Taking Stock with Steele
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Taking Stock with Steele is our newsletter where we share our insights and expertise. Our goal is to ensure our clients are well informed. We shift through the noise and only bring important topics of discussion and planning points that are relevant and useful. We believe Knowledge Pays and we want our knowledge to pay for you.
Following up on a choppy week in late July, global equity markets were in turmoil to start the week of August 5th. Japan's NIKKEI index finished the day down over 12%, its steepest one-day decline since the 1987 market crash. It is not surprising that European and North American investors were on edge Monday morning following the historic declines experienced in Asia...Thankfully, investors recognized that the issues experienced in Japan and greater Asia were unique to Asia
Affordability has improved by ~12% since our July 2023 analysis due to lower mortgage rates but housing is still very unaffordable on a historical basis. If affordability is so bad, how is the housing market holding up? Pretty well, actually. Assuming no major changes, prices are likely to be fairly stable going forward. Changes to mortgage rates are the biggest wild card.
Partly derived from the word ‘plant’, developing a plan is something that you need to start early, let come to fruition, and prune along the way. It is hard to reap what we sow when we skip the sowing part. What’s concerning is that the rate of planning in our society has been in steady decline since the mid-1970s, if Google’s Ngram Viewer is any guide.
Worse yet, the antithesis of planning, improvisation is taking planning’s place.
With all this lack of planning and increased improvisation, we can expect to see a lot more…
Although improvising and panicking appear to be all the rage these days, humans have about 30,000 days of life to live on average, so planning ahead for some of those days could make life a little more enjoyable. Buck the trend and get some planning in!
In May's video edition of Taking Stock with Steele, Brian Steele, Portfolio Manager, and Greg Weiler, Senior Tax Advisor, discuss the proposed changes to capital gains tax rules as part of the 2024 Canadian federal budget. Tune in to learn more about capital gains tax, how the proposed changes could affect you and your family and strategies to manage capital gains tax realization now and in the future.
