The Investment Club met on Tuesday, March 8th. While the Club’s members may not be able to enjoy coffee and cookies together, they certainly enjoy meeting one another each month on Zoom. The Investment Club consists of a group of like-minded Probus members who enjoy each other’s company and like to share their ideas on a broad range of topics whether it is world affairs, investing, climate change, pandemics as well as events such as the existing war in Europe between Russia and the Ukraine. It is generally accepted that we like to stay up to date and share opinions and knowledge. Our meeting this month revolved around our frightening world situation and its effects on our economy and markets.
Our topics of discussion included the New Arms Race with the commitment of countries to increase their defense spending; Oil and Gas and the rising cost of fossil fuels which may be a bonanza for some Canadian companies; Green Energy and its prolonged slump as low oil and gas prices made them uncompetitive; Commodities such as wheat, platinum, potash and copper and the results that sanctions will have on their global trade; and Supply Chains, particularly semi-conductors.
Will present day oil prices result in a recession as it has done in the past? How do we preserve capital with world markets in turmoil? Is fixed income a good place to be with rising interest rates? How long should we park our money in fixed income given the age of our group – generally agreed on short term investments.
How much of the market is cyclical? Will commodities go down as fast as they are going up which means we must keep watching the market. It is not easy to invest in today’s market.
One of our investments that we have been watching is Shopify. The share price has been dropping rapidly. The technology sector has been badly hit recently which is one of the causes in the drop in price. Overall, we feel that it is a turnkey solution for small business and we are holding with the possibility of buying more in the next few months (hopefully we find the bottom).
Tim provided a Caspian Report video, called the Handbrake Invasion, which analyses strategies in politics as well as other areas of interest. This was a non-biased review of Russian strategies in their invasion of Ukraine. It was very interesting. This video is below.
Overall, we had great discussions at this meeting. Not many decisions were made except for the following:
Shopify – Hold and review the possibility of buying more in the future.
In-person Meetings – Wait until September until we meet again in person.
Our next meeting will be on Tuesday, April 12th at 2:00 pm via Zoom. We will be in touch with everyone before then.
Probus Club of Kingsway-Islington 