All posts by Financial Independence Hub

5 ways to use LinkedIn to boost your B2B Brand

Posted By |
Image Pixabay

By Michael Meyer

Special to the Financial Independence Hub

Social media marketing is an incredibly lucrative way to generate leads, grow your company, and engage with your target audience. One popular way to market in the B2B space involves using LinkedIn. This platform for professionals is a top-notch spot to identify and nurture leads, simply because so many business leaders and owners spend time on the platform.

Unfortunately, getting the hang of LinkedIn can be a bit difficult if you’ve never marketed your B2B company on the platform before. Luckily, there are a ton of ways to use LinkedIn to grow your business, and we put together a list of our top tips for success.

Are you unsure of how to use LinkedIn to really start boosting and growing your B2B company? Check out our top five tips for using LinkedIn below!

These methods for using LinkedIn to improve your B2B company’s customer engagement are very helpful, and also easy to implement.

●    Use SEO to Your Advantage

Having a top-notch business profile on LinkedIn will only be beneficial to a certain point. Search engine optimization is your best friend when it comes to B2B marketing. Luckily, it’s pretty easy to implement an SEO strategy when setting up your LinkedIn profile.

Conduct keyword research for your brand and industry and insert those keywords in various areas of your business profile. Remember to avoid keyword bloating or using keywords that aren’t relevant. It’s not even necessary to engage in in-depth research when it comes to finding the right keywords for your profile. Simply list the phrases and words a customer would be most likely to use to find your business and incorporate them.

●    Use LinkedIn to Experiment with your Marketing

If you’ve only recently launched your B2B company or are just now getting into social media marketing, this is a great opportunity to experiment with your content. Once you’re at a point where you understand the ins and outs of LinkedIn’s functionality, start diversifying your content. Just as well, if you use B2B appointment setting services, you can experiment with promoting your easy-to-set appointments via LinkedIn as well to streamline your leads.

Post at various different times throughout the week and keep an eye on which posts get the most engagement. Use a variety of content in different tones and measure how much engagement they get. Keep a keen eye on your analytics. Browse through your competitors’ LinkedIn profiles to see what they are doing.

●    Take advantage of Groups

The group feature on LinkedIn isn’t just for networking or looking for employment. Rather, groups are designed to meet a wide range of interests, both work-focused and personal. Look at groups that align with your industry, solution, and work-related interests. Join as many of these groups as possible.

Once you’ve been let into a few groups, start posting your ideas or B2B-related stories. Ask and answer questions. The key here isn’t to advertise your business, but to be a credible figure in your industry. You might be surprised by the number of referrals or recommendations your company will receive from simply being involved with like-minded business professionals. Continue Reading…

How to protect against Inflation

Posted By |

By Dale Roberts, cutthecrapinvesting

Special to the Financial Independence Hub

It is probably the greatest (and potentially dangerous) misconception in the investing landscape, that stocks protect you from inflation. That’s simply not true. While stocks have a long term history of besting inflation, they can fail in many periods, short and extended. Stock markets do not always work as an inflation hedge. And Vanguard suggests that their effectiveness will wane as the types of stocks that can work against inflation no longer have strong representation in the broad market stock indices. We’ll show you how to protect against inflation on the Sunday Reads.

Let’s cut to the chase. It’s something I’ve known for quite some time and I’m more than happy to see Vanguard beat the drum. If you want to protect your portfolio from inflation or stagflation (its evil stag cousin) own commodities.

When you own commodities or a commodities index fund or ETF, you own the raw materials that make the products, foods and energy needed to sustain life and society as we know it.

Source: Investopedia

Stocks don’t work

Let’s get this out of the way first, shall we, from this Vanguard post, the potency of commodities as an inflation hedge …

And that’s during a period when we’ve mostly had muted inflation. Stocks don’t like unexpected inflation, like the kind we’re having in 2021. That is, inflation above recent trends and expected trends.

If we go back to the stagflation period of the 1970’s and into the early 1980’s it’s a complete mess for stock investors. Have a look at MoneyChimp and be sure to hit that inflation button. This shows a negative real (inflation adjusted) return from 1968 through 1982, for US stocks. In real dollar terms, $1.00 became 94 cents.

Global stocks did not perform much better. And surprisingly neither did the Canadian stock market that was more commodities and energy-concentrated for the period.

Here’s global stocks for the period showing no return premium vs inflation. The chart is courtesy of ReSolve Asset Management.

