Paul Chapman, Investment and Wealth Advisor of RBC Dominion Securities Inc.

10/06/2026

“Americans can be counted upon to do the right thing after exhausting all other possibilities” – quote attributed to Winston Churchill, and is relevant in today's environment...

These days, it’s pretty much all about interest rates running higher when it comes to markets (and what's driving those rates). That and the narrative that AI is going to kill us all.

While there has been plenty of fear in the media about AI, that has been the case with every large-scale technological adoption; it is human nature to fear what is not fully understood. So far, AI hasn’t been destroying jobs, but rather the opposite. “Experts” have often warned of risk from new technologies: from nuclear weapons to nanotechnology, but AI does in fact feel a bit different than some of the others in history.

Bond yields have risen for many reasons this year - wars, carry trade unwinds from Japan, AI related capex, US deficit - but the main reason is that the US economy is in fact booming. For now.

Things aren't all bad, however. But it matters how you’re positioned today and moving forward, don’t expect the next 10 years to give the same returns as the last 10+ years. Currently, valuations in all regions and asset classes stand above their long-term averages, which strongly implies that benchmark index returns over the next decade will be below average. So we manage accordingly.

Read on in this month's Partner Memo.

Chapman Private Wealth Group of RBC Dominion Securities Inc. | Take comfort in the knowledge that your capital is being managed the way your friends complain they wish theirs was managed. The ultimate compliment is a referral to friends & family.

09/04/2026

“Everyone wants to be a beast. Everyone wants to be the best. But very few people are willing to do what it actually takes. Because what it takes is boring. It is waking up at 4:00 AM. It is shooting the same shot a thousand times. It is watching the film when you are tired. People fall in love with the result, but they hate the process. You have to fall in love with the boredom. You have to fall in love with the repetition. If you can find joy in the mundane work that no one else sees, the lights will eventually shine on you.” – Kobe Bryant

There are a number of interesting items in this month's Partner Memo:

I explain why bond yields have been moving up, scaring stock markets.

Even though markets are strong overall, people are more negative overall (with life in general) than they’ve ever been, even in the face of all the positives we enjoy today. US survey data shows some of the deepest, broadest and stubbornest economic pessimism ever recorded even while jobs are plentiful and the stock market is booming.

The current bull market has been compared to the dot-com era's meltup/meltdown scenario. If the late 1990s ended with a stock-market meltup, will the next few years be the same?

As Peter Lynch said, "Far more money has been lost by investors preparing for corrections, or trying to anticipate corrections, than has been lost in the corrections themselves."

I will leave you with a quote from a great retired portfolio manager Bob Decker: “The recent earnings season exceeded all expectations, thus creating the melt-up we have just seen. Now the hard part begins. Two critical issues are facing markets in the Fall - the post-Jackson Hole Federal Reserve meetings and the Midterms. If you want catalysts, there are a couple right there. Market timing is a difficult game to play. But, like in blackjack, when the deck is tilted against you, like it is for the market bulls, you just might want to take something off the table.” Managing through these environments is what we get paid for, and why work tirelessly for our clients. There are opportunities and interesting strategies, they’re just not out in the open like they have been for the last decade.

Chapman Private Wealth Group of RBC Dominion Securities Inc. | Take comfort in the knowledge that your capital and financial wellbeing are being managed the way your friends complain they wish that theirs were managed. The ultimate compliment is a referral to peers, friends & family.

08/10/2026

I have been around a lot this summer, seeing clients and portfolio managers across Canada and the US. One thing is for certain – many are feeling uncertain.

At a high level, I see many who may not fully realize or appreciate that everything in their lives is correlated. For example, if and when we get a recession, there is not a lot you can do to protect yourself against that. Chances are that you will feel the effects of that in your job or business, and in that event, you can bet that stocks pull back, and likely materially. So you have to be diversified in your life. That is the purpose of what we do. Concentration is what builds wealth – diversification is how you protect it. If you lose your job, or your income or business takes a serious step back, you don’t want your investment capital and portfolio to be getting hammered at the same time. Financial stress is avoidable, it’s all about how you structure your financial affairs.

