Sean Conlon and Brian Evans report stocks close lower, but S&P 500 notches its 4th winning month in a row:

Stocks fell on Friday as investors took some money off the table into a long weekend following a new S&P 500 record and solid Nvidia earnings this week. New inflation data showed rising prices was still a risk heading into the new month.

The S&P 500 ended the day 0.64% lower at 6,460.26, but still scored its fourth winning month in a row. The Nasdaq Composite shed 1.15% to finish at 21,455.55, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 92.02 points, or 0.20%, to settle at 45,544.88.

Core PCE, a key inflation measure watched by the Federal Reserve which excludes the costs of food and energy, increased 2.9% in July, in-line with expectations but an acceleration from the prior month and the highest level since February.

“The Fed opened the door to rate cuts, but the size of that opening is going to depend on whether labor-market weakness continues to look like a bigger risk than rising inflation,” said Ellen Zentner, chief economic strategist for Morgan Stanley Wealth Management, in a statement. “Today’s in-line PCE Price Index will keep the focus on the jobs market. For now, the odds still favor a September cut.”

Given that equities were already under pressure heading into the PCE print, Baird’s Ross Mayfield believes the day’s pullback has more to do with the market’s recent performance. Stocks are coming off a winning session, with the S&P 500 closing above the 6,500 mark for the first time Thursday.

“The PCE number was fine, but there’s a bit of an earnings overhang and maybe just a little profit-taking after hitting an all-time high,” the firm’s investment strategist said in an interview with CNBC.

Even with Friday’s losses, the indexes closed out August with solid gains. The 30-stock Dow logged a more than 3% advance in August, while the S&P 500 tallied a nearly 2% advance. The tech-heavy Nasdaq has seen an August gain of 1.6%.

The market hit new highs into a long weekend and month that has historically been poor for major benchmarks. September was the biggest losing month for the S&P 500, Dow and Nasdaq since 1950, according to The Stock Trader’s Almanac, and the S&P 500 in particular has seen especially weak September performances over the last 10 years, per Bespoke. The broad market index averages a 0.7% decline for the month.

Nvidia was among Friday’s key laggards, as shares extended their recent losses with a fall of more than 3%. That comes after the Wall Street Journal reported that Chinese e-ecommerce giant Alibaba has created a more advanced chip as it looks to fill the gap left by Nvidia running into issues around selling its chips in China. U.S. shares of Alibaba were up about 13%.

Nvidia finished slightly lower on Thursday after reporting strong 56% revenue growth for the prior quarter and largely validating the AI trade for investors.

Additionally, tariff concerns have come back to the fore following some troubling commentary. Caterpillar, for example, warned it could see a $1.5 billion to $1.8 billion hit this year from President Donald Trump’s tariffs, sending shares more than 3% lower. Gap also recently said that tariffs will weigh on profits. Those two updates could be adding to downbeat sentiment Friday, Mayfield told CNBC. 

‘Don’t see anything on the horizon to knock this bull market off its path,’ Northlight’s Zaccarelli says

The market may continue to move higher even as it enters a seasonally weak period, according to Chris Zaccarelli, chief investment officer at Northlight Asset Management.

“Although September is typically the weakest month of the year on average, we don’t see anything on the horizon to knock this bull market off its path,” Zaccarelli said. “If anything, if there is any volatility in September or October – which would be typical for this time of year – it will likely prove to be a great buying opportunity as we are setting up to rally into year end, especially if the Fed is cutting rates outside of a recession.”

Kara Greenberg of Investopedia also reports Nvidia, Broadcom lead chip stocks lower amid China concerns to end a strong month:

The chips are down to close out August.

A range of chip stocks slid Friday, weighing on the major U.S. equities indexes in the last trading session of the month. China concerns weighed on the sector, but that wasn't the only factor that pulled shares lower.

The tech sector led losses on the S&P 500 Friday, with Nvidia (NVDA) among its biggest decliners. The giant's shares lost over 3% amid uncertainty about its China sales after it reported quarterly results Wednesday. Broadcom (AVGO), which reports next week, saw its stock fall close to 4%. Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) and other chip stocks were also lower, with the PHLX Semiconductor Index (SOX) down roughly 3%.

Marvell Technology (MRVL) shares plunged the most of any stock in the sector index, losing nearly a fifth of its value after the firm posted an outlook that missed analysts' estimates, with concerns about U.S. restrictions on chip sales to China and Marvell's large exposure to the country adding to worries.

Losses Come at the End of a Strong Month for Chip Stocks

The Trump administration said Friday that it’s eliminating a Biden-era loophole allowing Samsung and SK Hynix subsidiaries in China to import American chipmaking equipment and software without a license, which could make it more difficult for the companies to upgrade plants and affect supply chains for other chip firms that rely on their manufacturing services. The rule is set to take effect in January.

“The Trump Administration is committed to closing export control loopholes—particularly those that put U.S. companies at a competitive disadvantage. Today’s decision is an important step towards fulfilling this commitment," Under Secretary of Commerce Jeffrey Kessler said.

Samsung and SK Hynix, which both make chips for Nvidia and Broadcom, did not immediately respond to Investopedia's request for comment. Intel (INTC), which completed the sale of its facility in Dalian, China to SK Hynix earlier this year, was also named in Friday’s notice.

Meanwhile, Alibaba Group's (BABA) cloud computing unit reportedly developed a new chip more advanced than its legacy products that could help fill the void left by Nvidia's H20 AI chip that has yet to resume sales in China. Shares of Alibaba, also bolstered by its latest quarterly results, surged 13%.

August has been a strong month for most chipmakers, with the PHLX Semiconductor Index set to post gains for August on optimism about AI-driven growth, which helped buoy the S&P 500 to a record high yesterday. 

