Commentary: NCM Global Income Growth Class

TRANSCRIPT

Hello, everybody. It is June 19, 2023. I guess it's Juneteenth. It's been a quiet day up here in Canada with the U.S. markets closed. My name is Jason Isaac, bringing you another NCM Global Income Growth update. The topics of the day. I just got my notes here. We've got a Fed pause last week. And of course, inflation remains on top of the issue, but it looks like it's cooling, which is good news.

We've got our China and U.S. repairing relations. I don't know. There's a big, big meeting in Japan with between Xi Jinping and Blinken. So we'll see where that goes. It can't be a bad thing for them to be talking.

And then when I look out to the equity markets, it looks like things have turned. We've got past the debt ceiling issue. And the biggest problem now, I guess, would be yields. Yields are starting to creep up there a little bit again and it might be the biggest headwind to the market.

From an asset mix perspective since the last time we talked, I think that was back in May, cash has creeped up a little bit. It's now a viable asset class again. So I don't have a I don't have a problem sitting there. I think we went from a 5% we’re sitting at about seven. Fixed income is more or less modestly the same, right around 11%. We're looking at about a three and a half percent duration or 3.2 duration and a three and a half percent current yield on the portfolio.

And equities are around 82%. Same but different. We've done some changes with the GICS sectors. We've moved a little bit more to consumer discretionary, moved a little bit more to technology and a little bit more to industrials. We've also done some regional juggling. While the overall weight hasn't changed, we've moved that around. Just to bring that to you at the beginning of the year, about 60% U.S., we're still about 60% U.S. now. So there's no changes there.

But where we see the change is in Canada, Canada's moved from about 18 to 22% at the end of the year. We've brought it down to about eight currently and we've added to Europe and we've got into Japan. I know it sounds really, really funny to think about Japan, but it's starting to move.

Names that have changed in the top ten. We've now brought Oracle and Broadcom and Toll Brothers up the differences. Richemont, the French discretionary company, has been brought down. Took some health care down with Novo in the obesity drugs and Louis Vuitton and then Freeport-McMoRan has been kind of added to the portfolio in the anticipation that industrial metals and that we are in a little bit better of a market than what people are thinking.

One of the best things I've heard is that it's funny being a bull in actually technically a bull market, and yet I'm still contrarian. Market actually looks surprisingly good. People are buying, people are selling. There's always a reason not to invest but happy with the performance of the portfolio. It seems to be turning around and with that, things that we're going to be looking forward to going out into June, July is just seasonality and like I mentioned before, yields as yields creep up, it does put a little bit of pressure on some of the equities of the portfolio, but it's not something that we're too concerned about.

But those seem to be the biggest risks. With that, I'll sign off looking forward to talking to you next. And everybody have a good summer. Bye.

Disclaimer:

Jason Isaac Poulter is a Portfolio Manager, with Cumberland Investment Counsel Inc. (CIC). CIC is the sub-advisor to its affiliate, NCM Asset Management Ltd. The information in this video is current as of June 19, 2023 but is subject to change. The contents of this video (including facts, opinions, descriptions of or references to, products or securities) are for informational purposes only and are not intended to provide financial, legal, accounting or tax advice and should not be relied upon in that regard. The communication may contain forward-looking statements which are not guarantees of future performance. Forward-looking statements involve inherent risk and uncertainties, so it is possible that predictions, forecasts, projections and other forward-looking statements will not be achieved. Commissions, trailing commissions, management fees and expenses all may be associated with mutual fund investments. Please read the prospectus before investing. Mutual funds are not guaranteed, their values change frequently and past performance may not be repeated.