Pension Pulse

James Bradshaw of the Globe and Mail reports AIMCo investments gained 12.3% in 2024 but missed benchmark: Alberta Investment Management Corp. reported a 12.3-per-cent return across its funds in 2024 but fell short of its internal benchmark of 13.8 per cent, capping off a year that ended in turmoil when Alberta’s government dismissed the pension fund manager’s board and CEO. AIMCo’s balanced fund – which reflects a typical mix of assets for its 17 client funds, which have varying objectives and tolerance for risk – gained 12.6 per cent in the year that ended Dec. 31, falling short of its benchmark of 13.4 per cent. Over a four-year span, however, AIMCo earned an average of 7.8 per cent annually and added $35-billion to the fund, beating its benchmark over that period by 1.7 percentage points. That raised the fund’s average return over 10 years to 7.4 per cent. AIMCo invests on behalf of 17 pension, endowment, insurance and government clients in Alberta. Its total assets i...

Kevin Brueninger of CNBC reports more than 180 countries and territories facing reciprocal tariffs: President Donald Trump on Wednesday laid out the U.S. “ reciprocal tariff ” rates that more than 180 countries and territories, including European Union members, will face under his sweeping new trade policy. Trump and the White House shared a series of charts on social media detailing the tariff rates they say other countries impose on the U.S. Those purported rates include the countries’ “Currency Manipulation and Trade Barriers.” An adjacent column shows the new U.S. tariff rates on each country, as well as the European Union. Those rates are, in most cases, roughly half of what the Trump administration claims each country has “charged” the U.S. The reciprocal rates are not necessarily the only U.S. tariffs these countries will face. The White House told CNBC’s Eamon Javers on Wednesday that the new reciprocal rate on China will be added to existing tariffs totaling 20%, m...

James Thai, co-founder and portfolio manager at Advantage Capital Strategies Group, a Toronto-based sustainable investing firm wrote an op-ed for the Globe and Mail stating in this trade war, pension funds should also buy Canadian: Recently, during my visits to the local grocery store, I’ve observed a recurring trend: Shoppers picking up a product, peering closely at the label and then putting it back with a frown or wrinkled nose. I can tell what they’re thinking: That’s not made in Canada! I’ll exchange a knowing nod to acknowledge we’re doing our part as consumers to fight back against an economic attack on our country. Now it’s time for our country’s world-class pension funds to do the same. It is the perfect time to put that American stock back on the shelf and buy Canadian. This isn’t a new idea. At the beginning of March, 2024, an open letter by executives pushed for our pension funds to invest more in Canada. Across a wide range of industries, business leaders suc...

Barbara Shecter of the National Post reports Trump's global shakeup is complicating life for Canada's $2-trillion pension giants: Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Board chief executive Jo Taylor and his investing team usually rely on a lot of real-world data when determining where to allocate billions of dollars of investment money on behalf of retirees. But United States President Donald Trump’s flurry of edicts that threaten to upend global trade and geopolitical alliances makes it hard to know what data points they should even be looking at. “The predictability of what we’re investing in is lower,” Taylor said as pension teams across the country dig into drafting and assessing potential scenarios for a year that, given the prospect of multiple pockets of economic and geopolitical unrest, could be very different from those that came before it. “Looking forward and trying to predict the future is more challenging.” Globally invested pensions such as Teachers’, pa...

Pia Signh and Sarah Min of CNBC report Wall Street sell-off deepens on inflation worries, Dow closes 700 points lower: Stocks sold off sharply on Friday, pressured by growing uncertainty on U.S. trade policy as well as a more grim outlook on inflation. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed down 715.80 points, or 1.69%, at 41,583.90. The S&P 500 shed 1.97% to 5,580.94, ending the week down for the fifth time in the last six weeks. The Nasdaq Composite plunged 2.7% to settle at 17,322.99. Shares of several technology giants dropped, putting pressure on the broader market. Google-parent Alphabet lost 4.9%, while Meta and Amazon each shed 4.3%. This week, the S&P 500 lost 1.53%, while the 30-stock Dow shed 0.96%. The Nasdaq declined by 2.59%. With this latest losing week, Nasdaq is now on pace for a more than 8% monthly decline, which would be its worst monthly performance since December 2022. Stocks took a leg lower on Friday after the University of Michigan’s final re...