Alright, it's finally Friday, Labor Day weekend ahead so I'll keep my comments brief.

Stocks sold off today led by chip makers as shown in today's top losers (full list here):

No big surprise, it's the end of the month, a lot of rebalancing is taking place where funds are taking profits on winners.

In other words, I wouldn't read too much into today's selloff on Wall Street and strongly doubt it has anything to do with this morning's US inflation figures coming in a bit higher than expected. 

But Wall Street needs a story to explain any selloff, it's inflation, the Fed isn't going to cut next month. 

Fed Chair Powell was very clear last week, they are going to focus on their dual mandate to support employment and fight inflation and that means they're going to cut rates on September 17th because the US economy is slowing (upcoming US jobs report will just confirm this).

Again, today's action was all about end-of-month rebalancing after the S&P 500 hit a record high.

How do I know this? They could have easily taken the market down yesterday after Nvidia reported but chose not to because the big players typically kill one-day Nivida options post earnings which is why the stock didn't move much on Thursday following the earnings report.

Wall Street makes a lot of money selling puts and calls on stocks like Nvidia and they play that game well.

Anyway, I know we are entering the months of September and October, valuations are stretched so investors get antsy, but I wouldn't read too much into today's selloff.

On the positive side, here are today's big gainers led by Ambarella, IREN, Alibaba and Affirm (full list here):;

I'd say the stock of the week was Echostar Corp (SATS) after announcing earlier this week that it entered into a definitive agreement with AT&T for the sale of its 3.45 GHz and 600 MHz spectrum licenses—a total of 50 MHz of nationwide spectrum—as part of its resolution to its battle with the Federal Communications Commission.

The stock is up 170% year-to-date with most of those gains coming this week:

There was some bad news earlier today as the Canadian economy shrank 1.6% as US tariffs squeezed exports. 

What this tells me is the full effects of trade tensions are only now being felt in Canada and around the world and they will also be felt in the US as employment slows there.

So, it's not all sunshine and roses but the selloff in the US stock market today was primarily due to end-of-month rebalancing following a record S&P 500 print this week. 

Below, CNBC's Rick Santelli joins 'Squawk Box' to break down the July PCE report.

Next, Joseph Tanious, Northern Trust chief investment strategist, and Mark Zandi, Moody’s chief economist, join CNBC's 'Squawk on the Street' to discuss macro outlooks, reactions to today's consumer sentiment data, and much more.

Third, Ryan Detrick, Carson Group chief market strategist, joins 'Closing Bell' to discuss Detrick's thoughts on the technicals, a reason why markets will continue to rise into the fall and much more.

Fourth, Anastasia Amoroso, Partners Group chief investment strategist, joins 'Closing Bell' to discuss where recent market issues sit with markets, where investors are looking to get access and much more.

Fifth, the 'Halftime Report' Investment Committee debate the AI trade going from here.

Lastly, the 'Fast Money' traders look ahead to September market setup. 

Have a great Labour Day Weekend! 

CPP Investments posted a clip where Heather Tobin, Senior Managing Director & Global Head of Capital Markets and Factor Investing, shares insights on the role of disciplined absolute return strategies in long-term oriented portfolios.

This clip is orientated towards regular Canadians who never invested in a hedge fund or don't know what absolute return strategies are and she gives a nice overview in 4 minutes.

One thing I will recommend to CPP Investments is it post a transcript that accompanies these short clips (yeah, I'm lazy, I read faster than I watch and it would make my life easier).

Anyway, Heather does a great job giving a quick overview of what her team does at CPP Investments stating this:

The department runs a highly diversified global portfolio across two core strategies.

The first core strategy is our External Portfolio Management Program. This team invests in public market managers across a broad range of global asset classes and strategies.

The second team is our Systematic Strategies Group and this group develops and manages quantitative programs by investing in equities, fixed income, currencies and commodities.

Our position as a top allocator globally to external public manager programs allows us to bring a market aware perspective not only to how we assess the performance of own strategies but equally to how we think about portfolio construction and portfolio resiliency within Capital Markets and across the Fund.

So why does this matter? This approach allows CPP Investments to access a broad range of insights across global public markets, across asset classes and strategies through working with trusted partners that allow us to generate alpha and enhance diversification for the total fund.

The two skills I consistently see in top performing team members are to cut through complexity and communicate with clarity.

Now these skills have always been important but they are truly so important at this moment and time when things around us are changing so rapidly. 

I'll let you watch the rest below but let me give you some quick thoughts.

First, CPP Investments is a top allocator to global private equity funds and hedge funds.  

You can actually see a list of their top hedge fund partners here. 

Surprisingly, no investments in Citadel, Millennium and other top funds that go way back to the years I was investing in external hedge funds at La Caisse (over 20 years ago) but I did recognize some global macro funds like Bridgewater and Rokos Capital Management.

I recognized a few others and to be fair, they mix long only funds with absolute return funds in their list of partners and I've been out of that game for a long time so I don't know any of the newer funds (loved meeting and grilling managers, hated the travel and bogus hedge fund conferences, drove me nuts). 

The person in charge of CPP Investments' External Portfolio Management Program is Amy Flikerski. Back in November 2024, she discussed the evolving landscape of external portfolio management with the Top Traders Unplugged ‘Allocators’ podcast:

As Managing Director & Head of External Portfolio Management at CPP Investments, Amy Flikerski and her team of forty, spanning offices in London, Toronto, New York, and Hong Kong, are responsible for a $60 billion global portfolio. In the latest episode of the Top Traders Unplugged ‘Allocators’ podcast, Flikerski discusses the evolution of the hedge fund industry, strategies suited to external management, and CPP Investments’ emerging managers program. She was recently named to Financial News’s list of the 100 most influential women in European finance.

