December 8th's CAIA Canada event in the Library at the National Club drew on history about as long as the club itself—160 years in some cases. Another diverse speaker line-up guaranteed a perspective and trade for all circa 50 (our third consecutive sold out affair) attendees. Peter Gibson, Head of Quantitative Trading at CIBC; Richard Remillard, Executive Director of the CVCA; Terence Yuen, Senior Economist at Towers Watson; and Hazen McDonald, Fixed Income Portfolio Manager with Investors Group put their combined 120 years of industry experience to the crowd which responded with a lively session of Q&A.

In no particular order, the advice for 2011 was: buy gold (a repeat of last year); buy the S&P until 10-year rates hit 3.80%; buy the 30-year bond (in anticipation of Fed buying); the private equity vintages raising funds now should be good performers (echoing a comment from Claude Robillard, a speaker at our spring 2009 PE talk at the University Club); and Canada should be back on its feet by 2012, the US by 2017.

Tune in next year to see how this year's crop of trades does in 2011.

Next up in Toronto is our 3rd annual Career Night (aka The Headhunter's Ball) back at our old haunt, the Cambridge Club in the evening of January 20, 2011. We're featuring a dozen recruiters from five recruiting firms this time—each one adept at filling different roles such as back/mid/front office at prime brokerage/capital markets/investment banking roles as well as risk, credit, strategy/CIO and many others.

James Burron
CAIA Canada Chapter Executive