What To Do When There's Nothing To Do

I once read a book about Peter Cundill, a legendary Canadian investor, called There’s Always Something to Do.

Cundill was a successful money manager in the 1960s, but really embraced a value philosophy after reading Supermoney — specifically its chapter on Warren Buffett and Benjamin Graham — in the early 70s. There were few stocks that fit his criteria in North America, so he started looking around the world for bargains.

He’d travel tens of thousands of miles every year, meeting with companies in places like Japan, Australia, or South America. Cundill mostly hunted for cheap stocks, but he participated in special situations and more exotic things like distressed debt. He was happy to turn over rocks other investment managers ignored, all in an attempt to find an edge.

It worked. The Cundill Value Fund returned 13.2% annually over 35 years, giving Cundill one of the best records of all-time.

Plus, Cundill was an interesting guy. Setting up a global equity fund was partly just an excuse so he could travel around and see his many girlfriends. He was also a hardcore workaholic, convinced if he just outworked his peers it would lead to an edge. Hence the title of the book.

I’ve been thinking more and more about Cundill and his approach today as my portfolio continues to bump up against all-time highs.

My portfolio — and probably yours too — is doing exceptionally well. After back-to-back years of total returns exceeding 20%, I’m comfortably up double-digits so far this year. Canadian banks have done superbly, but so have insurers, pipelines, utilities, and even REITs.

I think the performance of REITs has been the biggest surprise for me. As I write this, my largest position in the sector is up more than 50% year to date once we include the distributions. I never would’ve expected that.

The dividends keep pouring in, too. Normally I spend some, reinvest some, and aim for a nice balance of enjoying them today versus growing the income stream for future Nelly. I like to keep 6-12 months worth of spending on hand at any one time, just in case the you-know-what hits the fan. I’m currently at the top end of that range, so excess cash is just hanging out in the brokerage account.

I put it in ZMMK.to to at least make a little interest as I wait.

The reason cash is accumulating so quickly is because I’m not finding a lot of stuff to buy. I’ve nibbled at a few things here and there that I like, but for the most part I’m just not finding a lot.

I started investing in 2001. And from 2001 through 2022 I put cash to work as quickly as possible. Like Buffett early on in his career, I found that I had more ideas than capital, and so I invested. I then “retired” and 2023 was another excellent time to put cash to work. 2024 was decent too, and 2025 gave us the Trump Tantrum in April, which sent a lot of good stocks reeling on tariff fears. I loaded up and it was a good move.

So today is pretty much new territory for me. Part of my brain tells me I should just be putting the cash to work and paying slightly elevated prices for good stocks. 70-year-old Nelly isn’t going to care I paid a slightly too high valuation for something. But the other part of my brain wants me to be cautious. It’s convinced better opportunities will come down the road. Besides, I’m still mostly invested at this point. My cash position is under 10% of my portfolio.

Anyway, I think a lot of y’all are in the same position as I’m in today, so I thought I’d write about it — and look at whether we should be embracing a Cundill approach to this problem, or something slightly different.

I already know what Peter Cundill would say if I told him I couldn’t find anything to buy. Just look harder. After all, the guy was a global investor, while I write for a website called Canadian Dividend Investing. It doesn’t take a scientician to figure out where most of my money is invested.

As it stands today, my portfolio is about 90% Canadian and 10% American/rest of the world. “That’s too much!” the home country bias harpies exclaim, right before they need the services of a fainting couch.

My defense here is three-fold:

Besides, my results have been just fine. I’ve reached so many of my financial goals doing it my way, which equals success in my books.

But, saying that, I do recognize the benefits of owning more stocks outside of Canada. I’m not really interested in scouring the globe for bargains like Cundill, but I do have some goals that would be helped with more international exposure. For instance, I do want to create a USD income stream to spend when I go on vacation. That would be helpful.

Another bonus is there are significantly more bargains south of the border. I’m finding it easier to find bargains in a few different sectors in the U.S., including consumer staples, restaurants, real estate, and more. I’m also finding value in various foreign stocks that happen to trade on U.S. exchanges.

A few quick ideas? Okay.

That’s just the tip of the iceberg, too. There are dozens more I’m at least somewhat interested in, and so I’ve pivoted a lot of my attention to the U.S. market. At least temporarily.

But there are a couple of things that make me pause. The first is the Canadian Dollar has weakened lately compared to the USD. The first few months of 2026 were pretty strong for our currency, but that has reversed lately.

I don’t like the idea of exchanging Canadian Dollars for their American equivalent when our currency is weak. I’m old enough to still have memories of our Dollar trading above par immediately after 2009, and I know I’ll be kicking myself if I buy U.S. stocks today only to see the currency do the same thing again.