*The following has been edited for clarity and brevity.

How do you see the role of external portfolio management within CPP Investments’ overall ($600 billion) portfolio? Is it a kind of a volatility dampener?

Amy Flikerski: Our external portfolio management team (EPM) seeks a return profile that’s a little bit different compared to other strategies at CPP Investments. EPM is absolute return-focused and has more consistent volatility than some of the long strategies like infrastructure investing or direct private equity. It has those properties of, hopefully, convexity as well as being adjusted for volatility. And it’s coming from different sources than those more beta-oriented, market-oriented types of (typically) equity exposures.

Some allocators have said the changed macro environment in the last number of years—following COVID and amid more volatility in rates—has made this a more favourable environment for hedge funds.

Amy Flikerski: We definitely agree with that sentiment; higher rate environments ensure a healthy level of volatility, and prompt more dispersion across security types and asset classes.

Any observations on the evolution of the hedge fund landscape in the 12 years you’ve been at CPP Investments?

Amy Flikerski: I’ve been in the space for over 20 years and during that time I’ve seen a lot. The market has evolved; some of the large managers of the past have been acquired, merged or just shut as founders retire or as there’s difficulty determining succession plans. There’s no ability to coast along just because groups have a lot of assets under management, and I think we’re very attuned to that as fund investors. As of late we’ve seen a big rise of platforms in terms of scaling, growth and talent, and how the pass-through model is impacting the industry.

Within CPP Investments, which strategies lend themselves to being done internally versus sourcing managers externally?

Amy Flikerski: We’ve always run our investment efforts in parallel. We’ve historically thought of external allocations a kind of completion exposure: allocating into strategies that wouldn’t be able to be done internally, whether those are quantitative strategies that require a lot of specialized infrastructure, as well as talent, speed, modelling et cetera.

We do some degree of internal quant investing around risk premia. Externally, we would probably look at more event-driven, catalyst-driven types of fundamental managers, with shorter duration investment horizons, whereas our internal active equities colleagues are looking at the longer horizon, larger positions.

We run internal investing where we have the skill set as well as capabilities.

CPP Investments has had a well-established emerging manager program for nearly 10 years. What was the rationale for introducing your emerging manager program and how do you think about making allocations to emerging managers?

Amy Flikerski: We established the dedicated emerging manager program in 2016, but prior to that we had been investing in emerging managers outside of the dedicated program. I should define how we think about emerging managers. This is purely looking for best-in-class investors that are newly launched. We also think of this as capital acceleration, which could be a manager a few years after the initial launch, who’s looking to take in a large investor. A day-zero type investment would be more of a seed, where the anchor investor will take revenue share to mitigate the early-stage risks. Whereas with capital acceleration, we are looking more for the founder’s life terms.

Emerging manager investing, which allows us to invest early, secures future capacity rights and early-stage performance. Emerging manager investing is a complement to the core fund managers in which invest, and strong performing emerging managers can ‘graduate’ to the core program.

What is the typical profile of an emerging manager?

Amy Flikerski: Our framework is around people, process, performance. That’s pedigree, that’s the repeatability of the strategy they’re employing. We’ve invested in traders or investors who came out of banks, people who have a very high profile and came out of large hedge funds themselves. We’ve also invested sometimes in number two-type portfolio managers who feel ready to launch their own groups.

Performance information can always be a bit of a pastiche. We may have a track that’s vetted and sometimes we have very little or nothing.

How do you think about the portfolio construction and turnover within it?

Amy Flikerski: We’re definitely longer-hold investors. But we’re not just investing forever and that’s it. We’re on top of the day-to-day and we’re always evaluating. We do, for example, a quarterly review of the entire portfolio.

If something has shifted to the negative, we try to work through that. On occasion we’ve been very quick, but on balance we tend to give more time rather than less for managers to work out performance, team or strategy issues. It’s roughly a two- to three-year initial horizon, but we’ve had managers in the program who’ve been there for over a decade.

Listen to the full podcast.

From what Amy said, they launched their emerging manager program back in 2016 and it continues to be an important part of their activities.

For example, Bloomberg reporter Nishant Kumar recently posted this on LinkedIn: "Ex-Millennium senior portfolio manager Ed Cooper to manage money for CPP, Partners Capital and in talks with a multistrategy hedge fund for additional cash. He is expected to start with between 400-500 million this year." 

Seeding hedge funds isn't an easy game, there are risks, most of them fail miserably even if they have the pedigree and right experience at a top hedge fund.

But given CPP Investments' size and it really has limited choice but to ramp up that emerging manager program, securing future capacity, negotiating lower fees and co-investments, and having an equity stake in the management company where there's more upside if things go well (not sure if they negotiate this).

I'll put it to you this way, CPP Investments is already close to CAD$800 billion in assets under management, in order for that  External Portfolio Management Program to add significant alpha, it needs to secure capacity with existing and new funds primarily in highly scalable and liquid absolute return strategies.

They don't have much of a choice, investing in arcane, illiquid strategies which aren't scalable will not move the needle in any meaningful way.

How do I know all this? Again, I used to invest in top directional hedge funds at La Caisse back in 2002 and was one of the first to invest in Bridgewater among institutional funds in Canada and other top macro, CTA and L/S Equity funds (I also had a few top short sellers and funds of funds).

I still track top funds' quarterly activity mostly for fun and because I love markets and trading.

I read the latest news on hedge funds but I am so far removed from that world and that's probably a good thing because I'd be grilling them even harder these days as I know a lot more about markets and their strategies.

