You are currently viewing the Canadian Institutional website. You can change your location here or visit other RBC GAM websites.

Welcome to the RBC Global Asset Management site for Institutional Investors
Français

In order to proceed to the site, please accept our Terms & Conditions.

Please read the following terms and conditions carefully. By accessing rbcgam.com and any pages thereof (the "site"), you agree to be bound by these terms and conditions as well as any future revisions RBC Global Asset Management Inc. ("RBC GAM Inc.") may make in its discretion. If you do not agree to the terms and conditions below, do not access this website, or any pages thereof. Phillips, Hager & North Investment Management is a division of RBC GAM Inc. PH&N Institutional is the institutional business division of RBC GAM Inc.

No Offer

Products and services of RBC GAM Inc. are only offered in jurisdictions where they may be lawfully offered for sale. The contents of this site do not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation to buy products or services to any person in a jurisdiction where such offer or solicitation is considered unlawful.

No information included on this site is to be construed as investment advice or as a recommendation or a representation about the suitability or appropriateness of any product or service. The amount of risk associated with any particular investment depends largely on the investor's own circumstances.

No Reliance

The material on this site has been provided by RBC GAM Inc. for information purposes only and may not be reproduced, distributed or published without the written consent of RBC GAM Inc. It is for general information only and is not, nor does it purport to be, a complete description of the investment solutions and strategies offered by RBC GAM Inc., including RBC Funds, RBC Private Pools, PH&N Funds, RBC Corporate Class Funds and RBC ETFs (the "Funds"). If there is an inconsistency between this document and the respective offering documents, the provisions of the respective offering documents shall prevail.

RBC GAM Inc. takes reasonable steps to provide up-to-date, accurate and reliable information, and believes the information to be so when published. Information obtained from third parties is believed to be reliable, but no representation or warranty, express or implied, is made by RBC GAM Inc., its affiliates or any other person as to its accuracy, completeness, reliability or correctness. RBC GAM Inc. assumes no responsibility for any errors or omissions in such information. The views and opinions expressed herein are those of RBC GAM Inc. and are subject to change without notice.

About Our Funds

The Funds are offered by RBC GAM Inc. and distributed through authorized dealers. Commissions, trailing commissions, management fees and expenses all may be associated with the Funds. Please read the offering materials for a particular fund before investing. The performance data provided are historical returns, they are not intended to reflect future values of any of the funds or returns on investment in these funds. Further, the performance data provided assumes reinvestment of distributions only and does not take into account sales, redemption, distribution or optional charges or income taxes payable by any unitholder that would have reduced returns. The unit values of non-money market funds change frequently. For money market funds, there can be no assurances that the fund will be able to maintain its net asset value per unit at a constant amount or that the full amount of your investment in the fund will be returned to you. Mutual fund securities are not guaranteed by the Canada Deposit Insurance Corporation or by any other government deposit insurer. Past performance may not be repeated. ETF units are bought and sold at market price on a stock exchange and brokerage commissions will reduce returns. RBC ETFs do not seek to return any predetermined amount at maturity. Index returns do not represent RBC ETF returns.

About RBC Global Asset Management

RBC Global Asset Management is the asset management division of Royal Bank of Canada ("RBC") which includes the following affiliates around the world, all indirect subsidiaries of RBC: RBC GAM Inc. (including Phillips, Hager & North Investment Management and PH&N Institutional), RBC Global Asset Management (U.S.) Inc., RBC Global Asset Management (UK) Limited, RBC Global Asset Management (Asia) Limited, BlueBay Asset Management LLP, and BlueBay Asset Management USA LLC.

Forward-Looking Statements

This website may contain forward-looking statements about general economic factors which are not guarantees of future performance. Forward-looking statements involve inherent risk and uncertainties, so it is possible that predictions, forecasts, projections and other forward-looking statements will not be achieved. We caution you not to place undue reliance on these statements as a number of important factors could cause actual events or results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in any forward-looking statement. All opinions in forward-looking statements are subject to change without notice and are provided in good faith but without legal responsibility.

Accept Decline
4 minutes, 47 seconds to watch by  RBC Global Equity teamJ.Richardson Dec 11, 2024

Looking ahead to 2025, it’s a richer outlook for Alpha

Reflecting on the past month, Jeremy Richardson explores;

  • Clarity following the results of the US election has been positive for global equity markets, but it’s the good news you don’t see in the papers that’s going to feed into investment opportunities.

  • Consumers making their own choices about good value is driving a mixture of company results, representing opportunities for stock pickers.

  • Tension between results and valuations, is leading to a much richer environment for alpha, irrespective of what happens with market beta.

Watch time: 4 minutes, 47 seconds

View transcript

Hello, this is Jeremy Richardson for the RBC global equity team, here with another update. Now since we last spoke, we've had the results of the US election and for global equity markets it's been actually a positive development, because we've been able to avoid a contested outcome. That had the potential to really disrupt progress, but we've instead gone from a situation of uncertainty, to now one of much greater clarity.

I say clarity, of course there's still a lot of debate about what the new administration will do in terms of policy and how that policy may shape markets and industries, but I think as investors, we need to bear in mind that it's going to be newspaper headlines responding to controversy, and potentially even bad news that will be driving newspaper sales, and a lot of the public debate.

A lot of the more positive, incremental news, you don't actually get to see in newspapers, and so we need to bear that in mind when we're thinking about things like supply side reforms and how that impacts choices of entrepreneurs, founders, new businesses; Because over time, that's where real value wealth creation occurs in the real economy and that has the potential to feed through into investment opportunities.

The second thing I want to touch on is the results season. I kind of feel as though this is a repeat of what we've been saying the previous two results seasons, and that in Q3, we have a similar sort of mix where it seems to be margins a bit more than sales revenue, that have been driving the results that we've been hearing companies report.

