As our clients are situated in Alberta, Saskatchewan and British Columbia, I’m sure almost all of you were affected by the wildfires this summer. Some of you were directly impacted by the fires so our hearts go out to those of you who were displaced. Overall, we had a very warm couple of months here in Calgary but we definitely experienced some smoke on a number of days.
Not only did we experience craziness of weather patterns, we also experienced some craziness on the market. We dealt with more volatility as the Eurozone dealt with issues in Greece again and we witnessed a real sell-off in Global Stocks when China depreciated their currency. This lead to a lot of worry about the Chinese economy slowing down which triggered some panic across the market. The USA actually showed some strong numbers this summer but that wasn’t enough to offset August turning into the worst month in the last three years. In times like this, it’s important to remember that we’ve seen five solid years of positive returns in the US Stock Market.
The S&P 500 has appreciated over 73% from the start of Sept. 2010 to the beginning of Sept. 2015. We’ve also seen great growth out of the German, Japanese and Indian markets over the same 5 year period. Long story short; we were likely due for a correction and it appears that we got one in August. If you’ve got a properly Balanced Portfolio, you probably didn’t feel a whole lot of this volatility. Anyone who holds a lot of their investable assets in any of the most volatile sectors (ie Energy) however, may need to consider doing some rebalancing just in case things get worse before they get better.
September will be an extremely busy month. Vienna has started Kindergarten and Berlin entered her first year of Preschool. London seems to be interested in potty-training so wish us luck with that going successfully!! We’ll be at two weddings this month where I will serve as a groomsman. The girls are excited about their flower girl dresses and staying in some hotel rooms! We’ll celebrate my birthday in Edmonton seeing AC/DC in concert on September 20th. Not a bad way to turn 34! On top of all of that, we’ve taken on a number of new clients so I’ve been busy (and will continue to be busy) with a lot of appointments.
We’re never too busy to hear from our clients though so give us a shout if there’s anything we can do for you!
Bryce A. Borden