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]]>Forge First Asset Management Inc.Wed, 01 Apr 2026 15:13:49 +0000/s/CI-Forge-First-LP-Monthly-Commentary-EN.PDF5f83559f66ed51796e1ad8c6:5f8355f066ed51796e1adfab:69cd359368a708548ff4c7ddThe Class F Lead Series of the Forge First Multi Strategy LP returned 4.89% in February, while the Class F Lead Series of the Forge First Long Short LP returned 3.80% over the same time period, both net of fees. The difference between the two is largely reflected by higher relative exposure levels in the Forge First Long Short LP, offset by positive performance from credit strategies in the Forge First Multi Strategy LP. Beta-adjusted net equity exposure was 46% in the Forge First Multi Strategy LP and 27% in the Forge First Long Short LP at month-end. Net credit exposure was 44% in the Forge First Multi Strategy LP and remained at 0% for our Forge First Long Short LP. Beta-adjusted net equity exposure was approximately 33% and 42% lower in each respective fund since January month-end. The reduction in exposure reflects long sales across equity positions in most sectors. Performance in February was led by attribution from the Industrials, Consumer, Energy, Real Estate and Materials sectors. The Technology sector detracted from performance, as did equity index hedges. Alpha during earnings season was strong in February across long and short equity positions. Long exposure to value and revisions factors, as well as cyclical sectors benefited performance. We discuss updates on key attribution drivers in the month of February below.

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]]>Forge First Asset Management Inc.Tue, 17 Feb 2026 14:00:42 +0000/s/Forge-First-LP-Monthly-Commentary-EN.PDF5f83559f66ed51796e1ad8c6:5f8355f066ed51796e1adfab:6994740c7ee08c716ce7fecfThe Class F Lead Series of the Multi Strategy LP returned 1.31% in January, while the Class F Lead Series of the Long Short LP returned 0.74% over the same time period, both net of fees. The difference between the two is largely reflected by higher relative exposure levels in the Long Short LP, offset by positive performance from credit strategies in the Multi Strategy LP. Beta-adjusted net equity exposure was 79% in the Multi Strategy LP and 69% in the Long Short LP at month-end. Net credit exposure was 44% in the Multi Strategy LP and remained at 0% for our Long Short LP. Beta-adjusted net equity exposure was approximately 26% and 25% higher in each respective fund since December month-end, driven by increases in the Consumer and Industrials sectors. Performance in January was led by attribution from the Industrials, Energy and Communications sectors. The Consumer Non-Cyclical sector detracted from performance, as did equity index hedges. We discuss updates on key attribution drivers in the month of January below.

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]]>Forge First Asset Management Inc.Mon, 12 Jan 2026 20:03:22 +0000/s/Forge-First-LP-Commentary-EN-f2gb.PDF5f83559f66ed51796e1ad8c6:5f8355f066ed51796e1adfab:6965536c33ef6073e2684c72The Class F Lead Series of the Multi Strategy LP returned 0.32% in December, while the Class F Lead Series of the Long Short LP returned 0.20%, both net of fees. The difference between the two is largely reflected by higher relative exposure levels in the Long Short LP, offset by positive performance from credit strategies in the Multi Strategy LP. Beta-adjusted net equity exposure was 53% in the Multi Strategy LP and 44% in the Long Short LP. Net credit exposure was 48% in the Multi Strategy LP and remained at 0% for our Long Short LP. Beta-adjusted net equity exposure was approximately 11% and 8% lower in each respective fund since November month-end. Exposure increases in the Consumer, Energy and Industrials sectors drove increases in equity exposure month-over-month, while higher deltas on equity index hedges drove reductions to exposure. We will discuss our favourable outlook for these sectors later in the commentary. Net equity exposure was highest in the Technology, Industrials and Consumer sectors at year-end.

