Hafiz Noordin

[music] >> Hello, I'm Greg Bonnell. Welcome to MoneyTalk Live, brought to you by TD Direct Investing.

Every day, I'll be joined by guests from across TD, many of whom you'll only see here.

We're going to take you through what's moving the markets and answer your questions about investing.

Coming up on today's show, we are going to get a reaction to the latest federal budget and what it could mean for the Bank of Canada as it tries to way of monetary policy and what's going on with fiscal policy. TD Asset Management Hafiz Noordin joins us.

MoneyTalk's Anthony Okolie is going to have a look at the state of investor sentiment with the results of the latest TD Direct Investing Index. And in today's education segment, Ryan Massad is going to shows how to make a trade on Advanced Dashboard.

Here's how you can get in touch with us.

Just email moneytalklive@td.com or fill out the viewer response box under the video player on WebBroker.

Before we get our Guest of the day, let's get you an update on the markets. We are seeing a pause in the Rally for oil and gold.

We have 18 points on the table, pretty modest for the TSX Composite Index, up about 1/10 of a percent.

Even though the price of gold and oil are pausing at this juncture, I'm noticing some movement in some of the big energy and mining stocks. We will start with Baytex energy.

It is dead flat, $5.05 per share.

Kinross was making dates this morning, let's see it's it has held onto its gains.

At $8.89 per share, it's up a little shy of 2%. South of the border, you get a sense of that the market is unsure.

Solid corporate earnings. Things seem to fizzle. Seems to be the stories today.

Nothing too dramatic, down one third of a percent, or 17 points on the S&P 500.

The tech heavy NASDAQ, notice saying that chipmakers are down today, it's M 101 points, more than half a percent, almost 2/3 of a percent.

United Airlines, last time I checked it was firmly to the upside based on its latest quarterly report, will tell you more later in the show, at $47.40, they have jumped more than 14% at this hour.

And that's your market update.

The federal budget laying out more than $50 billion in new spending over the next five years. What could that mean for the Bank of Canada as it tries to get inflation back down to the 2% target?

Joining us now to discuss is Hafiz Noordin, VP and Dir., active fixed income portfolio manager at TD Asset Management.

Great to have you on the show.

>> Great to be back.

>> We've a little time now to get used to the budget, more than $50 billion in new spending announced in this document over the next five years.

They said they would have a budget that would not be inflationary.

As you read through it, what is your take on it?

>> Well, there's definitely some deterioration in the deficit outlook over the next few years, that alone is not a great outcome. When we think about it, there was some raise in tax revenue but offset by spending. Net, it did not rock the boat that much. Bond yields did not move meaningfully. On the revenue side, we saw a surprise announcement on the capital gains inclusion rate for corporations and large capital gains at the individual level. On the flipside, we also got more spending particularly around housing but also in areas like defence and healthcare.

So net new stimulus, there are different ways to look at the numbers but 35 billion is the net new stimulus relative to what was expected, what was baked in from the fall update in November.

And that 35 billion is over the next five years so when you think about spreading that out as a percentage of our GDP, it's not a huge increase but I think the main take away is that persistent deficits to, and not really seeing a path to balancing the budget anytime soon.

I think that's where there has to be some caution.

>> Let's talk about that. The deficit is persistent or of the timeline, we do not have a path back to balance. That will add to the national debt.

The government is a big issuer of debt.

How do we read through on that?

>> So part of the budget is this debt management strategy. We have to kind of see then how are they going to fund all of this.

So the big high-level numbers that we saw in terms of the amount of debt that will need to be issued this year is about 500 billion, but we always have to adjust for how much of that is just debt rolling over, so how much debt is maturing and this coming fiscal year. So when you subtract the amount of debt that is maturing, it's about 85 billion of net new issuance.

The next thing we look at is how much of the issuance is going to be in treasury bills, less than one year bills, versus bonds that are issued at two year or five year, tenure or 30 year tenures. If you start get too much issuance on bonsai can pressure them higher, the market will demand a concession for that. We got in opposite outcome.