Nowadays, external absolute return strategies are back in vogue, there is a high demand for top funds and securing great capacity because liquid alternatives are outperforming illiquid ones on an absolute and risk-adjusted basis. 

That means top funds can charge hefty fees and pass through fees and if you don't like it, tough luck (another reason why I'm so glad to be out of that game, you have to put up with a lot more nonsense these days).

Alright, let me wrap it up there and maybe one day, I'll ask John Graham to give me access to Heather Tobin, Amy Flikerski and others across public and private markets so I can interview them properly and really dig a lot deeper into their operations and how they approach absolute return and other strategies.

That's what I love doing nowadays, that's where I add value.

Below, Heather Tobin, Senior Managing Director & Global Head of Capital Markets and Factor Investing, shares insights on the role of disciplined absolute return strategies in long-term oriented portfolios.

Also, Amy Flikerski, Head of External Portfolio Management at CPP Investments, joins Alan Dunne in this episode to discuss allocating capital to emerging and established hedge funds. They delve into the evolution of the hedge fund industry from the perspective of an allocator and particularly how the growth of the large multi-manager multi-strats has impacted hedge fund allocating. 

Amy discusses the role of the External Manager Allocations in the context of CPP Investment’s overall portfolio and some of the key considerations from a top down and bottom up perspective when the portfolio is constructed. She also highlights how CPP Investments evaluates emerging managers, what makes a great hedge fund manager and also offers valuable advice for hedge fund managers when engaging with allocators.

James Bradshaw of the Globe and Mail reports AIMCo earns 2% first-half return as clients seek to reduce risk-taking:

Alberta Investment Management Corp. earned a 2-per-cent return in the first half of the year, rebounding from a volatile first quarter that has prompted the pension fund manager’s clients to shift toward lower-risk investments.

AIMCo’s investment gain through June 30 was modest when compared with a 5.4-per-cent gain in the same six months last year. Its balanced fund, which reflects a typical mix of client assets, earned 2.1 per cent, according to a midyear update the pension fund manager released on Wednesday.

After a tough start to the year for markets, marked by turmoil from constantly shifting tariffs levied by the United States, AIMCo and its clients are “quite pleased with a positive return year-to-date,” chief investment officer Justin Lord said in an interview.

A second-quarter rebound in stock markets helped keep AIMCo’s returns positive, and that upward trend has carried into the third quarter, Mr. Lord said. But as its client funds adapt to a less predictable investing environment, they are asking AIMCo to lean toward assets that are typically less risky.

In some cases, they are moving more of their investments into infrastructure-like assets that have longer time horizons and more stable returns. Some are still having conversations about boosting exposure to private credit, a booming market for loans to private companies, even as increased competition has put pressure on credit spreads.

“We have been seeing some allocation changes across client portfolios away from a global equity tilt to lower-risk jurisdictions or asset classes,” Mr. Lord said.

So far, that has not included any retreat on U.S. investments, though AIMCo is taking a harder look at the risks posed by less predictable U.S. policy positions and tensions with its trading partners.

“The U.S. isn’t going away. We don’t see drastic changes to that allocation,” Mr. Lord said, but he added: “With a perceived increase in risk comes a required increase in expected returns.”

Mr. Lord was promoted to chief investment officer in July as part of an overhaul of AIMCo’s senior leadership team instigated by Alberta’s government, which called for a “reset” of the government-owned fund manager.

AIMCo invests on behalf of 17 pension, endowment, insurance and government clients in Alberta. Its total assets increased to $182.9-billion, compared with $179.6-billion at the end of 2024.

Over the past 10 years, AIMCo’s balanced fund has earned an average annual return of 7 per cent, reaping net investment income of $69.9-billion.

First-half returns this year were driven mostly by gains on publicly traded assets such as stocks and bonds, which make up a majority of AIMCo’s portfolio.

Investments in privately owned assets such as infrastructure, real estate, private equity and renewable resources – which account for 35 per cent of AIMCo’s total portfolio – had “more tempered” first-half results, according to the pension fund manager’s midyear update.

AIMCo publishes detailed performance results for each asset class with its annual report. 

Earlier today, AIMCo released its mid-year investment performance:

 

This morning I had a chance to speak to AIMCo's newly appointed CIO, Justin Lord, to go over the results and dig a little deeper (first time we spoke, very nice guy and market savvy which I expected).

I want to thank Justin for taking the time to talk to me and also thank Carolyn Quick for setting up the Teams meeting and sending me the update on an embargoed basis. 

I began by asking Justin to give me an overview of the results which were in line with peers:

A couple of comments and certainly 2025 has been anything but a quiet year in global financial markets. That's probably been the norm that investors have been operating in over recent years, it certainly feels like that across the teams here at AIMCo.

Obviously, January to June, investors faced a rapidly changing environment that was driven primarily by US tariff announcements, continued geopolitical tensions and escalation or thereof and uncertain macro, monetary and fiscal backdrops globally.

The AIMCo Balanced Fund did deliver 2.1% net return over the first half of the year. That means approximately $3.6 billion of investment gains for our clients. 

This performance was led by our public market portfolios, particularly public equities driving those returns. We did have positive returns across money market, fixed income, mortgages, private debt and loan portfolios as well.

Our private investments like infrastructure and real estate were slightly challenged by the same that we commented on with respect to the macroeconomic uncertainty broadly.

As it relates to fixed income, Canadian bond yields were pushed higher. We've seen that continue at the long end of the curve mid-year reflecting concerns over the impact of trade policy, uncertainty over business investment, economic stability and broader long-term productivity.

But pointing to the results and really pointing to the benefit of a highly diversified portfolio, sound risk management practices, the long-term performance of the Balanced Fund has held up quite well through this volatility.

