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The American author, Michael Lewis, wrote a book on high-frequency trading (HFT) in 2014 called Flash Boys. The book chronicles the rise of automated trading systems by large Wall Street banks and brokerage firms after the Great Financial Crisis of 2008.
Investing is a numbers-driven world—in any given year, analysts and individuals alike spend countless hours dissecting numbers derived from all manner of sources, evaluating what they mean for the profits of a particular company or sector, or assessing what gross domestic product (GDP) forecasts, inflation data, and interest rates mean for the outlook of a particular economy.
This year has been an exceptional year in many ways—tariffs; markets; geopolitics; the volatility in the first half of the year; the lack of volatility thus far in the latter half of the year. As Canadians, we might add the exceptional performance of the S&P/TSX Composite Index ('TSX') to that list.
Financial markets have a hard time being boring, but the second quarter of 2025 will surely go down as one of the least boring in history—at least eight days of it anyways.
When thinking back over the last several months, memories of the children’s games we played in kindergarten came flooding back. Perhaps it was the relative disorder the world suddenly found itself in that prompted the connection. Or maybe it was the fact that each child seemed to have their own understanding of the rules—and those rules weren't really going to impact how some played the game anyways!
2024 Year-in-Review
As we look back to the start of 2024, even the most optimistic of market bulls would likely have felt the proverbial limb bending considerably with a promise of a 20+% annual return for the S&P 500 during the year ahead.