The amount of bonds that will be issued this year is about 230 million. Analysts in general were expecting about 242 to 50 million so it was a bit lower-than-expected and so from that perspective, the issuance strategy around planning for these deficits is still relatively benign, not rocking the boat too much in terms of the bond yield investors were inspecting.

>> The last time we heard from Tiff Macklem, prebudget, he said, we are still holding where we are now. Is Juno possibly for cut? It's not impossible.

The market is thinking July, but in the conversation I had, it might've been with you, they said they would see a federal budget before deciding. Now that we have the federal budget, is there anything in here that you think make Tiff Macklem change direction?

>> They will obviously have some longer-term projections that might get impacted when it comes to the amount of government spending, the impact on GDP, perhaps a bit of inflationary impact, but the other thing that we got yesterday was the CPI print for marching Canada which was to the downside. So to start the day yesterday, the full day yesterday, we had a meaningful bond rally in Canada while US bonds were selling off so I think when we look very near term which is probably what the Bank of Canada is going to focus on more now, because the budget was not meaningfully different from November, they are going to look at how to extrapolate the inflation data. The headline and core inflation both came in at about 2.9% year-over-year as of March. So we are just now below 3%. From that perspective, it is consistent with their narrative around declining, gradually declining inflation and I think importantly the momentum and inflation has definitely declined to the extent that June is very much still on the table.

>> I think that Tiff Macklem was part of a panel discussion with Jay Powell was there, I think I saw Bill Moreau to, I was watching out of the corner of my eye, it was on the TV, and he was able to react.

It's not often we get a reaction the same day but it was part of that Q&A session.

He seemed pleased with the trajectory.

>> I think he balanced it knowing that there is still some data to come. We are still talking about June, waiting for data to release in the rest of April and May.

They will be looking for a consistency in this trend that by June, if we are seeing this disinflation continue, we will be in the more than 2% area and that will be more consistent with the idea that cutting is reasonable and that is in stark contrast to what Jay Powell is facing. But so far that it is supportive but they just want to see consistency.

>> A wild card here at the end.

You strip the report down to the core measures, you look at the headline and the headline is shoulder costs and gasoline.

>> I think there's always some amount of volatility and that's why we get this core measure but I think at the end of the day, even the headline level including energy, still just below 3%. I think there has been a more recent increase in gas prices for sure that could start to filter in but I think knowing that there is still an amount of volatility around what is driving oil prices, there are obviously concerns in the Middle East impacting near-term supply expectations. At the same time, we are seeing strong US growth so the demand for energy has been also increasing.

I don't think, we have seen that bounce in commodities, it has not been so strong that it is really impacting inflation expectations, so how much our consumers are expecting inflation to increase.

That's one of the Bank of Canada really has to watch to know that there is a concern and they have to actually hold a man down a little bit more.

>> Interesting stuff. We will get to your questions at fixed income for Hafiz Noordin in just moments time.

And a reminder that you can get in touch with us any time.

Just email moneytalklive@td.com or fill out the viewer response box under the video player on WebBroker.

Right now, let's get you updated on the top stories in the world of business and take a look at how the markets are trading.

We showed you shares of United airlines earlier. They are on the move higher firmly up almost 14% at this hour. What's going on? The air carrier reporting and adjusted loss of $0.15 per share for its roast recent quarter, that is it took a $200 million charge from grounding its fleet of Boeing 737 MAX 9 Jets.

Now that said, it was a much smaller loss on the street was expecting.

You are a pretty firmly at this hour. Also want to check in on Eli Lilly. It says it's weight-loss drug is also showing promise in helping patients with sleep apnea.

The drugmaker says the treatment help reduce irregular breathing and people with obstructive sleep apnea across to late stage trials. It is estimated that 1 billion people globally are affected by sleep apnea.