We do note that our Balanced Fund has earned a 10-year annualized return of 7% as per the report as well. 

Our teams at AIMCo continue to seize opportunities and effectively mitigate risks on behalf of our clients to deliver solid performance throughout market cycles.

We do provide our clients with regular, detailed performance on these portfolios and this report is provided just to provide a snapshot of that performance across the aggregated portfolio.  

We do reference Balanced Funds in our reporting because it reflects the typical client mix of investment across all asset classes. It does account for the majority of assets under management at AIMCo.

We don't provide reporting against our benchmarks in our mid-year report. We have some asset classes outperforming or exceeding their benchmarks while others are lagging or below.

Just as a follow-on, post the end of quarter, obviously we've seen continued appreciation in equities broadly. Certainly post the quarter and Q2 and following on, US large cap equities have re-assumed a leadership but we are seeing broad based gains across emerging markets, Canadian equities and European equities year-to-date contributing positively and continuing to do so for our clients' funds overall.    

Justin paused there to let me digest and I do want to emphasize that while AIMCo has many clients most of the assets are in the Balanced Fund and that fund really demonstrates the benefits of a broadly diversified portfolio.

No, they do not provide detailed reporting by asset class relative to respective benchmarks in their mid-year report but do provide it to their clients which is normal.

I followed up by proposing we discuss public markets first since that's his area of expertise and then we discuss challenges specific to private markets.

I asked him to give me an overview of public market strategies/ activities including internal and external absolute return strategies and asked him whether private debt is part of the fixed income portfolio or part of private equity.

He replied:

Yes, certainly, I will tackle public equities first and then we will move on to private debt.  

Public equities including the absolute return strategies makes up approximately 37% of the clients' Balanced Fund asset mix. This is across global equities, Canadian equities and emerging markets. We do have a global small-cap product that is quite small and then our absolute return product.

Clients allocate at the asset mix level to those products as needed to meet their risk/ return requirements. We work with our clients' investment staff, consultants, etc. to help determine what those products should look like from a composition or active risk perspective and obviously clients are involved in helping set those benchmarks at the asset allocation level. 

The team internally uses a number of different strategies internally and externally to allocate to active and passive strategies as well as absolute return strategies to ensure we are delivering that beta required at the asset mix level and then certainly targeting excess return on top of each of those benchmarks for the respective products.

I interjected to ask him if that's an overlay strategy, a portable alpha strategy and he responded:

Yes, that's correct. As you know security selection over the last couple of years has been difficult to add value in global equities and around US large cap equities. 

If you're looking at the top quartile active manager in US equities, they actually detracted value over the last four year period and that's owing to some of the items you spoke to peers with respect to market concentration, etc.  

We have more tools in the toolbox so to speak than just security selection. The use of absolute return strategies to add value or generate excess return on top of equity beta is a key component for achieving client targets from an excess return perspective while managing risk, diversification and reducing correlation of those alphas across the products in general. 

Depending on the product description, there will be varying degrees of overlay strategies that will be used in Canada vs global or emerging market strategies. 

Security selection has generate positive returns for us and more broadly for the universe in emerging markets given dispersion that is prevalent and owing to some perceived inefficiencies in those markets. Certainly an area where we think security selection can continue to add value. We've been more reliant on absolute return strategies, portable alpha strategies, global equities for excess return in general.

Some of our peers would take a similar approach but at the total portfolio level. As we are organized as an asset manager, our clients are changing their asset mix at the total portfolio level, asset return happens to fall within our tool set in public markets. 

I noted that it's certainly fair to say that concentration risk in US large cap equities is affecting all pension funds and institutional asset managers, making security selection there a lot more difficult and also impacting private market benchmarks as they are gauged against US and global markets dominated by US securities (US large caps make up more than 60% of the MSCI Global Index).  

It's also worth noting that AIMCo is similar to BCI and CDPQ as it's a pension fund that manages assets for many clients with different demographics and liabilities so they work with them and their investment staff and consultants to recommend the optimal asset mix but the asset mix final decision lies with clients. 

I shifted my attention to currencies as all peers reported varying degrees of losses as the US dollar got hit over the first six months.

Justin responded:

We do have US dollar exposure and this has certainly been a topic of conversation with our clients overall. They've been asking similar questions, have similar concerns as the broader institutional investment community. 

As mentioned, we work with clients to build their long-term portfolios based on those sets of individual goals whether they are pensions or endowment plans. Any changes to our product platform would take into account those concerns, opportunities or potential shift in asset allocation more broadly.

Some of our clients do have hedging policies described in their SIP&Gs (statement of investment principles and governance). There has been interest in a better understanding of F/X exposures, hedging strategies, certainly brought to the forefront based on the long-term outlook for the US dollar.

We haven't seen any major changes as of late. Our own view is while there is a lot of noise surrounding the US dollar, we do expect it to retain its reserve status for now. 

We have seen client allocation shifts perhaps reducing that US equity exposure more as a function of valuations and lower capital market assumptions, lower return assumptions for global equities over the coming years. And that's really a function of the current valuation backdrop in equities.

Those funds are being reallocated across depending on the client and risk across different asset classes: private credit being one of those, some clients looking at infrastructure allocations as well as fixed income or some duration exposure at the current date.

As you'll note by the release as well, just given the asset mix composition, our clients might be less exposed to the illiquid asset classes at approximately 34% of their asset mix at the Balanced Fund.

I'll come back to your private debt and loan question now, that sits within our Private Markets team but works very closely with our Public Market Fixed Income team given the overlap in risk characteristics and similarities as well.

When talking about the impacts of reallocating capital from global equities to private debt and loan, that asset class naturally increases our exposure to Europe given the footprint the team has across the European credit market. 