But, at the same time, I also think that over the long-term currency moves are mostly going to be a wash. If I buy something and hold it over a decade or two, I’m not going to worry about what the currency is doing in that time. I’m more worried about the overall health of the company, whether the dividend is going to grow, and whether I want to reinvest those USD dividends or spend them.

I also realize I have no edge when it comes to trying to predict currency moves, and therefore shouldn’t bother to speculate on the subject.

What I really worry about is the new problem looking at other markets creates. I’ve mentioned a few times now that I’m looking to cut down on the number of positions in the portfolio. When I start looking at a lot of new companies, suddenly I get shiny object syndrome, and the next thing you know the number of positions starts expanding again.

In fact, one of the reasons why I went with Wealthsimple as my brokerage versus something like Interactive Brokers was so I wouldn’t be tempted by stocks around the world. And so I’ve put artificial limits in place to make sure all I can do is look. It’s like going to the strip club while wearing a jock. Nothing bad can happen, right?

Now let me argue the exact opposite of the Cundill approach.

The fact is I spent much of my time from 2023-25 researching new stocks. I did it for my benefit mostly, but also for y’all.

I’d roughly estimate I spent at least some amount of time researching more than 500 different stocks during that time. I turned over a lot of rocks.

I looked at every stock that pays a dividend on the TSX. I know I did because I found a list and went through it. Some of them I didn’t research very deeply (like most precious metals plays), but I at least cracked open the latest investor presentation or quarterly report for all of them.

I didn’t stop there, either. I spent time looking at various stocks in the United States, UK, France, Mexico, Italy, Germany, Australia, and even Japan. I used Google Translate to help me read a few annual reports.

Those of you who have been around for a little while remember this one:

For every hour of useful information I learned, I probably spent 10 hours reading about a business that wasn’t very likely to help me reach my financial goals. So much of it was a complete waste of time.

To be clear, I’m not bitter or upset about the time I spent. We seem to think there’s something wrong with wasting time, that productivity should always be the goal. My view is that doing a thing is worthwhile simply because I’ve decided to do it. That gives it value, and comparing it to other things that might have been a “better” use of time diminishes that value.

Nowadays I spend way less time on this stuff. I only check out a company’s results if they cause the stock to move a large amount in either direction. I no longer scroll Twitter telling myself I’m looking for investment ideas. I stopped following a bunch of obscure small-caps that I was never going to buy. And once I sell something, I mostly move on.

I suffered from shiny thing syndrome, but for stocks. I told myself the more obscure something was the more I liked it. I prided myself on finding these diamonds in the rough, and I added a bunch of them to the portfolio. Now I realize a lot of them were crap, and I’m in the process of punting the ones I owned and trying to forget about the ones I didn’t.

My view is investing should always be a hobby for me. If I have too much time on my hands, I research too deeply and go down too many rabbit holes. You know how they say a job expands to fill the time allotted? That was me and stocks. After so long it just doesn’t add any value.

And so, this summer, I’ve done my best to do stuff other than invest. I’ve gone outside as much as possible, doing stuff like going for walks around the neighborhood, reading books on the patio, and swearing too much after poor golf shots. I’ve dropped in at pancake breakfasts and gone to parties with friends and even met a few of you from this newsletter or from Twitter, and it’s all been great fun.

(In Edmonton? Want to meet and talk stocks? I’m happy to. Hit me up.)

Has all this time away from my investments affected my performance at all? Nope. My stocks have ticked steadily higher and my dividends have flowed in, all without my direct supervision. In fact, I think the time away from the computer has actually made me a better investor. It forces me to shrink my investing universe and focus on stocks that are in my wheelhouse.

Summer is a great time to let those dividends accumulate in your account. Then you can put them to work in the fall. It’s especially a great time to do it when there aren’t really a whole lot of bargains out there.

Cundill believed there was always a new company to analyze, or some potential opportunity to check out. I used to think like him, but now I understand the value of shrinking your investment universe and taking time away from all this.

I realize this is a bit of an odd message coming from an investment newsletter, but screw it. Imma say it anyway. It’s okay to take a break from this stuff.

Most things in life benefit from you spending more time on them. Putting in the reps is a very real thing. When you first start looking at individual stocks, this is definitely true. But after a while it becomes activity for the sake of activity, and it starts to have diminishing returns.

I’m happy to let my dividends accumulate for a little while. I’m still researching, and yes, still buying a bit, but let’s not forget the benefits of taking time away from this stuff. I believe I’m a better investor when I have a little more balance. Especially when opportunities aren’t as prevalent.