Scotiabank global portfolio advisory director explains how he helps guide advisors and their clients through macro shocks, parsing the instructive from the distracting
The news cycle has always been relentless, for those who follow it, but advisors have been able to stay largely insulated from the stories that tend to grip the most attention and passion, often because those stories only have a tangential impact on financial markets. This year, however, the ongoing drama of tariffs and trade disputes have put Canadian advisors in a place where they have to handle the emotional and investment fallouts for an increasingly news-aware client base.
When clients at Scotia Wealth Management start feeling the strain of the news, Warren Hastings gets a call. The Director of the Equities Global Portfolio Advisory Group at Scotia Wealth Management works to support advisors when major market events occur. In the wake of this month’s flare-up in US-China trade tensions, and their resultant impacts on equity markets, Hastings was called in nce again to help advisors steady their clients.
“The trade development news hit headlines, we saw equity markets weaken, and immediately we begin to act proactively,” Hastings says. “It doesn't matter if it was that event, it could have been the growth scare that occurred a year ago, in August. It could have been the trade developments and the lead up to Liberation Day that happened late winter and early spring. The questions that we ask ourselves are: does this development affect long-term fundamentals? Is there a tactical opportunity, so something short-term that we can do? And how do we communicate that to advisors and, by extension, to clients? We put it in context. We give specific advice. We’re conclusion forward in our communication and ultimately, we bring a cooler head to whatever market development happens to be underway. And that's the approach that we take anytime we see market volatility.”
Those questions about market developments, Hastings notes, are asked every day whether a major macro event occurred or not. The approach that his team takes when volatility does increase, though, is to help provide that context and consideration that comes with a daily study of the markets.
While Hastings and his team stay prepared to help manage worried clients and support advisors in answering their questions, he highlights that their work stems from a place of empathy towards these clients. Their concerns are understandable and a natural extension of difficult moves in equity markets that we see so often. Moreover, he acknowledges the inescapability of trade and tariff uncertainty in 2025. The way this issue has shaped news, markets, and politics has made it a feature in every client’s mind. Combining this issue with questions of national identity has also served to make these flare up more visceral and emotionally charged.
Much of Hastings’ work in these moments involves parsing the instructive developments in the news from the distractions. Time horizon helps with that distinction. Hastings and his team are largely working to serve clients with long-term outlooks of 10+ years. If a development has an impact that could be measured out over that period, then it can be instructive to a change in overall strategy. If the events’ impacts are extremely short-term in nature, then can be dealt with some tactical tweaks but shouldn’t elicit a change in that long-term strategy.
Canadians have also been given a firsthand instruction of the distinction between economic growth and equity markets this year. A year that has included at least one quarter of negative GDP growth has also seen a double-digit increase on the TSX. Hastings is quick to point out that there is a long-term correlation between economic growth and corporate earnings growth, but that in the short-term we can see these metrics move independently. Moreover, news developments can see individual stocks move in ways that don’t necessarily reflect their fundamentals. Demonstrating that short-term reality can be helpful.
It's one thing to identify areas where clients need reassurance and support, it’s something else to deliver that to them. Hastings notes that his team’s communication methods begin with written updates, distributed across social media channels, websites, and email lists. Webcasts, conference calls, webinars, and other video sessions play a key role, as is the rollout of those multimedia recordings. Despite all the digital communications tools at his team’s disposal, Hastings insists the most important delivery system that any firm has is their advisory team, who can use their relationships with their clients to deliver messaging that resonates with the individuals and families they serve. At Hastings’ firm, that message centres on a core philosophy of investing.
“We counsel three tenets of successful investing: proper diversification, staying invested and having a high quality bias in portfolios,” Hastings says. “Those tenets have served clients well through this most recent episode of geopolitical uncertainty and financial market volatility. They have worked well in the past, and it's our belief that they'll continue to work well in the future. And that's the message that we try to convey every day to advisors and to clients, that if you're properly diversified, if you've got a high quality bias in your portfolio, and if you stay invested through thick and thin, that you'll be just fine.”