There has been, and remains, a significant amount of speculative behaviour, ‘chasing’ and FOMO – many investors are chasing returns, and the next shiny object. Discipline and diversification are paramount however. We have a law of large numbers in finance that is not a prediction, a wish, or a theory – it is a law. And many investors will learn the hard way how hard it is to compound at the numbers that we have seen in selected names and strategies.

History shows that the leaders of one era are rarely the leaders of the next. Good active portfolio managers can use research and judgment to adapt as market leadership evolves, while passive investors may be taking unintended risks. This environment demands solid and active management, and as Liam Neeson would say, ‘a particular set of skills’.

You can read our full monthly Partner Memo below, or listen to an abbreviated podcast version of it here: https://bit.ly/4gnixUj

https://bit.ly/45SWvTi

Chapman Private Wealth Group of RBC Dominion Securities Inc. | Take comfort in the knowledge that your capital is being managed the way your friends complain they wish theirs was managed. The ultimate compliment is a referral to friends & family.

07/02/2026

“A bull market is like s*x. It feels best just before it ends.” – Warren Buffett (who famously quoted the late money manager Barton Biggs)

The AI ‘bubble’ question is the big one of the day, and some recent volatility in the markets has been caused by this concern as markets are getting worried that all this AI buildout is simply costing too much money amidst uncertain customer demand.

In terms of pure market behaviour, this feels a bit like the tech boom cycle of the early 2000’s to me. But like in that cycle, technology will certainly change the world, though we don’t know the timing of the investment cycle until after the dust settles, and who will come out as the winners and losers.

The surging costs of everything AI-related, in an environment of still-paltry AI-linked revenues, is resulting in 1) the destruction of free cash flow amidst some of the largest, previously most profitable tech companies in the world and 2) forcing these behemoth tech companies to issue stock and debt to have the capital to continue to pay exorbitant prices to build out data centers that hopefully one day will produce tons of revenue.

Think about it this way: SpaceX, Anthropic and OpenAI don’t want to go public. They have to go public to be able to secure the capital to keep spending. Between SpaceX, Anthropic and OpenAI, we will see the three largest IPOs ever by a mile.

But it’s going to take one of the major AI players to essentially ‘blink’ on the spending before investors will believe the economics of the AI buildout are turning bad. If that happens, it’s a major negative not just for the markets, but also for the economy.

Read on in this month's Partner Memo.

Chapman Private Wealth Group of RBC Dominion Securities Inc. | Take comfort in the knowledge that your capital is being managed the way your friends complain they wish theirs was managed. The ultimate compliment is a referral to friends & family.

06/30/2026

I am blessed with one of the best teams in the business (as our clients and partners know!), and it continues to grow. Salmana Dogar joins us as a Client Experience Associate from the banking side at RBC.

Salmana graduated from Western University with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science. Following graduation, she joined RBC Royal Bank as a Client Advisor, where she developed a strong foundation in client service and relationship management. In her current role, Salmana supports the operational needs of the team, including account opening, processing fund transfers, and contributing to team projects that help ensure an efficient and seamless client experience. She is committed to delivering exceptional service and supporting both clients and advisors.

06/04/2026

Just when you thought things could not get more confusing, you enter the environment we’re in today – this Partner Memo is here to make some sense of things, and tackle the often confusing and humbling subject of the economy and markets.

It’s not often that I see some of the most experienced and respected market pundits and strategists scratching their heads, but we are in one of those times. The list of things to worry about has been long, and many have questioned why they aren’t influencing the market more negatively: the ongoing Iran conflict, broader geopolitics, terrible consumer confidence, sky-high valuations, increasing bond yields, surging inflation, a highly concentrated market… just to name a few.

On the other hand, over time, the stock market prices in one ultimate item – company earnings. And company earnings are blowing the doors off. This is largely lead by the current AI and energy boom, but it’s enough to create the optimism that is keeping markets strong.

And one other tidbit: Why aren’t high oil prices slowing down the economy? It is because advanced economies like ours are far less hydrocarbon-dependent than 20 years ago. Since 2006, nominal income in the US has doubled even as oil prices have remained around the same level. But, the risk that prolonged oil prices stay high is an underappreciated risk by the markets, and it’s because most don’t understand the engineering and how challenging it is to turn the oil flow ‘back on’. This is what we call the “Kitchen Faucet” fallacy, the assumption that oil production operates like a simple on/off valve or switch. That is simply not the case...

