Dividend investing feels safe because the cash is visible. But dividends do not create wealth, they rearrange it. Companies adjust in price, payouts can be cut, and high yield portfolios often hide costly sector bets. Real safety is not a dividend stream. It is total return, diversification, and alignment with your spending needs. Income should be designed, not chased.

Averages feel comforting, but in wealth management they often mislead. Markets don’t deliver smooth outcomes, investors rarely earn “average” returns, and retirement spending is uneven across life stages. Wealth is shaped by extremes, not typical numbers. At Westmount Wealth, we plan to lives, using discipline, diversification, and ranges, not averages.

A new year inspires bold resolutions, like perfectly timing the market or only buying winners. But like gym memberships, most investing promises fade fast. Wealth has never depended on reinvention. Markets change, trends come and go, yet fundamentals keep doing the work. At Westmount Wealth Management, the new year is a reminder that while nothing works all the time, timeless principles do. This year, focus on diversification, patience, discipline, and a plan you can live with.

Each year brings a fresh batch of seasonal market stories, Santa Claus rallies, “Sell in May & go away,” the January effect, even Super Bowl predictions. They all promise hidden rhythms in returns. But over time, the data has stripped these patterns of their power. At Westmount, we remind investors that lasting results come from fundamentals, discipline, and a long-term view, not from chasing calendar quirks. As the year winds down, stay focused on what matters, a resilient plan grounded in prediction.

Risk in investing isn’t one thing, it’s perspective. For Portfolio Managers, it’s numbers: volatility, drawdowns, and betas. For clients, it’s emotion: the fear of plans derailing or goals slipping away. This gap between data and feeling is where true wealth planning lives. At Westmount Wealth, risk is reframed not as something to avoid, but to understand and design around - through diversified behaviors, intentional cash flow structures, emotional guidance, and goal-based framing.

Can investors reliably identify skilled managers in real time? Evidence suggests not. Studies by Fama and French show that only a few outperform beyond luck, and even then persistence is elusive. SPIVA data confirms most managers lag benchmarks over time. The lesson is clear: focus on controllable factors instead.

The TFSA can be an very powerful tool for wealth generation. Investment income earned inside your TFSA (interest, dividends, and capital gains) do not create an income tax liability.  Gains are truly tax-free.

If you were successful in generating wealth during your working years, your advisor or financial planner may inform you that you have more money than you will ever spend. Instead of worrying about “do I have enough,” your concern shifts to “how do I protect what I have saved?”

The TFSA can be a very powerful tool for wealth generation. Investment income earned inside your TFSA (interest, dividends, and capital gains) do not create an income tax liability. Gains are truly tax-free.

Westmount Wealth’s Lorenzo Pederzani sits down with Greg Valliere, Chief U.S. Policy Strategist of AGF Investments, to provide a brief overview of the current market conditions.

Among those paying attention to the Investment Funds Institute of Canada’s monthly fund statistics report, the most recent sets of statistics from the months of April and May are likely to raise eyebrows.

Lorenzo Pederzani explains why communication is vital and how he's grown his book during the pandemic.

Lorenzo Pederzani is no stranger to changing direction as new situations demand.

In an era marked by technological advances, are consumer staples still the reliable investment they once were?

How does your advisor pick which clients receives the first phone call when the next 2008 happens?

Sequence risk becomes a big problem once you start withdrawing from your portfolio.