Environmental, social and governance factors, once considered the “fringe issues” of finance, took another step into the mainstream this week when the CFA Institute’s Centre for Financial Market Integrity launched Environmental, Social, and Governance Factors at Listed Companies: A Manual for Investors. “The manual is to assist investors in understanding how a company deals with environmental,... 

Identity theft. It is a crime about information and in the information age, identity theft is becoming the fastest growing form of consumer fraud in North America. The crime is identified when a person assumes another individual’s identity using personal information (eg: name, date of birth, address, credit card, social insurance number and other identification). This information is then used to... 

Thirty years ago currency management was little more than the introduction of a free-floating exchange rate. Now currency management is the coup d’état of global portfolio construction — the latest risk management tool of many financial analysts. “Currency management is about mitigating risk, not about generating returns,” explained Zainul Ali, CFA, senior asset consultant at Towers Perrin,... 

Slow down, don’t move too fast; we’ve got to make the money last — particularly since a new economic forecast, released today by TD Financial, says Canada’s economic slowdown is on par with our southern neighbour’s economic downturn. The projection by TD economists shows that Canada’s slowdown is occurring at the same time and to the same extent as the downturn in the United States. The...