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They've done well. She owns RY, and has exposure to other Canadian financials and US companies. Likes the group as a whole. She wouldn't be overweight at this level, as they're ultimately a leveraged bet on the health of the economy. Good news is that earnings have held up much better than many expected. She's still watching credit losses.

The interest rate story is more balanced than people think. BOC is holding rates at 2.25% and expects economic growth to improve (which we're starting to see). Lower rates can relieve pressure on borrowers and, eventually, revive housing and loan demand. Rates falling too quickly can squeeze lending margins.

Be selective in the space. RY has the broadest mix of Canadian banking, leader in wealth management and capital markets. TD and BMO bring more US exposure into that play. Likes the sector for earnings and dividends, but not as an oversized bet. Keep holding a balanced position.

They stick to their knitting on stock portfolios. They know where they want to enter and where they want to exit. There's a farm league of other companies that they'd like to put into the portfolio when they exit something.

Some of the magic they add is on the hedging. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. With the recent volatility in the market, they're finding that the hedge can actually contribute profits (rather than just acting as an insurance policy). They had dialled up the hedge to 80-90% of the notional value of stock portfolios (last time they did that, was in Spring 2020 going into Covid). This past Tuesday, they took almost all of it back.

The US Fed disappointed the market today by not raising or commenting on raising interest rates, even though it's clear that inflation is here to stay and needs to be taken seriously. Markets sank, with the Dow down 2.19%. The 30-year bond yield topped 5.212%, not this high since 2007. The bond market was telling Fed Chief Warsh, "Show more gumption." The bond market fears an inflation comeback. The President isn't concerned with inflation. Warsh should have promised to tighten rates today to battle inflation. Meanwhile, we're stuck in an intractable war Iran that keeps raising the price of oil--and inflation.

In the US, the economy is doing fairly well. In Canada we're in a technical recession, but looks as though we're starting to come out of it. He's fairly optimistic on the economy for the next 2-3 years.

October highs and relative performance resembled the peak of the Tech Bubble. Now, we're breaking down from critical levels where the tech bubble cracked. Moving has been and will rotate into growth and value. He's looking at the beneficiaries of AI like biotech, which has lagged but is overperforming this year. AI tools are benefiting their R&D.