Category: Canada

The Canada Pension Plan reported a 2015 fiscal year-end (their fiscal year goes from April 1 to March 31) performance of 18.7% gross, or 18.3% net after fees.

Over the past 10 years, the CPP has realized a 6.2% real rate of return, while in order to remain sustainable they require a 4% real rate of return. When dealing with a $250 billion dollar fund, two percent compounded over 10 years makes quite a big difference.

I have had my doubts that the CPP would be able to realize increased returns as it grew simply because they are competing with a lot of other big players for the same pool of income. In a smaller scale, individual investors have to scour the beds of the financial oceans in order to find reasonable risk/reward opportunities.

There is likely going to be increased political pressure to either reduce CPP premiums or raise CPP benefits due to the outperformance of the CPP. It is likely such a decision would be a mistake because in the macroeconomic sense, central bank quantitative easing has inflated asset pricing to extremely high levels. It is very improbable the CPP can maintain its current performance and quite probable that they will pull in more “real-world” rates of returns (i.e. single digits).

However, all Canadians should be happy that the CPP is doing what it did – there is this pervasive myth that the CPP will not be able to pay out for existing and future generations and with the existing payment and benefit regime it is quite likely they will be able to pay for the indefinite future. Assuming you have made maximum contributions to the CPP, you would be entitled to a $12,780/year retirement benefit when you turn 65 years of age. While this is not a huge amount of income, when coupled with Old Age Security ($6,765/year) leaves approximately $19,500/year of pre-tax income which, if properly budgeted, will pay for a basic lifestyle in retirement.

The Canadian bond market is exhibiting a very minor instance of an inverted yield curve between short term and 2-year money. You can view interest rates here.

This is a good an indication as any that we’re going to touch upon a zero GDP growth cycle coming later in 2015 and perhaps negative. Pull out the textbooks to see what industries are good to invest in a recessionary climate.

The Canadian dollar crossed the USD/CAD 0.8 (reciprocal 1.25) mark for the first time since the economic crisis. Part of this was a sudden reaction down to the US Federal Reserve’s statement basically saying they are waiting and seeing.

Eventually there will be a time to shift out of US currency and into Canadian dollars, but now does not feel like the right time.

While not as dramatic as the recent decision by the Swiss Bank to forgo keeping its currency at a lower than market value level, the Canadian dollar was the recent victim of a central bank action when the Bank of Canada decided to drop interest rates by 0.25%. The Canadian dollar is down 2 cents to about 80.7 cents USD (or about 1.24 CAD/USD).

BAX Futures were not anticipating this decrease – today, they are are all trading up about 0.3% as a result of the Bank of Canada’s actions.

My general thought is that the Fairfax theory of the global economy is showing itself to be true – deflationary forces are forcing export-driven economies to devalue their currency. The next leg to drop will be the European Union officially announcing their version of quantitative easing, of which has already had negative implications to their own currency. Japan has already been in this mode for a couple years (Abenomics).

The remaining leg will be when/if the US federal reserve decides to implement interest rate hikes. On today’s decision by the Bank of Canada, federal funds futures are relatively unchanged; they anticipate the US federal reserve will raise rates a quarter-point by the end of the year.

This will also create an interesting dilemma for the Chinese government – their economy is highly export oriented and their competitive position continues to be eroded by the macroeconomic decisions of other countries. Whether they choose to slowly deflate the Yuan in reaction to this remains to be seen.

While the cause of the Bank of Canada’s decision is related to the very sudden decline in the oil market, I am wondering whether the country is simply getting carried away in the geopolitical currents that seem to be affecting every developed country at the moment.

Right now I am over 50% exposed to US currency (the rest of it being Canadian), so I am not minding this trend. What I am regretful for, however, is that this will have a material impact on my willingness to go down to the USA for recreational purposes.