Insights: Mid-year outlook, summer doldrums, no year looks the same + canine friends
Good reads:
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·??????? Weekly Investment Strategy
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Best quote of the week:
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“All his life he tried to be a good person. Many times, however, he failed. For after all, he was only human. He wasn't a dog.” – Charles M. Schulz
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In the media:
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I had a great chat with host Jenna Dagenhart and Asset TV Canada this week. I shared my mid-year outlook for markets, discussed the potential impact of the election, and identified potential sources of volatility heading into the second half of the year. Watch the full interview here :
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Best visuals of the week:
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Last week, I talked a bit about the old saying, “sell in May and go away,” which suggests that investors sell their stocks in May and then re-enter the markets later in the fall, when things typically pick back up.
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Below is a great chart from my Raymond James analysts that shows why it may not hold much merit anymore. In fact, over the last 8 years, the S&P 500 has been positive 7 out of the last 8 times during the period between Memorial Day and Labour Day.? If you look at the last 15 years, it has been up on average 3.7%, which, if you annualize, translates to an annualized performance of about 14.4%.
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However, it’s important to note that the summer months can be volatile.? Over the last 20 years, the average drawdown in the summer is about 7%. Of course, markets tend to recover quickly from that, so a bit of summer doldrums are nothing to panic about. At the end of the day, it is best to stay invested and not try to time the market.
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Here is another way of looking at things. It’s a great chart from RBC Global Asset Management that shows that a) no year looks the same, and b) equity tends to be volatile when looking at the short term but smooths out over the long term.
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Beyond the markets:
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I came across an interesting article that detailed the use of AI to figure out what dogs are trying to say to us.?
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Apparently, the AI model trained on humans and dogs was able to identify a dog’s emotion with 62% accuracy, breed with 62% accuracy, gender with 69% accuracy, and identify a particular dog out of a bunch with 50% accuracy. According to the article, all of these scores outpaced the AI model just trained on dogs, which suggests that sound and patterns derived from human speech can potentially serve as a foundation for understanding animals.
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I’m pretty sure that most of what my dog tries to tell me is that she would like more treats, so I’m not sure I need AI for that. Nonetheless, it’s a very interesting development.
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So on that note, thought I’d share some interesting facts about our canine friends:
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·??????? Dogs were the first animals domesticated by humans. Fossil evidence indicates that dogs were domesticated around 23,000 years ago and were the only animals domesticated during the Pleistocene Epoch (aka the Ice Age), but DNA evidence places the date even further back in Siberia up to 26,000 years ago.
·??????? Some of the oldest-known breeds are the Arctic spitz breeds, Middle Eastern sighthounds and several Chinese dog breeds.
·??????? Dogs can sniff which way you’re walking in five steps. They can tell which way a human scent trail is headed, even if they come across it at right angles – and even if the person walks backward.
·??????? Some research suggests dogs align themselves with the Earth’s magnetic field to make their excrement, which is one of the reasons they circle to find just the right spot.
·??????? Rin Tin Tin was called “the dog who saved Hollywood” because his films rescued the struggling Warner Bros. studio from bankruptcy. American soldiers found “Rinty” as a puppy in a foxhole in France and brought him back to the United Sates, where his stunts made him a bona fide animal action hero.
·??????? Called vibrissae, a dog’s whiskers help a dog sense its surroundings, maintain balance and even use air currents to determine how far people or animals are from them.
·??????? The world’s smartest dog, a border collie named Chaser, could identify and retrieve 1,022 toys by name. She had the largest tested memory of any non-human animal.
·??????? Overall, it is thought that the average dog is as smart as the average 2-year-old toddler.
·??????? More dogs are right-pawed, but the preference is pretty subtle. In a study of almost 18,000 dogs, 60.7% of female dogs and 56.1% of male dogs preferred using their front right paw to get at food from a tube.
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Source: Reader’s Digest
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Thanks for reading, and I wish everyone a great weekend!?
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Cheers,
Kim
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Kim Inglis, BCom, CIM, PFP, FCSI, RIAC
Senior Portfolio Manager
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T: 416.777.6417 (Toronto)
T: 604.654.1160 (Vancouver)
T: 250.979.1803 (Kelowna)
TF: 1.877.363.1024
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The opinions expressed in this newsletter are those of the Financial Advisor Kim Inglis, BCom, CIM, PFP, FCSI, CAFA and not necessarily those of Raymond James Ltd. (“RJL”) or Raymond James (USA) Ltd. (“RJLU”).? Statistics, factual data and other information presented are from sources, believed to be reliable but accuracy cannot be guaranteed. It is furnished on the basis and understanding that Raymond James Ltd. and Raymond James (USA) Ltd. is to be under no liability whatsoever in respect thereof. It is for information purposes only and is not to be construed as an offer or solicitation for the sale or purchase of securities. Raymond James Ltd. and Raymond James (USA) Ltd. financial advisors may only transact business in provinces and/or states where they are registered. Follow-up and individualized responses involving either the effecting of or attempting to effect transactions in securities, or the rendering of personalized investment advice for compensation, will not be made to persons in provinces or states where the financial advisor is not registered. Raymond James Ltd. is a member of the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada (IIROC) and the Canadian Investor Protection Fund. Raymond James (USA) Ltd. is a member of FINRA /SIPC . Raymond James (USA) Ltd. (RJLU) and advisors may only conduct business with residents of the states and/or jurisdictions for which they are properly registered. This provides links to other Internet sites for the convenience of users. Raymond James Ltd. is not responsible for the availability or content of these external sites, nor does Raymond James Ltd endorse, warrant or guarantee the products, services or information described or offered at these other Internet sites. Users cannot assume that the external sites will abide by the same privacy policy which Raymond James Ltd adheres to.
CFO at Millbank Materials Group and Twin Sisters Olivine Ltd.
5 个月Interesting as always Kim. Your insights into canine friends caught my attention as well.