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]]>Forge First Asset Management Inc.Wed, 17 Dec 2025 14:25:36 +0000/s/November-2025-Forge-First-LP-Commentary-EN.PDF5f83559f66ed51796e1ad8c6:5f8355f066ed51796e1adfab:6942bd390f699137bcac199fThe Class F Lead Series of the Multi Strategy LP returned 1.73% in November, while the Class F Lead Series of the Long Short LP returned 1.22%, both net of fees. The difference between the two is largely reflected by higher relative exposure levels in the Long Short LP, offset by positive performance from credit strategies in the Multi Strategy LP. Beta-adjusted net equity exposure was 64% in the Multi Strategy LP and 52% in the Long Short LP. Net credit exposure was 31% in the Multi Strategy LP and remained at 0% for our Long Short LP. Beta-adjusted net equity exposure was approximately 9% and 18% higher in each respective fund since October month-end. The increase in net equity exposure was driven by increases in conviction long positions and lower deltas on equity index put options. Net equity exposure was highest in the Technology, Consumer and Industrial sectors.

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]]>Forge First Asset Management Inc.Wed, 12 Nov 2025 13:45:00 +0000/s/October-2025-LP-Commentary.pdf5f83559f66ed51796e1ad8c6:5f8355f066ed51796e1adfab:69135d005ff84f3476a62633After a mid-month downdraft in markets, results from the Q3 reporting slate drove stocks higher for the month overall. S&P 500 Q3 EPS growth is tracking at 8% year-over-year (“YoY”) versus consensus expectations of 6% at the start of earnings season. While positive, the outperformance of S&P 500 EPS growth relative to expectations is at the lowest level over the past four quarters. This fact strikes us as notable, given that consensus expects S&P 500 EPS YoY growth to almost double by Q3 2026 to ~15%. Since the start of the earnings season, the consensus estimate for 2026 EPS has been revised higher by 2% and now sits at ~$308, resulting in a 2026 P/E of 21.9x.

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]]>Forge First Asset Management Inc.Fri, 10 Oct 2025 12:45:00 +0000/s/September-2025-LP-Commentary.pdf5f83559f66ed51796e1ad8c6:5f8355f066ed51796e1adfab:68e81e8b2c273f1cf627783fOptimistic that growth will remain decent and multiple rate cuts are still to come, equity markets posted strong results for September 2025. As can be seen in the graph below, estimates for both GDP growth (white line) and inflation (yellow line) in the U.S. have been steadily inching higher. Just as tariff-related inflation, actual or assumed, doesn’t seem to matter to markets, neither do the facts that AI-driven capex and spending by the top decile of the population account for almost all economic growth. As the market dynamo Prince once sang, markets just want to “party like it’s 1999”!

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]]>Forge First Asset Management Inc.Mon, 08 Sep 2025 15:00:00 +0000/s/August-2025-LP-Commentary.pdf5f83559f66ed51796e1ad8c6:5f8355f066ed51796e1adfab:68beda540078d86fece8dacbIn August, equities once again followed the rule of ‘don’t fight the Fed’. Ahead of Chair Powell’s Jackson Hole speech on August 22nd, markets, not the Fed, were pricing in multiple rate cuts. That optimism for easier policy, despite a still resilient economy, drove cyclical stocks to outperform defensives (white line) relative to the expected December 2026 Fed Funds rate (red line).

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]]>Forge First Asset Management Inc.Mon, 11 Aug 2025 12:45:00 +0000/s/July-2025-LP-Commentary-r72w.pdf5f83559f66ed51796e1ad8c6:5f8355f066ed51796e1adfab:6894c5771feff642c42c0761Please remind me what DeepSeek was all about. Wasn’t it supposed to upend the proverbial apple cart and cause the hyperscalers to take a hatchet to their forward capital spending programs? That was January 2025, while the far-right side of the bar graph below displays the capital spending in billions of US$ of the hyperscalers for the recently reported quarter. AI-driven capital spending has returned with a vengeance as Meta, Microsoft, Amazon, and Alphabet spent $155B during the first half of 2025. According to Britain’s The Guardian newspaper, this sum is greater than what the U.S. government has spent on education, training, employment and social services fiscal year-to-date.

