Home bias is often considered a negative for Canadian investors, but too much Canada could be a good thing in today’s market environment.
“Canadian stocks haven’t been a big focus for investors for a long time, as they have looked to invest globally – and in the U.S. in particular,” she says. “The composition of the S&P 500 makes it more vulnerable to rising interest rates, which have a greater impact on those more expensive stocks,” she says, adding a stronger U.S. dollar is also a headwind for earnings for multinational companies on the index.
However, she notes Canada has other things going for it, including a friendly immigration policy that will help to increase the labour force and fuel demand for housing and consumer goods. With sex being a key variable in determining the cost of insurance, providers are struggling to calculate premiums fairly for clients who identify as either transgender or non-binary. Clients applying for life or critical illness insurance are generally required to select their birth gender for premiums and costs to be calculated regardless of whether they still identify as that gender.