It's during these volatile markets where Prudent Portfolio Management can be best recognized and illustrated, and with all the recent news articles and opinions out there, we wanted to provide you with our perspective. And rather than just offering you up yet another opinion, we wanted to offer you up the actual portfolio rebalances which we made in order to best protect our clients' investments and continue their solid returns, even during these difficult periods in the markets.
And so below are just some of the proactive rebalances we took in our portfolios over the past few weeks:
- We Reduced Our Equity Exposure Significantly: As the Markets dropped over 10%, it was very comforting to know that we had reduced equity exposure to only 50% and then even more so to less than 30%.
- We Eliminated any Oil and Gas Exposure: We had minimal Oil and Gas exposure to begin with, but when Oil dropped to as low as $28 a barrel, it was especially comforting to know that we had eliminated any exposure.
- We Increased Our US Dollar Exposure Significantly: While seeing the Canadian Dollar drop relative to the US Dollar is never fun for anyone, knowing that we had moved as much as 70 to 80% to US denominated investments meant that these investments were in fact benefiting from the sub-70 cent Loonie.
- We Continue to Invest in Blue-Chip Companies: We always have and always will continue to invest in very large-cap blue-chip companies with high dividend yields, strong earnings, and solid management teams.
- The effect of these proactive rebalances meant that while the Equity Markets were selling off considerably (more than 10%), our portfolios were in fact maintaining their value and are now thankfully well positioned for even more continued outperformance.
- Please know that the market's volatility has not stopped and that there's still plenty of time to analyze your portfolio's allocation and investment strategy and we certainly encourage you to do so! Remember that simply staying on the wrong path with the hopes that things will work themselves out, will never get you off the wrong path...
