Geopolitical tension, market volatility, and remarkable investment returns.

In this episode, Keith Matthews and Lawrence Greenberg sit down for a mid-year review of the first six months of 2026 — a period packed with geopolitical tension, market volatility, and some truly remarkable investment returns.

Keith and Lawrence break down what actually drove markets higher despite a noisy and unsettling news cycle, from the Iran conflict to oil supply shocks and AI capital investment. They walk through asset class returns across the board, zoom out to put the last decade of performance in perspective, and tackle one of the most common investor questions right now: should I keep investing when markets are at all-time highs?

They also cover the rotation happening beneath the surface — the relative underperformance of the Mag 7, the surge in small cap and emerging market stocks — and revisit the gold narrative that dominated headlines earlier in the year.

A grounding, data-driven episode for any investor wondering what to make of today's markets.

Happy listening!

Key Topics Covered:

• Major themes and geopolitical events of the first half of 2026 (01:25)
• Market volatility: the S&P 500's 10% peak-to-trough drop and its recovery (02:26)
• What actually drives stock market performance — corporate earnings up 28% year over year (03:17)
• "Climbing the wall of worry" — why staying invested through the Iran conflict paid off (04:25)
• Six-month asset class returns: Canadian stocks, US stocks, international, emerging markets, real estate (05:27)
• Portfolio performance — 60/40 and 100% equity allocations, and the value of tilts to value and small cap (06:34)
• Zooming out: stock returns since COVID, since the Russia-Ukraine war, and since the trade war (08:53)
• Canadian real estate vs. diversified stocks over the same period (09:51)
• The best 10-year period for most Canadian investors — 12.86% per year, or 335% cumulative (11:31)
• 20-year stock market returns: nearly 10% per year, multiplying wealth 6.6x (12:02)
• The dangers of chasing fads — hedge funds, private equity, syndicated real estate (12:41)
• Rotation beneath the surface: Mag 7 underperformance vs. the S&P 493 (13:41)
• US small cap stocks up 21.4% vs. large cap at under 10% — a massive six-month gap (15:15)
• Gold in 2026: down 20% during peak Iran conflict volatility — what that tells us (16:12)
• Should you invest at all-time highs? What 1,000 months of data actually show (18:47)
• Dollar cost averaging: when phasing in large lump sums makes behavioral sense (21:37)
• Final thoughts: stay the course, stay diversified, and don't forget bonds (23:28)

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