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Rational exuberance: The bubble that wasn’t

(May 2006) Here’s a fact: the late 1990s were a time of irrational exuberance (said Alan Greenspan, no less), with more froth than Lake Ontario in a hurricane. When the floor dropped on the markets many investors were mauled and markets are just now recovering from these historic lows. But this flies in the face […]

By Pierre Saint-Laurent |May 26, 2006

4 min read

Real returns

(May 2006) Traditional asset allocation typically divides a client’s portfolio between stocks, bonds and cash, with some fine-tuning around allocations of global versus Canadian, small cap versus large cap, and growth versus value stocks. Most advisors design their recommended portfolios around this approach for both funds and securities. What we tend to overlook is the […]

By John Nicola |May 5, 2006

8 min read

Legal structure vital in real estate investing

Similar to a true gold bug's aversion to mining stocks and preference for physical bullion, institutional real estate investors know that REITs are far too closely correlated to the equity markets on which they are listed. For these managers, nothing beats the real thing: a portfolio of physical real estate holdings.

By Steven Lamb |April 27, 2006

5 min read

Real estate smoothes portfolio volatility

With the real estate market booming across the country, it may be hard to ignore the capital appreciation aspect of real estate investments. But for many institutional portfolio managers, real estate is a core holding rooted firmly in the fixed income side of the asset mix. Sure, housing prices seem sky high, but residential property […]

By Steven Lamb |April 21, 2006

5 min read