Well I would say that’s good news and bad news, the market's response to that has been amplified over this quarter and as part of that amplification, we see that in some of the company examples. So, Walmart, had very good numbers, received positively. In contrast, target really struggled. TJX, the discount clothing retailer, good numbers, received positively. In contrast, Coles really struggled. And so, you know, we often hear people talk about the US consumer as if there's one single individual, but actually this is a good reminder that there's over 300 million individual US consumers, and they're all making their own choices about what's best for their dollar, and how they can extract the best value from that, and those choices are leading to different outcomes for companies, and that represents opportunities, I think, for stock pickers.

Just on that opportunity for stock pickers, one of the other things I just want to highlight is this sort of continuation of the trend that we saw began to emerge in Q3, where the market is no longer just being driven by large cap companies. Yes, the large caps are doing reasonably well, but we are seeing now the smaller mid-caps also participating in that.

Now, this is largely a US phenomenon, which doesn't mean to say that small and mid-cap stocks are struggling outside of the US. They aren't in particular, it's just that we never really saw the same levels of market concentration outside of the US as we did in the US. So the fact now that we are seeing much greater breadth within the really important US market, I think is actually a very helpful dynamic, for stock pickers.

Which brings me, I guess, to the final point to make, which is around the nature of the market itself, and in particular around the sort of tension between results and valuations. It is true to say that, you know, the market valuation in terms of the P/E multiple of the market generally has been rising over time, and of course, the higher the valuation, the greater the burden of proof that companies have to deliver in order to be able to sustain that valuation. And so, we are seeing some economists and strategists begin to sort of raise questions about how much further the market can go when looking ahead into 2025, you know we're not economists or strategists, we'll leave that to the experts, but one of the things I would highlight is that although, there will be questions and debate about market levels, about market beta, when thinking about adding value to a portfolio, we're seeing actually a much richer environment for stock picking alpha, because of that growing diversity and that market breadth that we're seeing across stocks, and also how stocks are responding to company fundamentals.

So looking forward to the year ahead, 2025, we're hoping that it'll be a good year for Alpha, irrespective of what happens with market beta. I hope this has been of interest, and I look forward to catching up with you again soon.

 

Get the latest insights from RBC Global Asset Management.

Disclosure

This material is provided by RBC Global Asset Management (RBC GAM) for informational purposes only and may not be reproduced, distributed or published without the written consent of RBC GAM or its affiliated entities listed herein. This material does not constitute an offer or a solicitation to buy or to sell any security, product or service in any jurisdiction; nor is it intended to provide investment, financial, legal, accounting, tax, or other advice and such information should not be relied or acted upon for providing such advice. This material is not available for distribution to investors in jurisdictions where such distribution would be prohibited.

RBC GAM is the asset management division of Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) which includes RBC Global Asset Management Inc. (RBC GAM Inc.), RBC Global Asset Management (U.S.) Inc. (RBC GAM-US), RBC Global Asset Management (UK) Limited (RBC GAM-UK), RBC Global Asset Management (Asia) Limited (RBC GAM-Asia) and RBC Indigo Asset Management Inc. (RBC Indigo), which are separate, but affiliated subsidiaries of RBC.

In Canada, this material is provided by RBC GAM Inc. (including PH&N Institutional) and/or RBC Indigo, each of which is regulated by each provincial and territorial securities commission with which it is registered. In the United States, this material is provided by RBC GAM-US, a federally registered investment adviser. In Europe this material is provided by RBC GAM-UK, which is authorised and regulated by the UK Financial Conduct Authority. In Asia, this material is provided by RBC GAM-Asia, which is registered with the Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) in Hong Kong.

Additional information about RBC GAM may be found at www.rbcgam.com.

This material has not been reviewed by, and is not registered with any securities or other regulatory authority, and may, where appropriate and permissible, be distributed by the above-listed entities in their respective jurisdictions.

Any investment and economic outlook information contained in this material has been compiled by RBC GAM from various sources. Information obtained from third parties is believed to be reliable, but no representation or warranty, express or implied, is made by RBC GAM, its affiliates or any other person as to its accuracy, completeness or correctness. RBC GAM and its affiliates assume no responsibility for any errors or omissions in such information.

Opinions contained herein reflect the judgment and thought leadership of RBC GAM and are subject to change at any time. Such opinions are for informational purposes only and are not intended to be investment or financial advice and should not be relied or acted upon for providing such advice. RBC GAM does not undertake any obligation or responsibility to update such opinions.

RBC GAM reserves the right at any time and without notice to change, amend or cease publication of this information.

Past performance is not indicative of future results. With all investments there is a risk of loss of all or a portion of the amount invested. Where return estimates are shown, these are provided for illustrative purposes only and should not be construed as a prediction of returns; actual returns may be higher or lower than those shown and may vary substantially, especially over shorter time periods. It is not possible to invest directly in an index.

Some of the statements contained in this material may be considered forward-looking statements which provide current expectations or forecasts of future results or events. Forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance or events and involve risks and uncertainties. Do not place undue reliance on these statements because actual results or events may differ materially from those described in such forward-looking statements as a result of various factors. Before making any investment decisions, we encourage you to consider all relevant factors carefully.

® / TM Trademark(s) of Royal Bank of Canada. Used under licence.

© RBC Global Asset Management Inc., 2025
document.addEventListener("DOMContentLoaded", function() { let wrapper = document.querySelector('div[data-location="inst-insight-article-additional-resources"]'); if (wrapper) { let liElements = wrapper.querySelectorAll('.link-card-item'); liElements.forEach(function(liElement) { liElement.classList.remove('col-xl-3'); liElement.classList.add('col-xl-4'); }); } })