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Covered call strategies carve a hybrid niche, blending equity growth with bond-like income sans the whipsaws of pure plays. Greg Gipson of CIBC Global Asset Management highlights yield variability as the old guard's Achilles heel: equity dividends ebb with payouts and prices, while fixed income yields have gyrated wildly over five years. "Those numbers are variable over time," he observes, from corporate hikes to rate routs eroding bond appeal.


The bond ETF era dawned in Canada 25 years ago, with iShares' XBB and XSB launching on the Toronto Stock Exchange in November 2000, shattering barriers for everyday investors. Before these wrappers, Canadians chasing fixed income juggled steep minimums for individual bonds or liquidity-starved mutual funds. XBB mirrors the FTSE Canada Universe Bond Index, spanning nearly 2,000 investment-grade issues from federal to corporate corners, delivering broad-market ballast.



Private alternatives, a multi-trillion behemoth, eye explosive retail penetration as advisors inch beyond the 60/40 cage. Michael Reisner,  Co-Founder and Co-CEO of CION Investments, pegs average retail allocations at a skimpy 5%, with just 20-30% of advisors deploying them. "We see that as a tremendous opportunity" he says, forecasting meaningful uptake in coming years amid volatility's pull.


Mid-cap equities, the oft-ignored middle child of U.S. markets, emerge as a potential sweet spot, blending small-cap agility with large-cap stability. Hamish Preston of S&P Dow Jones Indices defines the S&P MidCap 400 as spanning companies with $8bn to $22.7bn market caps, a universe vast enough to rival entire nations' equity pools. "If you treated the S&P 400 as a stand-alone country, it would be one of the largest equity markets in the world," Preston notes, highlighting its domestic revenue tilt, 80% U.S.-sourced versus the S&P 500's 50/50 split.


The curtain falls on 2025, first year of a presidential cycle, and history whispers sweet nothings for December. Kim Inglis, senior portfolio manager at Raymond James, scans 80 years of S&P 500 data: 12 instances where November closed up 5% or more, each ushering a positive December averaging 2% gains. "Those are fantastic statistics." she says, as markets wrap a year chasing norms amid policy pivots.


Kim Inglis at Raymond James argues that today’s AI wave is fundamentally different from the 1990s internet boom. Then, firms often listed with little revenue or business plans. Now, the leaders are established companies with diversified businesses. Inglis underscores the adoption gap: 97% of U.S. households have a computer today versus 51% at the dot com peak, and roughly 70% of the global population has internet access compared with 6% in the 1990s. Those adoption metrics support scale and utility rather than pure speculation.


Christopher Davis at ISS Market Intelligence lays out a blunt five-year roadmap for the retail fund industry: slower growth, continued passive adoption, and a dramatic broadening of the product shelf. U.S. equities have driven the bulk of asset growth over the past decade, but forecasts now point to more modest returns. Slower asset growth will translate into weaker revenue growth for firms heavily exposed to domestic equity funds, making business-model choices more consequential.



AI’s surge is quickly becoming an energy story. Kim Inglis of Raymond James highlights that the infrastructure powering artificial intelligence is accelerating electricity demand at a pace that could reshape global energy markets. The IEA expects electricity demand to jump 40% by 2035, driven primarily by data centers and electric vehicles.


Private markets are seeing a surge in dispersion that makes manager and vintage selection as consequential as the underlying strategy. Alexander Sing warns that choosing the wrong year or the wrong manager can swing returns from strong outperformance to severe drawdowns. Top vintages can deliver 40%, while bottom vintages have fallen 10%. The gap between top-quartile and bottom-quartile managers mirrors that volatility, turning selection into a high-stakes decision.