John Ruffolo, Founder and Managing Partner at Maverix Private Equity, joins us for an full hour conversation. Our conversation begins with Ruffolo recounting his near-catastrophic brush with death last Fall, when he was struck from behind by a jack-knifing Mack truck hit him while cycling, and his subsequent and arduous 30-hours per week recovery regimen.

Our conversation then turns to the long standing issue of the trend of the historical Canadian brain and IP drain. Ruffolo shares his profound views and passion about Canadian innovation, and the mission he, his partners, and their advisors are on to discover, invest and capitalize Canadian companies in the disruptive innovation space, so that ultimately, their intellectual property remains ours, remains Canadian. Ruffolo is famously credited with the funding, expansion and growth of Shopify into a home-grown Canadian e-Commerce powerhouse, as well as Hootsuite, among others. Ruffolo also shares his ideas and outlook on what are the most groundbreaking and promising areas of Canadian innovation going forward.

Where to find John Ruffolo:

John Ruffolo on Linkedin

Maverix Private Equity

Ben Gossack, VP & Director, Portfolio Manager, and Trevor Cummings, VP, ETF Distribution, both from TD Asset Management (TDAM), join Pierre Daillie for a deep dive discussion about the innovative ways the asset management team at TDAM are enhancing investment income without sacrificing total return in their enhanced dividend income strategies.

In the conversation, Ben Gossack, lead portfolio manager on TDAM’s enhanced dividend strategies, details how he and his team actively manage their core ‘dividend-growers’ stock selection strategy, which comprises at least 70% of holdings in their ETFs, while integrating a less constrained, ‘unlocked’ investment process that also involves layering in notional and direct holdings in non-dividend paying secular growth names, e.g. Amazon and Square, for up to a maximum of 30%.

Ben and Trevor further detail the mechanics of the unique feature of TDAM’s enhanced dividend income strategy which is the addition of the important second and third layer of investment income generation, which involves two actively managed, proprietary option-yield generating overlays:

1) Writing covered calls against a percentage of the portfolio, effectively putting those shares up for short term ‘rent’, i.e. the option premium income, and 2) Cash-covered put-writing, the equivalent of ‘selling insurance,’ thus collecting option premium income, to get paid to buy stocks at lower prices.

Finally, Ben and Trevor disspell commonly held biases, heuristics and myths surrounding the use of actively managed enhanced option-writing strategies. Among those commonly regarded heuristics is the belief that covered option writing yield strategies only effective in markets that are moving sideways or declining. Also diving into the differences between a systematic approach to option-writing vs. the advantages of being active.

To the point, about last year’s sharp bullish upturn following the March 23, 2020 low, “from an option premium perspective, it was Christmas every day,” said Gossack. In addition, he also points out that since they are active, they have the freedom to choose to write, or not write options, depending on market conditions.

TDAM’s active enhanced dividend ETF offerings are available in two market exposures: Global (ticker: TGED), U.S. (ticker: TUED). For more on these, visit td.com/ETFs.

You can also get more intelligence on TDAM’s enhanced dividend strategies here.

Trevor Cummings on Linkedin

Ben Gossack on Linkedin

Ben Gossack’s TDAM Bio

There is clearly a lot of scepticism about the validity of ESG? So why is ESG happening, and exactly who cares about it?

In this episode, we invited three thought leaders in the field of ESG and responsible investing to demystify the meaning and the significance of ESG.

For example, does it really matter if you agree with it or not? It doesn’t. Your clients however may feel differently, and if you’re not talking to them about it, chances are they are going to talk to someone else about it.

The whole idea of responsible investing has gotten distorted by virtue of it’s own success.

We have a straightforward discussion here around the three dimensions of ESG that DO matter, rather than entertain a debate about aspects that don’t actually matter.

Pat Posteraro, Portfolio Manager, at Desjardins Global Asset Management, Nicola Fritz, Portfolio Specialist, at London-based IMPAX Asset Management, and Deborah Debas, Specialist, Responsible Investment, Desjardins join us for a clear-eyed conversation about distinction and differences of an actively managed ESG strategy vs. the controversial index-based ESG strategies in the market.

David ‘Rosie’ Rosenberg joins us for 98 minutes to discuss his latest outlook for the economy, bond and equity markets, and two of his current investment recommendations.