And in this post on the Permanent Portfolio, you’ll see that even the traditional stock and bond balanced portfolio failed for an extended period during stagflation. There are other periods of ‘don’t work’ for the balanced portfolio (and for different reasons) within that chart.

Commodities hedge is strong and consistent

While stocks are not a consistent hedge for inflation, commodities have been, historically. And once again, this is during a period of mostly muted inflation, save for a few periods of unexpected inflation. Luckily for investors, that inflation has been transitory in the last few decades.

From that Vanguard post …

Over the last three decades, commodities have had a statistically significant and largely consistent positive inflation beta, or predicted reaction to a unit of inflation. The research, led by Sue Wang, Ph.D., an assistant portfolio manager in Vanguard Quantitative Equity Group, found that over the last decade, commodities’ inflation beta has fluctuated largely between 7 and 9. This suggests that a 1% rise in unexpected inflation would produce a 7% to 9% rise in commodities.

Here’s a great chart that shows gold, commodities and REITs as inflation hedges in periods of meaningful inflation. The orange bar is the commodities index.

While gold was the most explosive during the bulk of the period of stagflation, we see that a commodities basket is more reliable. Admittedly, gold can fall down as an inflation hedge in certain periods. That said, there are other reasons for holding gold as a hedge against declining real bond yields and as a form of disaster insurance and a long term hedge against ongoing currency debasement.

Image
Lance Roberts from RIA Advisors

In the above chart we see gold working in all of the stock market failures for the period shown. Again, most notably during stagflation.

I like to also hold some gold and gold stocks on the side in addition to commodities baskets. Readers will also know that I am also investing in bitcoin – that new gold or digital gold. Continue Reading…

Vanguard Canada launches two actively managed global mutual funds

Posted By |

Vanguard Investments Canada Inc. has announced the launch of two new globally diversified and actively managed mutual funds it describes as being “low cost”: Vanguard Global Credit Bond Fund [VIC500] and Vanguard Global Equity Fund [VIC600.] complement the firm’s current line-up of 37 ETFs and four mutual funds.

Management fees will be 0.40 and 0.55% respectively. Asked whether this means payment of trailer commissions to financial advisors, Vanguard Canada spokesperson Matthew Gierasimczuk told the Hub: “No. Vanguard doesn’t pay trailing commissions in any of our markets since we have a longstanding belief it leads to a conflict of interest for investors.” The funds are available through most wealth advisors and also on Questrade and Qtrade, he added.

In a news release issued on Sept. 13, Vanguard Investments Canada Inc. Managing Director and Head Kathy Bock said:

“Within an uncertain investing climate, Canadian investors and their advisors are looking for quality, long-term and high-performing investment products, at a low-cost … These mutual funds provide that and reflect our deep 45-year history in active management with proven portfolio manager expertise that can help investors achieve success.”

Globally, The Vanguard Group, Inc. manages over USD $8.1 trillion in assets and is one of the world’s largest active managers with USD $1.7 trillion in global actively managed assets under management.

“Since introducing our mutual funds three years ago, Canadians have embraced our differentiated approach to active management, providing investors with access to skilled global investment managers with a long-term view,” said Tim Huver, Head of Intermediary Sales, Vanguard Investments Canada Inc. “These two global funds can act as a core holiding or complement to an investor’s equity or fixed income portfolios.”

Vanguard Global Credit Bond Fund seeks to provide a moderate and sustainable level of current income by investing primarily in non-government fixed income securities of issuers located anywhere in the world. The fund will have a management fee of 0.40%. The fund will be sub-advised by The Vanguard’ Group Inc.’s Fixed Income Group, a global team of more than 185 tenured and dedicated professionals overseeing USD $2.1 trillion in total assets. For 40 years, Vanguard Fixed Income Group has been distinguished in the industry by its deep investment capabilities, disciplined security selection process, rigorous risk management techniques and strong long-term performance.

Vanguard Global Equity Fund seeks to provide long-term capital appreciation by investing primarily in equity securities of companies located anywhere around the world. The fund will be sub-advised by Baillie Gifford Overseas Limited and Marathon Asset Management Limited. These sub-advisors have worked with Vanguard for decades and collectively manage over USD $500 billion in assets under management. The maximum management fee for the fund will be 0.55%.


			

	
	


							


	

		
				

			Inflation and the 5% Solution
		

		
		

			 Posted By  | 					

	


		

		
https://advisor.wellington-altus.ca/standupadvisors


By John de Goey, CFP, CIM


Special to the Financial Independence Hub


One thing that many economic historians often overlook is that one’s worldview is shaped by life experiences.  That includes matters like love, marriage and divorce, money and savings and attitudes toward political risk – to name a few.  If our values, likes and dislikes are shaped by our experiences, it stands to reason that our perceptions of what the future might hold could be largely informed by what we have already experienced.  That’s especially true of the things we experience in our formative years.


