Insights

The Ups and Downs of Three Popular Defensive Strategies in Equity Portfolios. Stocks have undeniably been the best performing traditional asset class over the past decades in terms of absolute returns. However, the ride has not necessarily been a smooth one.

Liquidity in the fixed income market has been challenged of late as the health crisis and financial market concerns have escalated. Global lockdowns aimed at mitigating the spread of COVID-19 will undoubtedly have ramifications on the global economy.

Fiera Capital’s portfolio managers have been diligently monitoring the outbreak of the COVID-19 virus and its ongoing impact on global financial markets.

This wasn’t the case two hundred years ago, when candlefueled light cost over 325 times more than today’s light does. Light is so essential to our lives that its source has undergone radical innovations – and reinventions – that have improved it radically over the last century and a half. 

Traditionally, risk and return are the two most important considerations in the realm of investment management. Modern Portfolio Theory hypothesizes that investors can construct optimal – or “efficient” – portfolios which maximize expected returns by taking on a quantifiable and specific amount of risk.