We jump right in to David Rosenberg’s outlook for the economy and markets. [1:24] Setting the stage for what’s to come in our conversation David Rosenberg describes the conditions he thinks are likely to occur and what that means for the economy and markets. At 38X valuations he says the temptation to get in the market in equity markets is high, and shares two of his top ideas on where to position in the bog of uncertainty, thematically. He points to attractive market segments in terms of expected returns going forward.[5:52] and shares his rationale for this top ideas [9:50] including his views on long bond yields.

Mike asked David if he could explain backup in the yield curve.[11:19] David goes on to explain his thoughts on the ab and flow of US treasury yields [12:43] and describes his agreement with Jerome Powell’s — is the first pandemic in a century going to be the cause of sustainable inflationary future? Try to wrap your head around that, he says.[13:06] he talks about the feds unbelievable GDP forecast for the fourth quarter and also about the likelihood that a $3.5 trillion fiscal package will be passed. [16:38] Adam asks David about whether or not commodities will go through an upward repricing and David shares his point of view on the big picture and describes why some of that thinking maybe questionable, [23:42] and we get into a deeper conversation about supply chain problems as well as the flaws in wage inflation.

Dave points out the difficulties that exist where wages are concerned considering that millions of people are dragging their feet returning to the work, and what the impact of that might be. Here, [27:29] Dave describes the coming “Growth recession” and explains his definition of that – the big story next year will not be inflation. We talk about what Dave calls the economy in 3-D—disruptive technology, demographics, and the egregious debt that’s been incurred over the last 2 years.[31:41] Dave elaborates on his Outlook for treasury yields. [35:43] and we segue into the cut off of pandemic paychecks and what that means for consumption.

At [52:38] a heated debate about how drivers of inflation, imputed rents, used cars are not being discounted properly, and are expressing an unsustainable share of inflation . Inflation is about the rate of change in inflation not the rate of inflation itself. Rent as the cost-of-living, and how that’s being misunderstood because of the way the BLS managers that calculation.[1:01:09] David clarifies further how we’re not in Stagflation, how different this period is from the 70s [1:06:19]

At [1:09:02] our conversation turns to a debate about how inflationists got it wrong in 2008 when he was Chief Economist at Merrill Lynch, in the lead up to the GFC, and the realities how much room the Fed has to raise rates in the current environment, and why Dave is bullish on treasuries at this point. Are we entering a ‘Commodity Supercycle?” [1:15:22] Dave talks about what the market is missing at this point.

Is Inflation Transitory? [1:21:52]

How often is the Fed right on the economy? We’ve never seen anything like this before [1:24:29].

Is China in a Lehman moment? [1:30:24]

The Wrap on that cheery note [1:31:13]

And a final question for Dave – Would you rather spend a week in the past or a week in the future? [1:37:11]

Thank you David for an eye-opening conversation about the state of the economy and markets!

Download Dave’s Special Report (Complimentary) here:

https://links.advisoranalyst.com/rosenberg

Recorded on September 27, 2021

Where to find David Rosenberg

David Rosenberg on Linkedin

Rosenberg Research & Associates

Where to find the Raise Your Average crew:

ReSolve Asset Management

ReSolve Asset Management Blog

Mike Philbrick on Linkedin

Rodrigo Gordillo on Linkedin

Adam Butler on Linkedin

Pierre Daillie on Linkedin

Joseph Lamanna on Linkedin

AdvisorAnalyst.com

*****

Music credit: In Hip Hop, Paul Velchev (8MJZA6T3LK)

Jeffrey Sherman, Deputy CIO, DoubleLine Capital joins us for nearly 90 minutes on all things investing, and how he’s navigating this bizarre market. Our discussion turns to positioning fixed income, equities, commodities, real assets, as well as getting into the nuts and bolts of how he manages money at DoubleLine Capital.  To begin, Jeffrey talks about his career path [1:27] and then we get into his expectations for the economy, markets, rates, wages, housing and Inflation among other things [6:20], [6:42] and explaining why the inflation picture is much more difficult to distill [13:04]. Jeffrey Sherman points to where investors can think about repositioning some of their 40% fixed income sleeve [15:14] for example, right now “It’s not a High Yield at that point, it’s just yield.,” says Sherman.[19:07] Our conversation then turns to commodities [21:20] the bottlenecks [28:19], backwardation [30:00], as well as precious metals [32:23], and ESG’s role [34:30]. We go on to talk about Jeffrey’s CAPE ratio based equity strategy [43:09], and what insights and signals he’s getting from the market, then Jeffrey talks about why growth stocks don’t benefit from the rising rates environment, as well as his concept of scarcity, growth and duration of stocks [47:26]. At this point, [56:09] we ask Jeffrey to explain how his unique and successful CAPE ratio equity/bond strategy works, and how he’s been able to deliver alpha.[1:03:39] If you’re wondering at all about creative ways of how to think about constructing portfolios that express the needs and objectives and risk management of all types of investors our conversation will fill in some of those blanks for you. The conversation then turns to a discussion about the language and jargon game, Smart Alpha, even Cliff Asness, as well as Jeffrey’s parting thoughts for advisors [1:15:07].

