the stock market, we still find
attractive investment opportunities. For instance, the price of many oil and gas companies do
not reflect the current price of the commodity. We try to create portfolios centred on dividend
paying stocks but we do include some stocks with no yield or lower yields so we create a
portfolio and not just a collection of stocks with high yields. We will have to see how the US
election and the Federal Reserve decisions impact the market. Who knows, this may create
new opportunities or help the stocks in the portfolio reach their potential.
