The Fall of 2014 continues to be full of surprises for financial market participants, from the ‘flash-crash’ of U.S. 10-year sovereigns last month, the 47th record closing high experienced by the S&P 500 this month, and to oil now trading at less than US$65 per barrel as I write this commentary. Despite continued concerns about global growth and the potential for deflation, stocks and bonds offered decent gains in November, as talk of global stimulus and better than expected Q3 profit statements eased the minds of investors. The funds at Forge First had a great November...

Boy I'm glad October 2014 is over as we had a disappointing month. The S&P 500 fell 7.3% then gained 8.4% in a span of 6 weeks despite, in my opinion, little change in market fundamentals. True, the last week of October saw the FOMC be more hawkish than expected when they announced the expiration of 3 rounds, 6 years and some US$3.7T in asset purchases, now an eightfold increase to its asset holdings since November 2008. Of course even more surprisingly, two days later, Japan announced its 'shock and awe' stimulus campaign, but by that time most of the move in markets was over. To me, you would have had to have blinders on not to realize that global growth was slowing down, let alone that recession risk remained in Europe. Italy, the world's 7th largest economy, had already confirmed its triple-dip recession (a recession in which three periods of zero or negative economic growth are interspersed with short periods of economic recovery) while the continent's juggernaut Germany had been experiencing a slowdown in its industrial production since the summer. In my view, three developments triggered the volatility in the first half of October...

US dollar positions and long term sovereign bonds were the only two asset classes offering profits during September 2014 as risk assets took it on the chin. With the three largest sectors on the S&P TSX, Financials (-2.5% for the month), Energy (-8.0%) and Materials (-11.5%) all declining, it’s little surprise that Canada's benchmark index fell 4.3%. Small capitalization stocks suffered even more, as the S&P TSX Small Cap index dropped 9.6% while America's small cap benchmark, the Russell 2000, lost 6.2%. Despite the small/mid-cap bias at Forge First, our funds sustained smaller losses than most of the broader markets...