Right now Eli Lilly, it was up firmer in the session, in positive territory but coming off the highs of the day.

The snowmobile data transfer truck is no more.

What am I talking about?

Amazon had an 18 Wheeler that was designed to move large amounts of customer data to the cloud. Get this, I'm talking about a transport truck, it is being replaced by a 50 pounds suitcase device.

The snowmobile was unveiled eight years ago when the transport truck was driven onto the stage at Amazon's annual cloud conference. That's the way technology goes. It took a transport truck, no it takes 50 pounds suitcase.

I thought it was a fun story.

Let's check on the markets. We will start with the TSX Composite Index.

Down a modest 47 points, about 1/5 of a percent. South of the border, the market still struggles to find a direction upwards. Right now, the S&P 500 is down 33 points, two thirds of a percent.

We are back with Hafiz Noordin, taking your questions about fixed income. Let's get to the first one here.

What are your thoughts on increasing talk that the Fed may not cut this year and may, in fact, hike?

>> There is definitely this divergence theme that is playing out for sure.

We've been talking about Mrs. and inflation data in Canada but in the US it's in the opposite story where it has been surprising to the upside. Initially, the Fed was kind of saying it is seasonal factors and one-off contributions but the last CPI data we got last week for March was definitely strong. So it's definitely causing this pushing out of rate cut expectations. June had become a base case for the Fed and that is virtually being priced out now. And we are seeing a lot of calls or maybe later in the air.

Naturally, I think there is a potential and certainly reasonable to expect that this inflation persistence could be here for the rest of the year. So I think it's something that is a reality for the US economy because how the interest rate sensitivity and the economy has come down.

Corporations have turned down their debt, mortgages or 30 year terms, they are not getting hit as much in the same way that other economies like Canada or when it comes to higher borrowing costs. It's a matter of just watching them.

We have the election coming up which could also cause a bit of volatility around what are some of the fiscal outcomes that could occur there. In the end, if growth does stay where it is right now, if inflation is sticky, then I do think you have to expect that rate cuts could be pushed out.

That does not mean that we can't get rate cuts in other countries, it just means that as a fixed income investor, you have to decide which markets make sense in terms of being exposed to volatile bond yields or markets where yields might be a little bit different.

>> You got Jerome Powell there, Tiff Macklem, Bill Morneau talking about divergence being laid out because I have half an eye to the TV and what's coming up on the budget, but I've seen these headlines were Jerome Powell is basically saying we are not seeing what we wanted inflation. Another headline, Macklem says they are pleased with how inflation is going. It was right there on the stage.

>> Is interesting because normally we see inflation moving in similar ways.

I talked about the differences and mortgage policy.

It's times like this where you can get differences in terms of how we may have to assign monetary policy. And so I think ultimately Powell finally acknowledged, similar to other Fed speakers, that there needs to be a bit of patience. I think it's still not to the extent that we are seeing a re-acceleration and inflation.

The base case could be right now that they would just have to keep rates at their current 5 1/2% for a longer time.

It just means more patience in waiting for bond yields to come down in a more sustainable way.

>> Considering Americans have been so exceptional in terms of this performance of the economy with interest rates as high, is that… What is the new neutral rate? Can an argument be made that rates at this level, if the economy can perform this strongly, is that were rate should be?

>> That's definitely where the debate is right now because the Fed always guided a neutral rate of two, 2 1/2%.

I think that's definitely out the window and right now the yield curve is baking in a neutral rate that's maybe more like 3 1/2 and I think to the extent that this process where we are seeing strong retail sales like we saw a couple of days ago, we are seeing a persistent labour market, that can cause the neutral rate to gradually go higher. And so what that means is that even eventually if we do see a decline in tenure yields, it means the endpoint for how much bond yields can come down in the US is not as low as it used to be, it's not like pre-pandemic levels.

