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Whatsup you lions.

Today

• A personal story

• Value manager sucking wind

• Edmonton Industrial statistics

Have a great weekend

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Personal Finance

A bit of a personal story - my money story.

I grew up in a hardworking and well-to-do family of entrepreneurs, so money became a common topic at an early age for me. My parents gave us everything we could need. At the same time the value of a dollar was entrenched early - no frivolous spending, money doesn’t grow on trees was a common saying, we didn’t get things we demanded, didn’t get new cars when others did, and had to start working as young teenagers.

In addition to the traditional “get a good education and work hard”, money, business, and investing were common topics at the table and especially at family events.

I remember being fascinated by the Financial section of the newspaper with the hundreds of stock prices listed in the back pages and soon began to admire the great Warren Buffet—then a legend and ever more to this day. Naturally I majored in Finance, got a CFA, and pursued a career in the investment business.

It’s a blessing, I think, to have grown up with this early introduction to money because now, at 37, with a growing family, I feel pretty comfortable with my money situation.

I am not sure how many others feel the same, probably less than 50%, perhaps way less. Hopefully this journal is helping some of you get there.

But the one downside of understanding money is coming to truly realize how scarce, emotional, and fleeting it can be.

• One minute I get a raise, next I am searching for new apartments.

• A stock goes 10x in 6 months, I’m searching for new boats.

• I get a big tax refund, time to book a trip.

• Then I get confident, borrow more money than I can afford to pay for a high risk investment (seriously, thought I was going to be a millionaire at 25), then it goes to zero.

Elation to misery.

• Need to sell the car and lease it back to pay down debt.

• Someone mentions the word “trip” - I cringe at the credit card debt required to get there but I go anyways.

• When someone mentions a michelin star restaruant I just about puke inside but smile on the out.

The above happened to me in 2015 - I learned the vagaries of greed and using 100% leverage to invest the hard way. I don’t do that anymore.

Even though I’m “on top” of everything money, that doesn’t mean it accumulates faster or completely erases investing risks nor diminishes the emotional roller coaster that comes with it; though the ride becomes smoother once you build up a stable foundation. I feel Mj and I are there, but goddamit, we want more to further grow that foundation.

But Want Doesn’t = Get. It still requires hard work and an ongoing relationship dynamic with yourself not to royally screw things up because of greed. Because money is so important - it’s required for survival - food, clothing shelter - as well as any fun you might want to have. Add onto this the inflation and ever-constant debasement of cash dollars toward 0 and you have to do your darndest to earn more, spend less, and invest the difference, lest you spin the tires or even go into reverse.

At the end of the day, getting to a stable foundation is really what matters. From there you have options. Along the way you experience highs and setbacks. You see that nothing good continues in perfect formation, volatility is part of the game - both money and life - they are intertwined. But you learn from experience that this is how the wind blows, pendulums swing, you get better at course correcting and avoiding disaster as you pass through all the storms.

Casinos make billions on only 51% odds. Invest for minimum 10 years, your odds of success hit 80%. Over 20 years, 95%. You WILL be successful if you play those odds properly and don’t interrupt them with eggregious spending or extremely risky gambling.

Partly why I share so much with this journal is not just to help others but also to remind myself that this game of money and life is about doing things today that increase your odds of success, and avoiding things that put you on a dangerous path.

In short:

Be a Lion.
Don’t be a Gazelle - only sometimes 😉 

What’s your money story? Share and I will include in future issues (anonymous to others of course).

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Stock Markets

TSX composite returned 31% last year - a record. 

Spoke with a representative of a stalwart +$10 Billion Vancouver Investment Manager this week and they returned only 18% last year. This has caused their 1, 3, 5 and 10 year returns to lag the broad index. Not just by a little bit - by a lot.

This money manager had a successful start in the 1980s and grew into a multi-billion dollar staple, built on traditional value investing and avoiding overhyped stocks. Seriously, a wonderful business with a great reputation, great people, and a track record at the top.

But why the recent wind sucking performance?

Essentialy because they didn’t own the Gold sector, nor Shopify, Canada’s largest company, which have both done very well.

How can a professional money manager with the best analysts and resources at their fingertips not have predicted that Shopify and Gold would do as well as they did?

That’s a rhetorical question. They couldn’t, and they will never be able to.

For decades “Value” trounced “Momentum/Growth” - fund managers like the one in question built incredible track records because their style worked phenomenally well.

But most of the last 15 years has seen a complete reversal.

So yes, we can blame style as to why they’ve sucked wind recently. But at the end of the day, it’s absoulte long term returns that matter for us end investors.

Maybe Value comes back into vogue (I hope so - I’m a value guy myself!).

Maybe it doesn’t.

Remember Warren Buffet's infamous bet? 95% of professional fund managers fail to beat the index over time. This is a real world case in point.

For most people, index investing is simply the best option, it removes the noise and instead of worrying about styling your portfolio you can focus on styling your hair instead.

Do that, and spend more of your time focusing on earning more and spending less. You will do great.

Real Estate

Edmonton’s industrial market experienced 34,000 sq. ft. of negative absorption in Q4 2025. The availability rate increased by 30 basis points (bps) and the vacancy rate increased by 10 bps. The market ended the year with 1.5 million sq. ft. of positive absorption with most submarkets showing gains.

• A strong performance was witnessed in the Southside submarket, which recorded almost 1.1 million sq. ft. of positive absorption in 2025, marking the highest year-end total since 2023.

• Over the course of 2025, 1.9 million sq. ft. of new supply was added to the market. This was a 262,000 sq. ft. increase over 2024. For the first time since 2020, new supply outpaced absorption throughout the entire year.

• There is approximately 852,000 sq. ft. currently under construction, marking the first year-end total below a million sq. ft. in nine years and the lowest year-end construction total observed since 2016.

• Declining construction numbers, particularly the limited supply of speculative construction may lead to a more robust owner-user market in the near to medium term and will likely contribute to rental rates growth in 2026 and 2027.

1 Quote

“Too many people spend money they earned..to buy things they don't want..to impress people that they don't like.”

Will Rogers

A Question

What’s your money story? Share and I will include (anonymous to others of course)