A WORD FROM THE PRESIDENT

Published 14 February at 02:50PM, inNews

I am very excited to report that our 2023 activities are definitely off to a great start at CFA Montréal.

Our sold-out 2023 Outlook event on January 26, with special guest Margaret Franklin, CFA, the President and CEO of CFA Institute, brought over 500 professionals together from the financial industry and piqued the interest of the broader Montreal business community. The resulting media coverage was indeed very positive for CFA Montréal.

Given the global economic uncertainty hanging over our heads these past months, this year’s edition was anything but ordinary. People were visibly very curious to hear what our expert speakers, Jimmy Jean, CFA (Desjardins Group) and Jean Boivin (BlackRock Investment Institute), had to say about what’s on the horizon.

Last year saw its fair share of challenges:

The ravages of the pandemic continued to be felt worldwide.
Inflation was omnipresent, as was the resulting pressure on household finances.
The aging of our population, although not unexpected, became very tangible, as evidenced by chronic labour shortages and strains on the healthcare system.
Climate extremes were numerous, and concrete solutions to respond to them, few, thus further exacerbating inflation.
Equity and fixed income markets both plummeted, yielding the worst possible scenario for 60/40 portfolios in the past 100 years.
And what is there to say about the geopolitical conflicts and instability across the planet? The ongoing war in Ukraine has had countless impacts on Europe and beyond. Political and trade alliances have been disrupted. We are a facing a very real and very serious energy crisis. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

In the space of one short year, life has changed. The world order is not what it once was, and our financial markets are a reflection of this. Once again, we turned to our speakers for some much-needed insight into what the economy has in store for us, both at the national and the international scale.

As Jean Boivin stressed, “Quantitative easing will be off the table for central banks for quite a while. Forget about seeing rates go down any time soon!”

Jimmy Jean added, “It’s important to remember that the low and stable inflation we’ve had these past decades were the exception, not the rule. Even if central banks manage to rein inflation back to their 2% targets in the near future, it won’t likely end there. With the climate transition, demographic changes and the impact of geopolitical tensions, we’ll probably end up in a period of highly volatile inflation. And with that, in all likelihood, we will see higher interest rates than what we’d become used do during the previous cycle.”

The invaluable observations of both respected Quebec economists as the year got underway were widely reported by the media covering the event. And we were thrilled to have reconnected with so many of you in person after so much time apart!

2023 Outlook photo gallery