But what that means very longer term is that even when that happens, even if you don't get a strong capital gain from declining bond yields at that point, you will still get strong returns. I think it's heading up environment for the long term where income levels will be much stronger for fixed income investors and they were pre-pandemic.

>> Let's take another question from the audience.

Outlook for the loonie?

>> When we are talking about the Canadian dollar versus the US dollar, there are basically three things that influence the valuation of the loonie.

It's interest rate differentials, so how high our US yields relative to Canadian yield, particularly at the short end of the curve, reflected with the Fed and the Bank of Canada are doing.

The second factor is oil prices and then the third is general equity risk sentiment, so the Canadian dollar is generally a risk on currency. When equities are doing well, the Canadian dollar tends to do well as well.

But this year I think it's that first factor, the interest rate differential factor, that is really dominated. Even though we have had oil up at equities appear to date, the Canadian dollar is still down two or 3% versus the US dollar and it really comes back to the divergence theme, the fact that we are seeing cuts priced out for the Fed, or being pushed out, while for Canada we are so kind of seeing that June is on the table. When you look at 10 year bond yields, the differential between US and Canada is now about 90 basis points. Almost 1% higher yields than the US. When that happens, capital tends to flow to the higher-yielding country and that is causing the US dollar to appreciate not only versus Canada but really across most of the world currencies right now.

>> I want to talk to you about back US dollar strength. It's been interesting.

There were periods where it was on a tear and. Routine like it was almost over but clearly it's a very strong currency. He talked about some factors there. Is geopolitics playing into this?

>> To a certain extent that is happening because I think markets are struggling to find a safe haven in an environment where you have still persistently high inflation so at times bonds can rally like they did on Friday going into the weekend and concerns around geopolitical events.

But generally speaking, because deficits are still high in the US because inflation is still high, bonds are still not quite that safe even if they used to be, so US dollar cash has been really a go to safe haven in addition to gold as a way to hedge against negative outcomes in the equity market.

>> We talked about divergence. A smart person recently told me, it might've been you, that even though the central banks are diverging in the early innings but they will likely reconverge.

>> Currencies actually help out with that.

They cause this kind of shock absorption, bit of an adjustment. If one country is cutting while the other is in, their currency will depreciate. If they are importing products from other countries, those products will be more expensive and it will cause inflation to go up again. So that balancing factors there when it comes to free-floating currencies. In the long run, that helps. But it does not mean that it always holds in the near term and I think these divergent stories can play out and cause opportunities for investors in currencies in any market where you can invest in a global currency market versus domestic.

>> Interesting stuff.

As always, make sure you do your own research before making any investment decisions.

we will get back to questions for Hafiz Noordin on fixed income and just moments time.

And a reminder that you can get in touch with us any time. Just email moneytalklive@td.com.

Now, let's get our educational segment of the day. In today's segment, we are going to take a look at how to make a trade using TD's Advanced Dashboard platform.

Joining us now to show us how is Ryan Massad, Senior client education instructor with TD Direct Investing.

Great to see you. Let's talk about setting up an order on the Advanced Dashboard platform.

>> Always great to be here.

In Advanced Dashboard, the idea is you are trying to make it as simple and customizable as possible when you are trying to place an order. Let's quickly jump in and see how you can do that.

In Advanced Dashboard, one of the ways you can do that, if you have your watchlist, you click on the symbol and what it's going to do is pre-populate a ready-made order entry ticket on our right and I will put it in the symbol. Obviously you can also click on the bid and ask to do that or on these three dots to the left and you will be able to go ahead and open up that order. Now, what I want to explore here is the order that is the profit loss exits.

This is something really neat. Right off the bat, if you click on this little box, you're going to be able to add what's called either a profit taker or a stoploss order to the order itself. So if you click on attach profit taker, with that's what you do is it's going to say the moment that I buy the stock and we got TD here in the symbol box, the moment that I buy it, I would like you to also send a sell order immediately for a particular limit price of which you can enter in right there. You can also attach a stoploss to it. So either it will go through at a higher price or there will be a stoploss at a lower price. You can set that up right from the beginning.

