VFH News and Press, Vanguard Financials From 03/18/22

Interest rates are on the rise. To combat high inflation, central banks in Canada and the U.S. recently raised their policy rates, with both going from 0.25% to 0.50%. At least another four rate hikes are anticipated throughout 2022, in an attempt to bring inflation back down to a 2% target...

Interest rates are a key driver of earnings for financial services companies. As a result, the current rising interest rate environment is generally bullish for the sector. As you know, the Federal Reserve is considerably behind the inflation curve relative to its dual mandate - one o...

The pandemic forced central banks to slash rates and restart the quantitative easing measures first rolled out during the financial crisis. Near-zero interest rates in the United States and negative rates in Europe have compressed net interest income. After several years of strong...

The yield spread between the Select Financial Sector SPDR ETF and 10-year Treasury rates has reverted to its historical mean by the recent market correction. You will also see, from our market sector dashboard, that XLF is now also fairly valued compared with other sectors. The da...

As the broader market has seen a massive run-up over the last decade, financials have lagged. Compared to Vanguard's VFH, XLF appears as an inferior coice. The fund shows limited resilence during bear markets and corrections. XLF charges a 0.10% expense ratio and currentl...

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the biggest conventional military attack in Europe since World War II, has wide-ranging implications for economies and markets around the world. Disruptions from this war and the higher energy prices that result could significantly dampen Europe&#x...

In this article, I will look at some broad fund/ETF categories to see how my recommendations of almost a year ago turned out. I looked at sector, Value vs. Growth, Small Cap vs. Large Cap, and Long Term vs. Short Term bond category performance. My biggest wins were Energy and Fina...

Russia supplies natural gas to Europe, and in the event of US sanctions, this could impact Europe. But there are so many LNG ships in the Atlantic right now that lease rates have collapsed, so Russian threats to cut off Europe’s gas may not be much of a threat. The other big th...

Non-U.S. markets, including EM, DM, and Asia, are outperforming the U.S. markets after underperforming last year. After slightly underperforming growth last year, value is where the money is flowing. With the economy still in growth mode, cyclical stocks should do better than defe...

Are you looking for tax-free passive income in 2022? If so, it pays to hold dividend ETFs in a TFSA. It’s always a good idea to hold dividend stocks in a TFSA, as it spares you the dividend taxes. And if you hold dividend ETFs instead of individual stocks, you also enjoy the ...