Discipline

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  By Guest Blogger Scott Booth

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I started working with Garth and the team at Turner Investments a little over nine years ago. The decision to join was significantly influenced by an alignment of beliefs about how best to manage investments. Building globally diversified portfolios out of ETFs, keeping costs down, staying balanced. Owning a mix of safe stuff that pays you and adds stability, and riskier stuff that grows. These all resonated with me as important elements to the prudent stewardship of capital.

A plan, if you will.

Structure.

Discipline.

Having worked in capital markets and investment management for the better part of two decades, you come to see that there are cycles to many things, that pendulum swinging from greed to fear, out of favour investments roaring back into favour, DJT doing a 180 and trying to walk back whatever word salad came out of his mouth last week. One never really knows when any given dog will have their day or when sentiment will swing back the other way.

The chart below landed in my inbox last week. It looks at a number of global equity markets and how they have done over the last year through Q1.

Global Equity Market Performance 2025/2026

Look at the North, leading the pack.

Amazing to see, especially from a starting point where the trade war / tariff/ 51st state garbage spawned downright gloomy sentiment and there seemed a real threat of a smoking crater where once the Canadian economy stood.

I didn t have that on the bingo card. In spite of seemingly massive challenges, it s been the Canadian market s time to shine of late.

Speaking of cycles, it looks like we might be at an inflection point in central bank policy. The market is now starting to price in interest rate hikes across most of the developed world, after a series of cuts during 2024 and 2025.

Market expectations move around a lot and are often poor predictors of future rates, but it is interesting to see an expectation for tighter policy start to creep in.

Developed Market Central Bank Policy Rates and Market-Implied Trajectories (%)

Source: DoubleLine, as of April 21, 2026

The idea that the next moves will be higher has been stoked by inflation fears stemming from the ongoing quagmire in the gulf. At the same time, those expectations are tempered by a labour market that looks a little less than robust at present.

The Central banker s goal of having stable prices (stable means growing at ~2%) while supporting growth and employment seems close to balance at present, so don t expect much, if any, adjustment from either the Fed or Tiff and Co. as we move through 2026.

While overnight rates have been stable for a while, the trend for bond yields across the curve YTD has been upward, with the largest increases in the 2 year-5 year segment of the yield curve, as the market has moved to price in the prospect of tighter policy down the road and away from the idea that more cuts are coming.

Government of Canada bond yield curve

Higher yields have weighed on the performance of most bond ETFs in 2026, but investors are still seeing modest positive total returns for most holdings. Coupon payments have been offsetting price declines and slow headway is being made.

Credit spreads have moved around, widening with the risk-off-sentiment seen during the escalation-phase of the conflict in Iran, before recovering swiftly as markets and investor sentiment bounced from March lows. All told, they sit about where they started the year. Nothing to see here.

With the recent increase in yields, bonds look fairly valued here given growth and inflation prospects. After posting some solid gains in 2024 and 2025, the fixed income part of client portfolios has been doing the boring and predictable thing of late and it s probably fair to expect more of the same going forward. Income coming in, without much change in price.

Safe and stable.

Boring.

We ve enjoyed a stretch of strong equity market advances over the last 3 years.

For many investors, the increase in the value of growth assets has led to equity exposures that have crept up above their desired allocation.

Periods of strong performance often lead investors to get greedy. Everybody wants to take more risks when markets are going up.

Given the propensity for the consensus to be wrong, it probably isn t a bad time to be disciplined and to buy some boring stuff here.

It is part of the plan and eventually this will all cycle around.

Scott Booth, CFA, is a seasoned financial advisor and licensed portfolio manager. Over the past 18 years he has worked in the capital markets as an analyst, trader and advisor with major banks and now with Turner Investments.

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About the picture: “I’m responding to your request for more dog pictures.,” writes Jenn. “I happen to have a brand new puppy that we got five weeks ago. Here are some cute pictures of her. Her name is Dutchess and she is a “Mastador” which I think is the coolest mutt name around. Half black lab and half mastiff she is keeping us on our toes and from sleeping. Love  your blog. I have learned so much that has made a material difference in our financial lives.”

To be in touch or send a picture of your beast, email to ‘garth@garth.ca’.

Source: https://www.greaterfool.ca/2026/05/11/discipline-2/