You can set one up or the other or both at the same time.

This allows you to better plan and be more efficient with your trades.

It's a much, much easier way of having many orders going on at the same time.

>> Is this what we refer to as order defaults?

>> It would. You can set this up so these are defaults. If you go back into web broker, I will show you how to go ahead, go back into Advanced Dashboard, actually.

You see these gears, there is one right here.

You will see these defaults. In addition to putting in the default quantity and increment, right at the bottom, you're going to be able to put these attach profit and stoploss orders as default. So it means that every time that you click on an order entry ticket, you can be very specific as to what type of order will, and once that is saved, for example, if I were to use this or if I were to use this watchlist and open up a trade ticket, so let's say click on the ask and the order ticket will automatically pop up and it will automatically have these default items in here and all you will have to do is type in the actual quantity. So those defaults are just a really easy way to make it much more efficient for yourself, customize your orders, spend way less time clicking and checking boxes.

>> Some powerful tools there, Ryan. Thanks for sharing them with us.

>> My pleasure.

>> Ryan Massad, Senior client education instructor with TD Direct Investing.

For more educational resources, you can check out the learning centre on my broker or you can use this QR code that navigates to TD Direct Investing's YouTube page where you can find more in formational videos.

Before I get back your questions about fixed income for Hafiz Noordin, a reminder of how you can get in touch with us.

Do you have a question about investing or what's driving the markets?

Our guests are eager to hear what's on your mind, so send us your questions.

There are two ways you can get in touch with us.

You can send us an email anytime at moneytalklive@td.com or you can use the question box right below the screen here on WebBroker. Just write in your question and hit send.

We'll see if one of our guests can get you the answer right here at MoneyTalk Live.

Okay, we are back with Hafiz Noordin, taking your questions about fixed income.

We talked briefly about the fact that there's going to be a US election this fall.

How are you viewing the US election when it comes to fixed income?

>> Generally speaking, the US election is always a looming event but practically speaking, when you look at historical experiences and there's no science to this but you generally don't see any volatility around it until 3 to 4 months before.

It's kind of summer time and we might expect we might see headlines impacting markets a little bit more.

That's one perspective. But the other perspective definitely has to be around the deficit outlook for the US where I think it feels very unprecedented right now are you see a strong US economy, it's booming, yet the deficit is still 6% of GDP, really has not recovered to what we would call prudent levels when we look at what was happening before the pandemic so I think that is the concern and I think very near term that we need to kind of always be looking at what kind of policies might we see out of Biden and Trump and I think right now, the sort of expectation by many investors is that regardless of who we get, we are still going to get budget consolidation.

>> A lot of money is still going to be spent.

>> Exactly, it's just how it's going to be spent and in what form but we know deficits are here to stay. I think that's contributing to concerns in the US bond market where yield or stain hi, that's part of it. I think right now it's still the inflation story that is more dominant but we know the narratives can shift very easily. I think concerns about how much deficit and borrowing is going to be needed will definitely persist.

>> That's a nice lead in. We had another viewer asking about I guess they saw a headline about the IMF morning on US government debt. I don't know if you sell a piece in particular but obviously there are concerns.

>> Yeah, this is the time of year that they published in fiscal Monitor and try to give recommendations around how to have a more sustainable debt trajectory. I think gone are the days were they used to be a sort of exact number to say once you are about this level of debt to GDP, 90% was thrown out their post-global financial crisis, an emergency level, now that's kind of, we have so many countries well over 90% to GDP including the US so it's not so much about a formulaic approach but it's really about how do we ensure that especially now with interest rates staying hired that the US government isn't getting to an unsustainable path in terms of its borrowing means and I think for now what's helping the US, and this will certainly be helping for a long time, is that they are the reserve currency of the world. At the end of the day, there is a structural amount of money that sits in US dollars globally because it's used for payments, because it's the deepest bond market, so there will always be the structural capacity to fund the US government but that is eroding over time. We are seeing central banks diversify their currency holdings to gold and to non-US currencies and so it's kind of a slow-moving train.