This podcast was recorded September 20, 2021

Where to find Jeffrey Sherman, DoubleLine Capital

The Sherman Show Podcast

Sherman Show on Twitter – @ShermanShowPod

Jeffrey Sherman on Linkedin

Where to find the Raise Your Average crew:

ReSolve Asset Management

ReSolve Asset Management Blog

Mike Philbrick on Linkedin

Rodrigo Gordillo on Linkedin

Adam Butler on Linkedin

Pierre Daillie on Linkedin

Joseph Lamanna on Linkedin

AdvisorAnalyst.com

******

“You don’t have to be brilliant, just wiser than the other guys, on average, for a long time.” Charlie Munger

Welcome to Raise Your Average, our deep dive journey into learning from the people and process behind the world of investing. Through conversations with leaders in the investments game, we peel back the layers of the onion on how these holders of the keys to the kingdom allocate their time, their energy, and their dollars.

We are all students and we are all teachers. We are the average of the 5 people we spend the most time with. Come hang out with us for a while and raise your average, as we raise ours.

Music credit: In Hip Hop, Paul Velchev (8MJZA6T3LK)

Adam Butler, CIO and Rodrigo Gordillo, President, of ReSolve Asset Management Global join Pierre Daillie, from AdvisorAnalyst.com for an amazing discussion about ReSolve’s latest research paper, “Return Stacking: Strategies for Overcoming a Low-Return Environment.”

In our discussion we cover the following points on this novel investment concept of portfolio construction:

– Stretched valuations in equities and fixed income imply depressed returns and higher potential volatility for traditional portfolios.

– Reaching for yield or increasing exposure to pro-cyclical assets may help compensate for low expected returns, but can increase portfolio risk.

– Reducing exposure to equities and bonds to accommodate non-correlated assets or alternative strategies may reduce risk, but at the expense of lower potential returns and painful tracking error.

– We introduce a novel investment concept, accessible to all investors, which is designed to seek higher returns with less risk and low tracking error by using new products which, in combination, can provide more than $1 of exposure for every dollar invested.

– The proposed solution harnesses the full potential of traditional portfolios plus the opportunity for higher returns and risk reduction from non-correlated investments.

– This capital efficiency allows for the introduction of non-correlated return streams that stack on top of core portfolio exposures.

– We show how to maximize “Return Stacking” opportunities by choosing alternative fund managers already engaging in capital efficient strategies.

You can download the paper here (https://investresolve.com/return-stacking-strategies-for-overcoming-a-low-return-environment-lp/).

*****

Where to find the Raise Your Average crew:

ReSolve Asset Management

ReSolve Asset Management Blog

Mike Philbrick on Linkedin

Rodrigo Gordillo on Linkedin

Adam Butler on Linkedin

Pierre Daillie on Linkedin

Joseph Lamanna on Linkedin

AdvisorAnalyst.com

*****

“You don’t have to be brilliant, just wiser than the other guys, on average, for a long time.” Charlie Munger

Welcome to Raise Your Average, our deep dive journey into learning from the people and process behind the world of investing. Through conversations with leaders in the investments game, we peel back the layers of the onion on how these holders of the keys to the kingdom allocate their time, their energy, and their dollars.

We are all students and we are all teachers. We are the average of the 5 people we spend the most time with. Come hang out with us for a while and raise your average, as we raise ours.

Music credit: In Hip Hop, Paul Velchev (8MJZA6T3LK)

Richard Heft, President, and Andrew Broadhead, Head of Content, at EXT. Marketing, and co-authors of the bestselling guide, The Ascendant Advisor, join us to talk about how advisors can transform their practice into a competitive business magnet in today’s digital world. If you’re an advisor, then this conversation is entirely all about how you can change the way your new clients find you, find out about you, and get to know you, so they’re familiar with you, well before they meet you. It’s also just as much about how you can widen the scope of your existing client relationships, to build stronger bonds with them, to let them further into your realm, so that you become more referable, in ways you might not have imagined.

