Tactically Increased Canadian Equities, Decreased U.S. Equities
Tactically Increased Canadian Equities, Decreased U.S. Equities
Life is about choices - having them and deciding which ones work best for you. Retirees, for example, often feel that they must choose from a few possible alternatives for converting their retirement assets into income:
Retirees have three dominant concerns:
Going, going, gone are the days when we are forced into retirement because we hit a certain age. And boomers are redefining what that "R" word means to them. Retirement isn't about hitting a certain age or completely quitting what you have been doing. It may involve work, albeit perhaps on different terms or in a different field. It may mean adjusting that planned retirement date. There’s no shame in that. Late savers especially may need to consider what a difference an extra year of work can make in their lives.
The conventional method to reduce risk in a balanced portfolio involves decreasing the portfolio’s riskier asset class, which for most investors is likely the equity allocation. For example, shifting from 55% equities and 45% bonds to 30% equities and 70% bonds. The following graphic illustrates this as the move to the “lower risk benchmark portfolio”.
Global bond yields have been on a multi-decade decline; therefore, it should be no surprise that today’s yields are at or close to historically low levels. Chart #1 shows the extent of this decline for the 10 year Government of Canada (“GoC”) and U.S. Treasury (“UST”) bonds. From December 1990 to June 2016, the GoC yield started the period at 10.3%, averaged 5.1%, and closed at a mere 1.06%. Over the same period, the UST yield started at 8.4%, averaged 4.8%, and closed at a mere 1.5%.
There is no normal retirement date anymore. There is no hard-fast retirement date everyone has to hit. The answer to the question; "when will you retire?" is becoming a very individual decision, and one you need to plan for and periodically stress test to make sure it's still going to work for you. Here's what we do know.
Semi-deviation (also called downside deviation) is a variation of the more commonly used metric, standard deviation. Both measures track the historic variability of returns around an investment’s average return, however, semi-deviation only considers those returns that fall below the investment’s average. A lower semi-deviation indicates an investment with lower downside risk.
My last blog discussed the importance of downside protection, specifically looking at the asymmetry of gains and losses, and poor historical investor behaviour. This blog will investigate some strategies investors can implement to potentially protect their portfolio from significant losses in down markets, while still allowing them to participate in rising markets.
Markets go up and markets go down. That’s the nature of investing in stocks and bonds, whether directly or indirectly through investment funds. Investors generally like upside volatility (when markets go up), but are much less tolerable towards downside volatility (when markets go down). Implementing downside protection strategies regardless of current market conditions can help reduce volatility when markets do go down, thereby helping to preserve and build wealth over the long-term.