So I think the near term, we won't have this massive shock in terms of US bond yields just because of debt but it's definitely contributing to this deterioration in sentiment towards US government bonds.

>> It's been a long time since the British pound was the world's reserve currency but it used to be.

I'm just thinking about the fact that dialling back maybe two years now, the bond vigilantes, they appeared to be part of the explanation. They did not like the government plans, that was reflected in the market, they reversed course. Any chance of bond vigilantes showing up in trying to confront the US debt situation?

>> I think it'll show up not in the same kind of massive 100 basis point moves in the 30 year yield that we saw in the UK. I think when you are relatively now smaller economy like the UK, they are calling about 5% of global GDP, the US is much, much larger, 30 or 40%, there is nowhere for that capital related go if they exit the US market but I think we will see it in terms of similar kinds of episodes that we had in the summer and fall of last year when we saw the quarterly funding announcements show a shift higher in the amount of borrowing in the 10 year and 30 year bonds and conversely in November when the treasury showed in their next quarterly funding announcements that there was less borrowing and bonds, that help to provide the relief rally that we saw in November going into 2024 so we have the next quarterly funding announcement coming out of the end of April, so that will be I think watch and it's just going to be this constant process of how do we, how are auctions going in the US in terms of government bonds?

How are the statistics around that? Are we seeing deterioration and participation from domestic and international investors?

>> We talked about the Canadian budget off the top of the show in the federal deficit and debt.

I was going to ask you about, that's a federal situation, we start adding on the provinces as well, there have been a lot of provincial budgets coming up. What does that look like as a totality when we talk about fixed income in Canada?

>> That's a great point.

It's easy to bash on the US and say that they are well over 100% debt to GDP at the federal level, most of the debt is actually at the federal level, but here in Canada we have relatively low debt at the federal level,: 40% debt to GDP but a huge amount at the provincial level and when you put it all together, what we call a general government debt to GDP, is kind of around 100% as well so we are not that much better and that's why think there is that concern I talked about of if you look at yesterday's announcement that we are still persistent deficits. Not as bad as the US, call it may be one, 1 1/2% of debt to GDP in terms of deficits but the fact that they are persisting even when growth is good, that's not prudent and it's also assuming, they have baked in growth expectations of around 2% every year. Are we really when you get that? Nobody really knows. It's better to have more of a risk management process where growth is decent right now, let's try to get the budget balance in positive sooner and have room to spend when we actually need to. I think that's the concern.

>> Another question now from the audience, someone wants to know what you think of Japan.

I imagine in the context of fixed income.

>> Continuing on from debt levels in Japan, it's always an interesting discussion of a fixed income perspective because their debt levels are massive, 250% or so, it's always felt like something will blow up there from a debt perspective but it hasn't and that's because most of their debt is owned internally and they don't rely much on foreign capital.

I think the bigger picture of Japan comes down to diversity. What we are seeing is that equities have done really, really well. Part of that is the currency staying we can supporting exports but even internally, corporate have been doing very well there.

As a fixed income investor in Japan, were faced with very low yields. They are only just coming off from negative interest-rate policy.

It's not really a great time to try to get into Japan from a yield perspective. You are better off staying domestically to get higher yields. You really have to have a view on the currency. There is the potential for the currency to appreciate from these very historically low levels.

I think the challenges that you have to, to have a view on the currency, you actually have to have a view on what they are going to do in terms of intervening in the currency market to support the currency and that's a very difficult game to play as well.

It's really once that happens, the market is already moved so much. So I think that's the caution I would have with any kind of Japanese assets that are unhedged but certainly on a hedged basis, hedging the currency backed the Canadian dollar, I think there are deathly opportunities there.

