April 2015 Performance Commentary

April was a very volatile month for common stocks and currencies. Not only were there huge stock price swings driven by corporate earnings reports but also there were larger than anticipated fluctuations between the Canadian and U.S. dollar. In fact, the Canadian dollar, which ended March 31, 2015 at 78.87¢ U.S., settled at 82.84¢ on April 30, 2015, a swing of 4 cents. While we have prudently hedged our five ABC portfolios with currency forwards to protect our U.S. share holdings, we still experienced a modest decline in the value of our ABC Funds. Additionally, the indices on the last trading day of the month experienced a triple-digit decline, however, as of the first two days of May, we have seen a significant improvement, especially in the two closed-end funds. Overall, we believe our current holdings have strong fundamentals, good liquidity and a solid earnings outlook, which should enable us to ride through these volatile times with improved forward performance.

Irwin A. Michael, President
I.A. Michael Investment Counsel Ltd.