March has definitely come in with heightened volatility and more world events.

The war in Iran is now in full swing, and I expect more headlines and volatility as

this gets further along. Both U.S. and Canadian markets have pulled back a little

to an index level which has not been too disastrous and is actually in line with

other bull market setbacks.

Oil has continued its outsized climb on the headlines and where it stops, I

do not know but it will stop and when it does it will not stay at these levels.

Gold, which has been hitting all-time highs finally had a big pullback which

considering all the events in the world I would have expected it to go a lot

higher. I am sure the strength in the U.S. dollar has helped with the pullback in

gold as well. Here as well I see this commodity overvalued and it can correct to

the downside at any time.

In the U.S., March began with jitters on how AI is going to affect companies,

especially software and cybersecurity companies to name a couple areas, and

this led to a very large pullback. We finally saw this in the big seven companies

who are the largest in the indices as they sold off nicely, which was long

overdue. We have also witnessed more headlines in the private credit market

where there are problems and with every economy there will be bankruptcies,

but not all are systemic and cause a market meltdown. I see these headlines

playing out in the coming months and I do not expect it to be as bad as what the

stocks have sold off too.

In Canada, our oil companies have benefited from the higher oil prices, and it

has given us the opportunity to lighten up as I do think this oil price is based

on fear not economic reasons. On the flip side, gold and some of the other

commodities have sold off which has been long overdue. The financials still

remain strong but have sold off a bit, which I again feel this was overdue

and healthy. We continue to build the portfolios on the need for more power

and infrastructure as we look into the future. Meanwhile, Europe and China

continue to be areas where we remain underweight in the portfolios as I still feel

there is better value in North America.

Overall, I expect more volatility in the markets as these events get further along.

We are looking through this to add to positions which have been sold down due

to emotions rather than long term economic reasons.

Paul Belous, CIM

Senior Portfolio Manager