I asked him what is the exposure and approach for private credit, do they also use strategic partners to ramp up their exposure there?

He replied:

Private debt and loan is approximately 9% but that would include mortgages as well so we'd be about 5% of Private Debt and Loan as an asset class as an allocation level within AIMCo. 

This strategy is benchmarked to a combination of private credit indexes as you'd expect. 

The team managed by Peter Shen under Peter Teti manages a strategy that really does lever strategic partnerships and opportunities across our platform in both a fund, direct or co-invest fashion more broadly.

We have seen more competition for capital in that space as a number of clients both institutionally and across the investment landscape are increasing allocations to that space in search for return and certainly as a function of elevated valuations in large cap equities. 

The team has done a very good job of remaining disciplined, maintaining high credit quality in the portfolio and looking for those relative value opportunities across the asset class within the sub categories of the private credit asset class to meet and exceed their targets quite effectively with very little loss ratio over the last number of years.  

I told Justin that AIMCo's former CIO Dale MacMaster once gave me a crash course in private credit explaining how floating rates provide an embedded inflation protection and they were targeting high single-digit returns. 

He agreed: "Yes, it's predominantly a floating rate product and offsets some of the inflation risk embedded within the traditional fixed income space."

I then quickly moved on to private markets where I noted higher for longer is impacting private equity and real estate and some infrastructure, and also noted that AIMCo is more exposed to office buildings in Alberta but let him give me more details.

He replied:

On the private equity front, certainly transaction activity has been challenged in the private equity world and continues to remain muted. That's impacting distributions received by LPs in general comparing to historic levels.

We are seeing some secondary activity in a few places that is demonstrating the GPs ability to raise liquidity.

I'd say we are cautiously optimistic with respect to capital markets, the IPO pipeline as a source of liquidity for private equity but will reiterate cautiously optimistic over the next 12 to 18 months. The industry is certainly working through some of the exposures and fundraising over the last five years.

We still are extremely confident in the asset class as a whole. Peter Teti and the team have done a fantastic job managing the exposure over the last number of years and have produced results that have met or exceeded our clients' expectations. 

Difficult backdrop with public markets as a benchmark right now, difficult to assess over shorter periods of time as well and would refer to our long-term strategy there over equity benchmarks more broadly.

I also noted it's a mid-market focus in PE and he told me that has not changed. 

He moved on to Real Estate and Infrastructure:

With respect to Infrastructure, also noting some of the market volatility, geopolitical volatility creating some challenges in the space. We continue to have conviction in the long-term businesses within our portfolio remain vigilant on inflationary pressure, interest rate movements, other risks that are related to evolving global economic uncertainty.

Our portfolio appears to be well positioned currently and we would note the potential for increased activity in the future as it would relate to client allocations and some of the potential infrastructure spend that is being talked about more broadly in North America and Europe as it relates to responding to some of the geopolitical trade tensions, etc..

Ben Hawkings and the team, like our PE team, have done a fantastic job over the last number of years managing the portfolio. We have a fantastic suite of partners and a capable team internally from a direct perspective to navigate the current environment.

I told Justin that I spoke to Ben Hawkings  back in November 2022 (see comment here) and more recently covered his comments on the success of the AirTrunk sale and think very highly of him. 

I also told him I liked Albert Premier Danielle Smith's post on LinedkIn yesterday on how nuclear energy is Alberta's next frontier and think AIMCo's Infrastructure team can play an important role there if the opportunities arise and it meets clients risk/return objectives: 

 

We continued on to AIMCo Real Estate portfolio where I noted there are still challenges in some sectors but it seems to finally and slowly be turning the corner.

Justin replied:

As like most of our peers, Real Estate has been a challenged asset class over the last number of years. 

Policy uncertainty continues to affect the recovery in that sector. As you know, real estate responds to interest rates. Interest rate increases combined with economic uncertainty more broadly have caused a cyclical decline in the market.

I would say over the last six months we are starting to see liquidity returning to the market, signs of a bottoming in some sectors and some interesting deal flow as well. 

The foreign real estate portfolio particularly in the US continues to show some sign of strain due to further decline in some office exposures and some specialized sectors. We do expect this to moderate through the end of the year and into 2026.

Other markets such as Canada and Europe we believe have stabilized more quickly but there are continuing risks there that remain as a function of global trade, tariff actions, etc. 

The pandemic produced further structural changes in tenant needs but the team is focused on that, both portfolio management and positioning, being able to take advantage of opportunities as they come our way.

I can't speak specifically as to the active weights across our peers but we have had a slight overweight in Office that adversely impacted the portfolio.

As we work through the strategy revamp with the team in Real Estate, we really are focused on a number of top-down investment themes be it demographic shifts, healthcare, technology, structural housing supply or shortages as key themes for portfolio positioning and deal flow.  

I asked Justin if they named a new leader for the Real Estate group and he told me Peter Teti is leading that group for now as he's in charge of Private Markets but he added "we will be looking for a new head of that asset class very quickly, Peter and I are having discussions on that process now."

I asked him if anyone will be replacing him in Public Markets and he replied:

From a Public Markets perspective, we have a strong leadership team with Jason Chang leading Fixed Income and David Tiley managing Fundamental Equities. 

We have a couple of initiatives withing the Public Market portfolio broadly as we look to assess the efficiency of beta management and the consistency of alpha generation.

So, when looking at one of my main objectives over the first three to six months in the role, Public Markets focus on the efficiency and consistency of alpha generation and really designing the strategy and structure that is required for our clients to be successful on that front.

As it relates to Private Markets, we touched on the Real Estate focus more broadly. 

I'd just add a third comment, really integrating our client portfolio management process to the investment process is the third key item I'm focused on.    