In the summer of 2021, for the first time in over a generation, there’s been some talk of inflation being a going concern.    Inflation was wrestled to the ground in the 1980s and hasn’t been heard from since – until now.  As the debate rages about the degree to which we should be concerned (if at all) about inflation coming back in a meaningful way, it is noteworthy that while there are credible economists on both sides of the debate, virtually everyone in the “inflation will be a problem” camp is at least 70 years old.  Stated differently, those people who experienced inflation in their adult lives are concerned and those who did not are not.


Transitory inflation?


For about 30 years now, the goal of central banks in the west has been one of price stability, which they define as inflation at 2%, give or take 1%.  Basically, anything between 1% and 3% is okay.  Now, we’ve experienced inflation above 3% for a couple of quarters and people naturally wonder what that might mean.  Central Bankers have been assuring us that the uptick is “transitory,” that it is just a situation where awful data from the early days of the COVID crisis is working its way through the system.  Nothing to see here.  Move along.


Although I am technically old enough to remember inflation, I never had to deal with it personally or directly.  I was a teenager when my parents built the family home on their property in 1979.  I heard about their astronomical, double-digit mortgage rates, but never had to experience anything of the sort as the payor.  My sense is that young people – especially millennials – cannot relate to anything close to what I’m about to say: the inflation rates, and therefore the mortgage rates and interest rates you have experienced throughout your entire lives, may not be around for much longer.  Furthermore, if that is true, the consequences could be enormous.


5% constitutes “Real inflation”


As mentioned, there are competing views on inflation.  I have not come down on either side, but I enjoy the exchange of ideas.  If the doves are right and the inflation we’re seeing now is little more than a passing phase, there’s not much to say because little will change.  If, however, real inflation is coming sooner than later and for longer than just a phase, we need to prepare.  What constitutes ‘real inflation’, you may ask.  My guess is something like 5%.  At that level, no one can pretend that the inflation rate is not a concern and does not need to be dealt with.  For this discussion to be meaningful, inflation needs to be at least 2% above the high end of the traditional range and to stay there for at least a year.  At that point, both the logic behind it being transitory and the facile dismissal of it being above the target by an inconsequential amount disappear.  At that level, something needs to give. Continue Reading…

			

	
	


							


	

		
				

			Thinking Big on Small Caps
		

		
		

			 Posted By  | 					

	


		

		
By Steve Lipper, Senior Investment Strategist, Managing Director, Royce Investment Partners


(Sponsor Content)


Companies with small market capitalization make up one of the more overlooked parts of the global equity markets. This could be attributed to a lack of coverage of their stocks by analysts, but whatever the reasoning, being overlooked creates opportunities for those investors who know where to look among small-cap equities.


Royce Investment Partners has more than 45 years of experience in the small-cap space. Such longevity brings with it a high level of expertise, allowing the firm to build assets under management (AUM) of US$17.6 billion.1


This has been achieved through a combination of specialization in small-cap investments and a commitment to ownership among the firm’s portfolio managers. With an average tenure of 22 years, Royce’s seasoned group of PMs have substantial ownership in the strategies they manage; in fact, 89% of the firm’s assets are in funds where the portfolio manager has invested at least US$1 million themselves.2 In this respect, Royce stands apart from its competitors: 37 asset managers in the U.S. have more than US$5 billion in small-cap assets, but only Royce has more than 95% of its total AUM invested in the space.3


While developing expertise in small-cap investing is complex, the reasoning for specializing in this area is quite simple: quality small-cap companies have been proven to deliver for investors.


In fact, small-cap stocks have consistently provided meaningful outperformance compared to their large-cap counterparts over the long term. Using the MSCI ACWI Small Cap and MSCI ACWI Large Cap indices as proxies, it shows that small caps have delivered higher annual returns over most multi-year time periods (see chart below). In addition, small caps not only provide a much larger set of companies to invest in (approximately four times the amount in large caps), but with valuations that often understate their true worth. This is an important point to consider, especially given some of the pretty elevated valuations in equity markets right now.




 


The opportunities that small-cap stocks present for investors were a key factor in introducing our new strategy for the Canadian retail market, Franklin Royce Global Small Cap Premier Fund.4 Continue Reading…