Lots to consider in this month's Partner Memo. To get on the recipient list so you receive this note real time (and not days later which is when I post to LinkedIn), reach out.

Chapman Private Wealth Group of RBC Dominion Securities Inc. | Take comfort in the knowledge that your capital is being managed the way your friends complain they wish theirs was managed. The ultimate compliment is a referral to friends & family.

06/02/2026

We hosted the one and only Brian Belski for a client event on May 27th at Craigleith Ski Club. Getting Brian to Collingwood in Canada took some coordination given his busy schedule, and we were excited to be able to host him. It proved to be a very insightful and fun evening.

Brian is a former colleague of mine and is one of the leading investment strategists on the planet. He is also one of the very few managers that has consistently beat the market over the long term. He is a very frequent contributor to CNBC, Bloomberg, Fox Business News, and BNN, where his market calls are closely followed by investors globally. In his more than 35-year investment career, Brian has held senior strategy and research positions at BMO, Oppenheimer & Company, Merrill Lynch, and Piper Jaffray, where his consistency in messaging, coupled with process-driven conclusions, helped shape stock market and investment views for decades. Brian has recently founded an independent investment firm Humilis Investment Strategies, and we work closely with him on our equity holdings across our portfolios.

05/08/2026

Today we are departing sunny Italy, where I attended an RBCDS conference and I am honoured and humbled to have been a part of it. It has been a brief but wonderful trip, and underscores the focus that RBC Dominion Securities has on the business and the culture, illustrating again why it is a leading wealth management platform. Spending time with the leaders in our business is invaluable, and I am thankful for the friendships formed here. My being here is simply a result of discipline, the support from one of the best teams in the business, and a sole focus on doing the right thing for our clients.

05/05/2026

We will be hosting the legend Brian Belski in Collingwood on May 27th at 5-630pm at Craigleith Ski Club. Getting Brian to Collingwood in Canada took some coordination and leverage given his busy schedule, and we’re excited to be able to host him – this will prove to be a very insightful and fun evening without question.

Brian is a former colleague of mine and is one of the leading investment strategists on the planet. He is a very frequent contributor to CNBC, Bloomberg, Fox Business News, and BNN, where his market calls are closely followed by investors globally. Brian served as the Chief Investment Strategist at BMO Capital Markets for many years, where he guided portfolio strategy for some of the world’s largest institutional investors and private wealth clients. In his more than 35-year investment career, Brian has held senior strategy and research positions at BMO, Oppenheimer & Company, Merrill Lynch, and Piper Jaffray, where his consistency in messaging, coupled with process-driven conclusions, helped shape stock market and investment views for decades. Brian has most recently founded an independent investment firm Humilis Investment Strategies.

To RSVP please reach out to my team at [email protected]

05/01/2026

As we enter spring (finally), markets continue to confuse many – it is the most humbling machine known to man. March came along and brought the Iran war with it, which caught many investors offside as they worked to manage exposures through that. Then April came and brought with it a rebound to the upside that is almost unparalleled. The US market short back up 10% in 10 days off the lows, which is in the 99.7th percentile of all 10-day returns! This is why it pays to be patient, not emotional, and manage through the noise even when your gut tells you to sell into weak markets accompanied by scary headlines…

It is important to remain disciplined and focus on the best and ‘real’ information – we get fed so much noise that can affect our judgement. Not good for investing. There is so much noise to signal – remember that economic/financial article authors aren’t paid on the quality of their analysis, or if the idea works out; they are paid based on the number of people who read it. So, nobody is going to write about something ‘boring’ (boring is usually good when it comes to investing). It is all going to be high growth, exciting glam stocks. Topic selection is skewed by economics – the algos feed this as more extreme stories get read more, which triggers other algos to distribute more widely.

This month we dive into why you may be an emotional wreck when it comes to investing, we discuss why markets are behaving surprisingly well, the outlook, risks and opportunities.

See this month's full Partner Memo at https://bit.ly/42GwPrp

Or listen to an abbreviated podcast version of it below https://bit.ly/4cYy7mx

In our Monthly Memos, we discuss recent trends in markets and behavioral finance, breaking down what it all means for your portfolio.