>> Interesting stuff there. We will get back to your questions for Hafiz Noordin in just a moment's time.

As always, make sure you do your own research before making any investment decisions.

and a reminder you can get in touch with us in any time.

Do you have a question about investing or what's driving the markets?

Our guests are eager to hear what's on your mind, so send us your questions.

There are two ways you can get in touch with us.

You can send us an email anytime at moneytalklive@td.com or you can use the question box right below the screen here on WebBroker. Just write in your question and hit send.

We'll see if one of our guests can get you the answer right here at MoneyTalk Live.

Every month, TD Direct Investing releases an index which tracks investor sentiment.

MoneyTalk's Anthony Okolie has a look at this latest report.

>> The TD Direct Investing Index for the month of March has been released and self-directed investors continue their bullish sentiment. Here are the details.

Let's start with the overall TD Direct Investing Index which measures sentiment on a range of -100 or bearish to +100 for very bullish and they came in at plush 17, a gain of eight points from last month, and marks the fifth straight month of bullish sentiment. Last quarter, there was a resilient economy, strong corporate earnings, excitement about the AI revolution and expectation for rate cuts help markets get off to a soaring start in 2024. Gains in March help the S&P 500 notch its best first quarter performance since 2019.

When we compare sentiment to March of last year, there was a big gain when sentiment was at -20.

When we look at components that make up the DII, one proxy helped capture why sentiment rose in March. Chasing trends which measures how many investors bought stocks on a rising or falling market soared at 9 pints month over month to +12, indicating more investors bought as share prices rose.

A few key points that stood out.

Technology remain the most heavily traded sector in March, climbing two points month over month to +15, while communications Frank the worst after dropping four points to -3.

Secondly, all age groups were optimistic about markets last month, with Baby Boomers, those born between 1946 to 1964, saw the biggest jump in sentiment.

Nvidia was one of the most highly bought stocks fuelled by explosive or earnings growth from its goaltender tips for AI.

Other successes included AMD and supermicro computer.

In commune occasions, concerns over debt, increasing competition and higher bond yields saw interest rate sensitive sectors such as telecoms and real estate and utilities sell off. BCE and Telus were among the most heavily sold stocks, along with tech giant Alphabet.

It is one of the so-called Magnificent Seven socks, including Apple and Tesla, that have seen the performance fall recently.

Meanwhile, sentiment for boomers rebounded eight points month over month to +3 in March and joined all other age groups and feeling optimistic about the markets.

Across all ages, highly bought stocks including Nvidia, Tesla, AMD, supermicro computer and Canadian giant telecom BCE which boasted a dividend yield of nearly at 9%.

In those the highlights for March 2024.

>> That was MoneyTalk's Anthony Okolie.

Now, for an update on the markets.

For active traders available through TD Direct Investing.

For active traders available through TD Direct Investing.

This is the heat map function, gives us a view of the market movers. We are going to take a look at the TSX 60, screen by Price and volume.

We are seeing the price of oil and gold pullback through the session, starting to show up in the equities related to those commodities. You can see in the energy space there are a few names in positive territory contributing to the topline number of the TSX but now they are all pretty much sliding into negative territory. CNQ is down about 1%. Nothing too dramatic. Suncor down about half a percent.

Cenovus pretty much sitting flat. The price of gold continue to pull back to the session.

We are seeing some weakening in some of the mining names. There are still a few in the green. Ken Ross is up about three or 4% earlier in the session and it's now just hanging in at about 1% to the upside.

South of the border, this feels like a market that is struggling for direction, it has seemed to find the down direction.

Right now, the S&P 500 on a headline basis is down about two thirds of a percent. As we take a bit of a close look at what's happening in the biggest names here on the 100, you do have the chipmakers under pressure.

Nvidia pulling back about 3%, AMD down a little more than 4%.

A bit of a mixed board if you take a look at financials on Wall Street.

