Valentine’s Day occurs this week. And, almost on cue, the price of flowers (particularly roses), chocolates, jewellery and dining go up, as people celebrate in Canada, the United States (U.S.) and around the globe. The history of Valentine’s Day, however, is quite dark. We’ve included some links on the side bar, if you want to go down that rabbit hole. All of this said, it appears that U.S. imports of products for Valentine’s Day have avoided import tariffs in 2025. The story for 2026, however, could be significantly different.

Topics for weekly updates often come from questions asked by our clients. It should come as no surprise that tariffs have been on everyone’s mind. How could they not be? It’s all the media has talked about for the past two weeks. So… whether tariffs are on, off, or off and then on, how does a tariff imposed by the United States (U.S.) on Canadian exports impact the economy, equity markets and, of course, investment portfolios?

We don’t plan for disruptions. They just happen. And they can happen at any time and to anyone and anything. A recent example of disruption is the Covid pandemic which impacted lives, businesses, and countries. The pandemic disrupted our plans to meet with our clients in-person for more than two years.

Phrases like "January effect" and “sell in May and go away” have dubious records as long-term investing strategies. According to Morningstar Direct data, in the past 20 years, January had the highest total return for the year in only four years - 2012, 2013, 2018, and 2019. Not bad, but not good enough to become the cornerstone of an investing strategy.

We read a lot of forecasts from a lot of different sources. The only thing that people know for sure is that they don’t agree with each other completely, but there are often areas that they do agree. Whether the “consensus opinion” turns out to be right, depends on factors outside of our control, of course.

The cultural tradition of making resolutions dates back thousands of years. The earliest recorded instance goes all the way back to Babylonians. Over 4000 years ago when they planted their annual crops, they made promises to their gods to pay debts incurred over the previous year.

Of course, you don’t need a new year or any specific date on a calendar to make a change. You just need to start.

Sometimes, the value of something depends on our unique view of the world from where we stand. Take, for example, less tangible assets like good health or happiness? How valuable are these?

The BoC has now cut by 175 basis points or 1.75 per cent this year and continues to be the most aggressive rate-cutter in the world. Remember, the cuts come on the back of an economic environment where higher interest rates were used as a stick to beat back inflation globally.

US President-elect Donald Trump has promised to impose significant tariffs on imported goods, including those from Mexico, Canada, and China, starting on the first day of his administration. So naturally there has been a lot of discussion in the economic press about the potential impact of these tariffs.

Generally, topics come from conversations we have with clients. If one person we know has a question, it’s highly likely that someone else has the same question. So, we do our best to answer it. Sometimes, we try to guess what questions people might have before they ask. Are we always successful? We will let you be the judge! We recall one weekly update from a few years ago that was a little bit “out there,” even for us… but we digress.