I ended by asking him what keeps him up at night, noting it's been an insanely volatile year so far, but inflation risks are rising, valuations are high and I asked him if he thinks markets will be calming down or if there are material risks that will lead to a significant retrenchment in the appetite for risk assets. 

He replied:

Not to provide an overly commoditized answer, those items in no particular order would be geopolitical tension, trade and policy uncertainty. Any sudden and unexpected change in monetary and fiscal policies globally. 

Really the next shock to global markets is really a surprise involving any one of those broad categories that I mentioned. The result will be disruption in liquidity trade, consumer activity, consumer sentiment thereby impacting valuations.  

It is concerning to enter an environment like that with high valuations. High valuations equals more downside in those periods of uncertainty.

But I'd say we combat that uncertainty by portfolio diversification, by maintaining sufficient liquidity across our products and client portfolios to be able to respond to those scenarios.

Last but not least, perhaps most importantly, having the right team in place to be able to respond to those opportunities that arise in those situations when managing a portfolio is key.

I thank Justin Lord for a great discussion and judging by my first conversation with him, he's a truly solid CIO who knows his markets, products, clients and values his internal team across public and private markets.

Who knows, he might make me rethink my conviction that Dale MacMaster remains AIMCo's best CIO ever but he has many more years to go before I change my mind on that.  

In all seriousness, Justin is a great guy, glad we spoke, look forward to speaking with him again and AIMCo's clients and staff are lucky to have him as their CIO. 

Once again, the in-depth discussions I bring my readers cannot be found in newspapers or anywhere else so I thank everyone who supports my work and truly appreciate it.

Below, AIMCo CIO Justin Lord offers some insight on the mid-year results.

Also, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says she expects the private sector to lead the way on potentially bringing nuclear power to the province. (Aug. 25, 2025) 

Smart lady, one of the few politicians in Canada that knows what she's talking about and isn't afraid to tell it like it is.  

Anyway, as I stated above, don't be surprised if in the future AIMCo owns a stake in a nuclear power plant in Alberta (if it makes sense for all parties, why not?). 

Sarah Rundell of Top1000funds reports on BCI's masterclass in private debt:

British Columbia Investment Management Corporation (BCI), the C$295 billion ($214 billion) asset manager for public sector bodies in Canada’s western most province, oversees a C$20 billion ($14.5 billion) allocation to private debt in a strategy that is defined by a few key characteristics: a large and growing allocation to co-investments, an avoidance of mega deals and an expansion into Europe and APAC.

Around 65 per cent of the private debt allocation is direct or in co-investments via partnerships with external firms, which although not unique, sets BCI apart from many other investors and reaps benefits like diversification, deeper relationships, deal selectivity and lower fees.

“Not everyone can do direct or co-investments but having an overall portfolio of 65 per cent in direct and co-investments is a high number, and we are looking to do more,” says Daniel Garant, executive vice president and global head of public markets, in conversation with Top1000funds.com.

BCI has been doing direct lending in the US ever since the portfolio was launched in 2018. But moribund M&A activity continues to push private credit firms to jump on every opportunity. It’s drawn huge investor flows into US private debt and tightened credit spreads. The fiercely competitive market for lenders has propelled BCI into new geographies – first Europe and more recently, Asia Pacific.

“For the last three years, we have increased our allocation to Europe for the simple reason that credit spreads and returns are currently attractive. Having a portion in Europe, and a growing portion in Asia Pacific, is helping us as these markets will develop over the years. They won’t get to the same size as the US, but private debt in Europe and Asia will get a growing share of this portfolio,” he predicts.

Another important seam to strategy involves avoiding mega deals where “everyone” is bidding. It’s not that these deals aren’t interesting, says Garant, it’s just that they are competitive and tightly priced. Instead, he is focused on transactions that are less crowded to get a better spread, calling on BCI’s strong partners to bring deal flow in the upper middle market and middle market.

Another reason to avoid mega deals in private debt includes competition in the space from broadly syndicated loans (BSLs), which corporate borrowers can tap into as an alternative to private debt. BSLs are usually cheaper, and lenders don’t ask for as much spread as private credit investors. In return, they don’t have the same flexibility.

“A private debt loan is more flexible, but it is more expensive,” he says.

Adjacent opportunities

Another successful seam to strategy includes adjacent opportunities. In one example, the team has broadened its remit and ventured into more asset-backed lending. Garant says it’s less competitive and offers a better risk return, and although deals are more complex, BCI can draw on its deep internal expertise and talent pool for support – around 85 per cent of BCI’s total assets are managed internally.

Traditionally, asset-backed lending where loans are secured against property or equipment, consumer loans or credit card balances, used to be the domain of banks. Unlike direct lending which involves analysis of the corporation, financial projections and strategy, investors in the asset-backed space must also ensure they have the capacity and infrastructure to successfully select the assets that sit behind each deal.

“This is where the secret lies,” he says, adding that managers (and their selection) play a key role in sourcing the assets that back the loans. “Asset-backed lending is usually part of a broad diversified portfolio and that requires technology, including AI tools, to better enable us to see the portfolio behind it because this is where the risk sits.”

Adjacent opportunities also include looking for openings in investment-grade (private) debt where investment-grade corporates go to the private market in search of a more flexible portion of funding.

It’s a strategy that also plays into another inherent strength of the portfolio.

The public markets team oversees both the allocation to private debt and absolute return strategies, alongside more obvious public allocations to passive and active public equities, government and corporate bonds, derivatives, trading and FX and managing portfolio leverage. Garant believes the hybrid portfolio works particularly well given today’s demands on investors to remain flexible, and the fact that the lines that used to define markets are increasingly blurred.

