In times of market turmoil, it is natural for investors to question whether they will be alright if they don’t run for the hills and go to cash. At the beginning of your relationship with the Allan Bush Investment Team, we spent significant time establishing a plan created to achieve your financial needs and goals. A meaningful amount of this time was spent establishing how much you need to achieve your financial goals and how much “risk” we need to undertake to achieve those goals.

As a team, we always err on the conservative side when establishing our projected rates of return for the portfolios we oversee. The benefit of this approach proves its merit in times of market turbulence like we’re currently experiencing. The correction of the equity markets combined with the Bank of Canada’s interest rate increases this year has meant that there has been plenty of negative headlines to go around. We would caution you not to get too concerned by the hype.

You will have heard the critical component of our investment philosophy for the years you’ve been with us. We buy chickens, not roosters, and use their eggs as part of our total return. The income helps mitigate some of the volatility generally associated with the markets. And with their income generation, you’re always getting something back, regardless of what the markets may be experiencing.

Your financial plan and investments have been carefully chosen to give you the best opportunity to achieve your goals with the least amount of risk exposure we can anticipate based on your unique tolerances. We are consistently on the lookout for the best investment options we can provide for you, and the good news is that there are new offerings that come to market every year. We spend a sizeable amount of time performing due diligence on new solutions to ensure we know what is available and if it would work well for you. This due diligence process is time-consuming and critical if we stay ahead of the curve to manage risk and not get swayed by new and shiny things.

In terms of your plan, we always advocate that staying the course is the best strategy over time. Should there need to be changes made to any of your investments to manage your risk/return better, we will be more than pleased to bring these changes to your attention in our following conversation.

Know that we are on the case, and should we need to make any alterations to your plan, we will be proactive in informing you of our recommendations. In the meantime, please don’t get overly concerned by the headlines, and rest assured that your plan will work to deliver what you need in the short and long term.