Manulife Financial

Cohere, Canada's kind of lead AI company, has established an office in Singapore.

Manulife and Sunlife, two of our biggest insurance companies, have been continually expanding in the region, as has BlackBerry.

You're able to point to some of our big MNCs doing more in the region at the same time as, and I mentioned this earlier, The Indo-Pacific strategy has meant a lot more governmental resources placed in the region, whether that's more trade commission coverage or placing Lieutenant General Macaulay in the Philippines as Canada's Indo-Pacific defense representative.

is a big step outside of the specific un mission with korea we've never had a lieutenant general placed in the region uh in in the modern era and canada participating in the balikatan exercises in philippines right and we were the i believe the third largest contingent in the last exercise so all these are real things you can point to in terms of engagement with southeast asia What I will say that maybe is not on everyone's radar is the energy space.

I will tell you from experience that investors tend to hate bonds right before they love them again.

That is Emily Rowland, co-chief investment strategist at Manulife John Hancock Investments.

And in today's big interview, she says the market will weather the first Fed rate hike pretty easily.

It'll withstand Treasury rates above 5% for at least a while, and that it's likely to keep going, but that doesn't mean you want to ignore bonds.

Welcome to The Big Interview on the September 17th edition of Money Life.

Returning to the show right now, Emily Rowland.

She is Co-Chief Investment Strategist at Manulife John Hancock Investments, online at jhinvestments.com. Emily Rowland, great to have you back on the show.

It's great to be here.

And as I've clearly showed, if you look at all the trades throughout Metro Vancouver, generally speaking, Private investors represent about 90% of the market and quote unquote institutional investors make up 5 to 10% of the market.

So we're talking like the Capri's and the Boardwalks and the Starlights and the Manulife's.

They are the best operators.

They play by the rules.

Amundi, Europe's largest asset manager, they bought bullion and expects it to return to 5,000 by year end.

Fidelity, BNP Paribas, Manulife, John Hancock, they all added to positions they'd cut earlier in the year during gold's 25% retreat from its January high.

And one... strategist from a Moody kind of said something that I think is important to note.

He said that gold is an asset that we consider to be cheap, a good hedge and reasonably liquid cheap after a over 60% rally in 2025.

If they increased by a quarter percent, your mortgage payment's going from tw- $2,000 to $2,100.

Or if you're in a static variable with TD for, or Manulife or whoever, your payment stays the same.

This is how much more is going towards principal, and this is how much less is going towards interest." Um, so it's all like customized, and the open rates on these are freaking like 80 to 90% because it all like has to do with them.

Uh, besides like the touch point, and then there is also like a monthly, um, mortgage grade that gets sent out that just outlines everything to do with their specific mortgage, a little bit of equity, uh, in there, but it's more, it's more so to do with like your rate compared to the market and penalties and all that.

and its own waiting list, so you're buying a room, it's not care and not speed.

Two big things in the nuance here, if your plan for this was insurance, it's worth looking at because RBC suspended sales in 2012, Manulife stopped writing new individual policies at the end of 2017, Desjardins in 2018.

It's effectively one insurer left in Canada and its waiting period can run two full years for premiums that aren't guaranteed for life.

Two, and this one's worth real money, is if a parent is in a nursing home you can claim the full cost, room and board included, as a medical expense.