Okay, we are back with Hafiz Noordin from TD Asset Management, talking fixed income.

Let's get to another question from the audience. Someone wants to get your Outlook for high-yield right now.

>> Corporate bonds in general have been doing well I think in an environment where particularly US growth and global growth in general is doing well, and corporate bonds do provide that incremental yield of government bonds and there is some volatility but generally the relationship stays stable and you can earn that incremental yield over time. For high-yield specifically though, a bit lower on the credit spectrum, W rated and lower, and right now we are seeing is that it has performed well.

High-yield generally is correlated with equities, so about 60% correlation over the long run so it has done well this year, your today. When we look at valuations, that incremental spread in high-yield is about 350 basis points, and that's kind of at the lower end of the historical range. I think the average is more in the 400, 450 level. I think from that perspective, valuation is going to be a bit of a headwind but while growth is still good, he can have a bit of a modest allocation in a diversified fixed income portfolio is reasonable just provide a bit of a boost to yield but I think it's important to make sure that there's a lot of room to add it when it's at cheaper levels and I think right now we actually are starting to see a bit more, equities are getting a bit more wobbly, similarly high-yield bonds have been achieving recently so we are seeing persistent concerns around the Fed rate cuts being pushed out or an escalation in the Middle East tension, we can definitely see a scope for spreads to widen more materially. So I think there are likely the better entry points to add materially to bonds but as an asset class it's still a decent part of the portfolio.

>> Another question from the audience, this one about the emerging markets. Are they looking interesting at this point?

>> Emerging markets generally will do well when equities are doing well, when bond yields are stable or declining and when the US dollar is also stable or declining.

Unfortunately, we are not getting any of that right now so it's hard to make a strong case for emerging markets at this point. Indeed, we have seen some underperformance recently.

Equities have kind of retraced all of their gains here today, there back to flat. Fixed income and currencies, we are seeing not great performance recently, giving up a lot of the gains we have seen so far.

So I would say there's definitely some caution. Even when you look at some of the stronger emerging markets that have been the darlings of EMs, Mexico has been a popular one, Brazil has done very well, Indonesia, all of those have been coming under pressure recently, there currencies have sold off a lot and so I think when you start to see the higher-quality names underperforming, you do have to have a bit of caution.

I think right now from risk asset perspective, in a fixed income portfolio, it's a little bit more prudent to lead to corporate bonds that are more domestic in Canadian dollar or US dollar or Europe to be a little bit more tactical. I think the good stories like Mexico are still intact.

It's geared toward the US economy and it will benefit from a lot of the recovery and consumption in the US. But I think you always have to be mindful of the currency volatility because I can really eat away at your returns.

>> Interesting cell phone emerging market.

We are out of time for viewer questions.

Before let you go, let's round back to the top of the discussion. Your big take away from the federal budget?

>> It did not rock the boat for financial markets in the near term.

We have to keep an eye on persistent deficits and what that could do and how much physical capacity we need in the next recession when that happens. Ideally, we get some more space for the government to spend at that time. I think the other thing is that we got a balanced budget but the capital gains measure, we didn't get into that a lot, but I would say from a productivity perspective, that might start to cause concerns in terms of distance and devising investment and so I think that's something we are watching and have to keep an eye on in terms of the growth outlook for Canada.

>> Always great to get your insights and I always enjoy the conversation. I look forward to the next one.

>> Thank you very much.

>> Our thanks to Hafiz Noordin, VP and Dir., active fixed income portfolio manager at TD Asset Management.

As always, make sure you do your own research before making any investment decisions.

stay tuned for tomorrow show. We are going to have Julian Palardy, managing director and head of quantitative and passive investing.

He will be our guests take your questions about quantitative and passive investing.

You need a questions in ahead of time.

Just email MoneyTalkLive@TD.com.

That's all the time we have the show today.

Thanks for watching and we will see you tomorrow.

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