August 2018 Pricing Commentary

The U.S. and Canadian stock markets pivoted in different directions during the month of August. For instance, while the major American equity indices rose between 2 ¼ % to 5 ¾ % the S&P/TSX Composite declined approximately 0.8%.

Largely due to our portfolios’ 65% average American equity weighting our five ABC Funds appreciated to reach new 2018 price highs. More importantly, to mitigate our currency risk exposure we continue to keep in place our 100% U.S. dollar hedge.

Among our outperforming U.S. holdings over the month include: Amazon, Centene Corp., Apple Inc., NVIDIA, Salesforce, Mastercard and Visa. As we enter the final four months of 2018 we remain very optimistic and are maintaining fully invested equity positions with a particular emphasis on health care, technology and Canadian and U.S. financials. Once again, despite our anticipation of persisting market volatility to year end 2018 we expect relatively strong North American economic activity, improved corporate earnings results and, by extension, upward trending common stock prices.

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