Investment advisors spent the better part of the last 18 months successfully maintaining and growing their businesses, mostly from within their existing client bases. It’s apparent COVID-19 forced us on to every digital platform out there. Now we use Zoom, Webex, and Teams for example for most of our meetings, and Facetime and similar to stay in touch with our families. What has been lost however, is ability to be in the same room with our people and our clients. And, anecdotal evidence suggests that the majority of people are reluctant to come to an office for a meeting or, for that matter meet in their homes, to get to know you, the advisor.

It’s been relatively much easier to maintain existing relationships, particularly where business is concerned, than to develop new ones. Advisors in particular have been challenged when it comes to bringing on new clients, having a hard time being able to coalesce and relate personally from behind the small screens of dgital conferencing. So how can advisors up their prospecting game. For that matter, how can any consultative professional up their effectiveness and their competitiveness when it comes to forming new relationships with new clients?

Expect to walk away with some juicy takeaways about how you can transform the nature of your advisory business.

And, get yourself a copy of The Ascendant Advisor. This book is chock full of insight, and actionable but not costly tips that you can start using today.

Where to find Richard Heft and Andrew Broadhead:

Richard Heft on Linkedin

Andrew Broadhead on Linkedin

The Ascendant Advisor Website

EXT. Marketing

Where to find the Raise Your Average crew:

ReSolve Asset Management

ReSolve Asset Management Blog

Mike Philbrick on Linkedin

Rodrigo Gordillo on Linkedin

Adam Butler on Linkedin

Pierre Daillie on Linkedin

Joseph Lamanna on Linkedin

AdvisorAnalyst.com

******

“You don’t have to be brilliant, just wiser than the other guys, on average, for a long time.” Charlie Munger

Welcome to Raise Your Average, our deep dive journey into learning from the people and process behind the world of investing. Through conversations with leaders in the investments game, we peel back the layers of the onion on how these holders of the keys to the kingdom allocate their time, their energy, and their dollars.

We are all students and we are all teachers. We are the average of the 5 people we spend the most time with. Come hang out with us for a while and raise your average, as we raise ours.

Music credit: In Hip Hop, Paul Velchev (8MJZA6T3LK)

Phil Mesman, lead fixed income portfolio manager at Picton Mahoney sits down with Pierre Daillie to discuss credit investing, a widely underrepresented category of alternative fixed income in Canada.

They discuss the current challenges long-only bond investors face and why today’s environment has presented an unprecedented need to think alternative when it comes to your fixed income book. Mesman gets right under the hood of Special Situations credit investing and provides his thoughts on a real time event, the Evergrande situation.

Lisa Lake Langley, CEO/Founder of Emerge Canada Inc. (sponsor of Emerge ARK ETFs) joins us on Insight is Capital. We talk about her life’s work, receiving the industry’s CEO of the Year Award, nomination for ETF Champion of the Year (we get into why), and the realization that Emerge Canada Inc. is Canada’s first female-owned fund company. Langley shares some early stories about when she first met and became friends with the Emerge ARK ETFs sub-advisor, Cathie Wood of ARK Invest. Don’t miss this.

Jeffrey Sherman, Deputy CIO of Los Angeles-based DoubleLine Capital, which manages $137-billion in AUM joined us for an hour-long chat last week.

He is DoubleLine’s lead portfolio manager for multi-sector and derivative-based. He also oversees all of DoubleLine’s investment teams and strategies. Sherman was named by Money Management Executive as one of the “Ten Fund Managers to Watch” in 2018. He began his career at TCW where he focused on fixed income and real asset portfolios.

We discuss his career, his beliefs, as well as diving into his macroeconomic and market outlook, his outlook for fixed income, and how investors looking for better yield and ballast can position in this market where traditional government bond yields are at historic lows, and bond and equity valuations are at all time highs.

“We are in bizarro world,” says Sherman. “You have this idea that you have some of the highest inflation prints we’ve seen. And if you strip out the commodity prices and look at core inflation measures, in some instances, it’s, you know, the, the highest prints we’ve seen at 40 years.

“Coinciding with that, you talked about the bond rally over 40 years. We’re talking about inflation levels we haven’t seen in 40 years. So why are rates where they are? Well, that’s the 10 or $20 trillion question when it comes to the treasury.”

Sherman shares his strategic thinking on duration, interest rates, and credit risk and how investors could approach the fixed income market, and position their fixed income sleeve not only for yield, but with a view to keeping risk in check. In our conversation Sherman talks about several good alternatives to bonds that investors can consider.