“Investment grade private debt is a hybrid between corporate bonds which are investment grade, and private debt per se, so having the view of both markets is essential in my view to do a good job in terms of capital allocation and risk return.”

Absolute return and synthetic index replication

The C$12 billion ($8.7 billion) absolute return portfolio, the other slight anomaly in BCI’s public markets allocation, seeks opportunities that are uncorrelated to equity – namely unique, idiosyncratic investments that are expected to perform well in all market environments.

The strategy provides a welcome corner of active risk in an equity allocation that has steadily moved into passive.

At 23.6 per cent, BCI’s current allocation to public equities is a smaller proportion of assets under management than it used to be and subjects the portfolio to less volatility than in the past. Of that, the majority is passive in index strategies for rebalancing.

Absolute return investment opportunities have a specific risk-return profile that typically comprises low downside risk and a capped upside, but which is above the market beta return. Absolute return implementation comes via an overlay above public, indexed equities whereby BCI’s clients receive the beta of equities, and a value add over the benchmark from uncorrelated strategies.

“Of course, the quid pro quo is if the downside is capped and limited, the upside is also going to be capped. The key success factor is the right partnership and sourcing, as well as the skill of the team and being agile and nimble to look at opportunities that are a bit different,” he says.

The largest exposure is to a long-short market-neutral credit manager. Other uncorrelated instruments providing strong returns in the overlay strategy include transactions in litigation finance and structured debt instruments with penny warrants. Here, the downside credit protection caps potential losses and the upside comes via the interest rate paid on the debt instrument and potential equity returns from the penny warrants.

In keeping with BCI’s overarching approach, the structure of the overlay is managed internally with capital allocated to partners where BCI will co-invest if the team decide they want more exposure to particular opportunities. “The positions are not short-term, we target transaction maturities to be within five years – we don’t aim for short-term tactical positions that are, say, three months.”

It’s a topical point. As more investors explore tactical asset allocation in the current climate, Garant remains lukewarm.

“I’m not a strong believer in tactical asset allocation. Our strategy is not based off short-term market moves.”

“Tactical asset allocation requires coping with significant mark-to-market volatility with features such as stop losses, and although some firms are good at it, many aren’t because it’s extremely difficult to time market movements. If you want to perform, you need to change positions quickly, and positions need to be large to have a meaningful impact on your return. For example, relative value trades between equity and bonds consume a lot of active risk.”

BCI has no edge investing tactically, he continues. It’s much better to invest the way they are, whereby partners bring opportunities, the internal team hunts for specific returns and risk profiles, and where transactions are less crowded.

A second active equity strategy in addition to absolute return comes via synthetic indexation, where the team move investment between physical and synthetic index replication according to market opportunities.

The physical allocation involves trading a basket of stocks alongside a synthetic index replication exposure via swaps, he explains. Every year, the team has added value by doing synthetic index replication and he concludes that the strategy is important because active equities are difficult in the current market.

“In public equity markets, we have never seen this type of market concentration before. In Canada, we are used to having a few stocks dominating the benchmark, but in the US, this is a new feature in the modern era. It adds complexity for long-only public equity active investors.”

Excellent interview with Daniel Garant, EVP and Global Head of Public Markets at BCI where he goes over their approach to private debt, absolute returns and other strategies.

He also explains why he's not a big believer in tactical asset allocation and how synthetic indexing adds value to the fund.  

How did BCI grow its private debt portfolio to an C$20 billion ($14.5 billion) allocation in seven years? 

They seeded the right funds like Hayfin Capital in Europe which they sold back in February, got an equity stake, negotiated lower fees and co-investment rights and they're continuing on this track. 

BCI recently announced that BCI-backed Brinley Partners secured an additional US$4 billion commitment from a leading US insurance company. 

BCI also recently announced the signing of a strategic minority investment agreement to support Three Hills, a private markets investment firm specialised in providing bespoke capital solutions to entrepreneurs and management teams in Europe and North America to help long-term corporate development and growth objectives

The structure of these deals gives BCI important leverage to negotiate lower fees and co-investment opportunities.

What else did BCI do to grow its private debt portfolio? Early on, it invested in CPP Investments' Antares Capital, a leader in US middle market lending.

But the key point in all of this is they structure their deals intelligently to negotiate better terms (lower fees, more co-investments) and they also get huge upside from their equity stakes in these firms.

Daniel Garant states this:

 “Not everyone can do direct or co-investments but having an overall portfolio of 65 per cent in direct and co-investments is a high number, and we are looking to do more”

That's a huge percentage in direct and co-investment and to do more, they need to structure the right deals with strategic partners.

What else? Similar to what IMCO's Jennifer Hartviksen told ION Analytics (see my recent post here), their credit team is flexible across the capital structure and even does hybrids between corporate bonds and private debt.

The ability to do more directs and co-investments and be flexible across different credit products requires a strong credit team that can gauge opportunities as they arise and solid technical knowledge to provide bespoke investment solutions to capitalize on hybrid opportunities.

Lastly, the time frame for co-investments is three to five years because it increases the probability that they will not get caught in a short-term storm, it's just a smarter risk-adjusted framework than short term tactical asset allocation which is fraught with risks.

Equally important, they avoid mega deals where spreads are tight and look to capitalize in less crowded strategies where spreads are wider (that carries more risk but better returns and if the team knows how to analyze these deals properly, it's a smarter strategy than chasing mega deals where returns are lacklustre).

Alright, let me wrap it up there.

Below, a panel discussion form last year's Milken Institute Global Conference featuring Daniel Garant, EVP and Global Head of Public Markets at BCI. The panel discusses trends in private markets including private debt and you can fast forward to around minute 9 to hear Daniel's insights (there's more, entire panel is worth watching).