In case you missed our previous announcement our team has expanded to serve you better. We continue to provide comprehensive financial planning and disciplined money management grounded in our structured and proprietary investment models. The team now offers something rare: confidence not only in your and your family’s financial strategy, but also in the people who will guide it for years to come.

Hugh Connor, CFP, CIM

Senior Portfolio Manager & Wealth Advisor

Hugh nurtures client relationships and oversees the team’s financial planning, investment models, and asset allocation decisions.

Ryan Waller, CIM

Associate Portfolio Manager & Wealth Advisor

Ryan manages trade execution and oversees the portfolio modelling for discretionary accounts.

Liam Connor

Associate Investment Advisor

Liam’s focus is on building relationships with the next generation of client families, supporting financial planning across the practice and coordinating referral activity with our RBC partners.

Reilly Connor

Business Development Lead

Reilly manages our new business development efforts and marketing materials. He is also our technology expert and ensures we are utilizing our systems efficiently including our AI initiatives.

Diane Russell

Associate Advisor

Diane manages a broad range of client-facing and operational responsibilities including account management, account maintenance, and client relations.

Rudy Connor

Community Ambassador

As a certified therapy dog with St. John Ambulance, Rudy and the Connor Group have devoted over three hundred volunteer hours providing comfort and companionship to countless people in need in our city.

Please visit our updated team page: theconnorgrouprbc.com

Mid-Year 2026 Market Review

If you had only seen news headlines this year, you’d probably expect your portfolio to be in survival mode. War, technical recession, inflation, spiking gas prices, tariffs - the news cycle has been undeniably grim. Although markets have had plenty to navigate this year, it is earnings that drive equity markets and the outlook remains upbeat – for now. Certainly, portfolio returns have been quite strong but what specifically has been driving the index returns?

Canadian stocks have been driven by the largest sectors: banks and resources. Banks are well capitalized, generating healthy revenue with low default rates on loans. Energy companies have benefited from spiking oil and gas prices.

U. S. performance has been driven by the AI build out. Whether it’s the chips, storage, connectors, cooling or power – companies all across the supply chain have seen incredible profit growth, which has fueled the whole market.

It’s a relatively easy task to briefly summarize what has happened in the market. The more difficult question is what do we anticipate going forward? Predicting short-term market performance isn’t a useful exercise.

We could write a very compelling case as to why there are some major tailwinds that are showing no signs of slowing. Stocks could continue to ignore the headlines and march higher on the back of resilient corporate earnings and a massive wave of AI infrastructure spending.

However, it could also be argued that there are risks to the overall macroeconomic environment, such as sticky inflation and the potential for higher interest rates. This could negatively impact sentiment which, to keep a consistent descriptor, would be a headwind.

We wrote in our Spring Newsletter that by the time it was distributed the narrative could have shifted dramatically and the commentary could be out of date! This certainly holds true again. The risk everyone is watching is the Strait of Hormuz. The longer the Strait remains closed, or shipping dramatically reduced, the greater the risk of inflation rising further and working its way into the broader economy. A standoff that continues through the summer could push the Fed and perhaps the Bank of Canada to consider rate hikes.

We can’t control events but we can build your portfolios (using our disciplined investment models) to persevere regardless of what scenarios unfold. Our data driven money management process coupled with your personalized financial plan will keep you on track, focus you on your long-term goals, and give you the comfort level and peace of mind you deserve.

Which is a perfect segway to our next article.

Financial Planning Reminder

We have already created a personalized financial plan for the vast majority of our clients. A financial plan helps us understand your unique goals and creates a roadmap to achieve them. We believe every recommendation should begin with a clear understanding of your goals. A personalized financial plan allows us to tailor advice to your unique circumstances, helping ensure your investment, tax, retirement, and estate strategies work together to support your vision for the future.

This isn’t a plan that is completed and then filed away. We update your plan every year as part of your annual review so you always know where you stand and it is a useful decision-making tool for you.

Ultimately, a solid financial plan gives you comfort and reduces stress. Knowing you have a strategy in place – and someone monitoring it – provides lasting peace of mind.

It doesn’t matter what stage of life you are in, your account size, if you think you already have a good handle on your situation, or if the thought of doing this just overwhelms you. Please take advantage of this offer from The Connor Group as part of our value-added service. We promise to make the process simple for you and assure you that you will find this very valuable initiative.

Our RBC Partners

Regular readers of our newsletter will know that we frequently profile one of our RBC partners. Your financial needs often extend beyond financial planning and investment management alone. That’s why The Connor Group maintains strong partnerships with RBC specialists on other platforms. We refer our clients to these trusted partners when we identify opportunities to strengthen your overall financial position. We thought it would be useful for this summer’s edition to provide a brief overview of our partner offerings from which you could benefit. By no means is this an exhaustive list of their services so please contact us for more information and if you would like us to make an introduction.

Your Quarterly Smile 😊

For all the soccer/football fans out there…

Q. How do you know the World Cup tournament format is getting out of hand?

A. When the group stage takes so long that the opening matches are considered historical documentaries.

Thank you

We thank you for entrusting us with all your wealth management needs and the opportunity to serve you. We are always looking to selectively grow our business so if you know someone just like you that could benefit from our expertise and service we would welcome and greatly appreciate the introduction.