AGF Investments Inc.
Jean Charbonneau, Senior Vice President, Fixed Income Investments at AGF Investments, looks at how local currency bonds can help investors participate in the full benefits of emerging markets. more…
Fund company:TD Mutual Funds Fund type: U.S. Small/Mid Cap Equity Fundata FundGrade® Rating: A Style: Growth Risk level: Medium High Load status: No load/optional RRSP/RRIF suitability: Good TFSA suitability: Good Manager: Gregory McCrickard since November 1997; John Wagner since January 2006 MER: 2.56% Code: TDB 653 (no load) Minimum investment: $500
It’s a big investment world out there, and topsy-turvy too, judging from the latest performance figures from funds that invest beyond our borders. The scattershot yields from emerging markets funds in particular illustrate the volatility and uncertainty that still cloud the global marketplace, half a decade after the big bang.
Beta ratings are used to measure stock market volatility. Stocks with a beta of 1.0 have exactly the same degree of volatility as the market they trade in, based on a comparison of the fluctuations in the stock and the market index over a period of time, usually five years. In rising markets, investors seeking portfolio outperformance might overweight their portfolios with high-beta stocks. But high-beta stocks can be a trap, one that springs shut when the market reverses.
By Fund Library News Wire | Friday, December 06, 2013
A strong U.S. employment report ignited a stock market rally on Friday, but it wasn’t enough to entirely recoup losses sustained during a lackluster week. Most of the big indexes ended Friday with losses overall for the week, highlighting the Jekyll-and-Hyde nature of recent investor sentiment, in which rising concern about Fed tapering trumps signs of improving economic growth, including Friday’s employment reports along with a strengthening manufacturing sector.
Q – I’ve been looking at the excellent performance of the S&P 500 Composite Index over the past year (about 25% year to date), and I’m wondering whether I could double this by investing in a leveraged ETF like the Horizons BetaPro S&P 500 Bull Plus ETF? This is supposed to provide 200% of the daily performance of the S&P 500 Index. Sounds like a great plan to me. What do you think? – Roy P., Burlington, Ontario