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]]>Forge First Asset Management Inc.Wed, 09 Jul 2025 12:45:00 +0000/s/June-2025-LP-Commentary.pdf5f83559f66ed51796e1ad8c6:5f8355f066ed51796e1adfab:686d4d90f5f3bc3bd90e0179By the last trading day of Q2, the S&P 500 had clawed back the almost $10T it lost between its pre-tariff high on February 19th and its April 8th tariff-inspired low, plus $500B on top of this recouped loss, closing the first six months of 2025 with its fifth new closing high of the year (and 15th since the U.S. election). The M7 accounted for 44% of this bottom-to-top recovery and as the M7 group is the ‘poster child’ for both large cap and growth factors, the graph below explains their outperformance during the Q2 recovery in equities. Starting on the left, from January 2024, the right side of this 18-month indexed graph makes it pretty clear that large cap growth was the only place to be of late, prior to the ‘junk rally’ that joined the party in early June, with the ‘high beta’ and ‘most shorted’ factors outperforming the M7 during that time.

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]]>Forge First Asset Management Inc.Tue, 10 Jun 2025 12:45:00 +0000/s/May-2025-LP-Commentary.pdf5f83559f66ed51796e1ad8c6:5f8355f066ed51796e1adfab:6847193f6cfd956dc20d23d0President Trump’s backpedalling on China in early May enabled investors to adopt the view that a general 10% tariff (and possibly some regionals) could be as bad as it gets. In fact, markets have become so sanguine to Trump’s tweets that we’re now all familiar with the latest acronym, the “TACO” trade, which presumably is something that bugs the U.S. President and emboldens traders to boost risk exposure any time another “text bomb” catalyzes a dip in markets.

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]]>Forge First Asset Management Inc.Fri, 09 May 2025 12:45:00 +0000/s/April-2025-LP-Commentary.pdf5f83559f66ed51796e1ad8c6:5f8355f066ed51796e1adfab:681ce7e7dd83750395e6fc91A frustrating month for our funds, as once the first few days of April made us rudely aware of the potential for President Trump to drop ‘information bombs’ at any time, combined with our belief that China holds the ‘Trump cards’ in any trade war, we opted to maintain low net exposures. Sure, we tactically adjusted exposure up and down during the month, but we did not opt to aggressively trade equities based on technical ranges in an attempt to win back our drawdown. Instead, we stuck to our accepted and successful disciplined methodology for managing client capital in an attempt to minimize volatility while striving to generate a competitive net return. The year is far from over.

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]]>Forge First Asset Management Inc.Tue, 08 Apr 2025 12:45:00 +0000/s/March-2025-LP-Commentary-n2xf.pdf5f83559f66ed51796e1ad8c6:5f8355f066ed51796e1adfab:67f3d8ecf5d113228d95a0bcThis commentary was written prior to the release of the tariff news of the U.S. Yet, as the numbers equated to a ‘left tail risk’ event, we’ll start with this addendum to our monthly note below this paragraph. Given the irrational formula for these announced tariffs of America’s trade deficit with a country divided by its total imports from that country then, get this, divided by two, it’s clear that President Trump merely assesses tariffs as a blunt instrument enabling him to force other countries to do whatever he wants them to do. Who knows what the future will bring, be it Trump walking them back or reciprocal tariffs by targeted countries on areas that could include the service revenue of the M7. Yet, two things are clear.

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]]>Forge First Asset Management Inc.Mon, 10 Mar 2025 12:45:00 +0000/s/February-LP-2025-Commentary-k6t9.pdf5f83559f66ed51796e1ad8c6:5f8355f066ed51796e1adfab:67cb1070bcd40e493fbf7c79Similar to the grade 12 student beating up on the seventh grader, at the time of writing this note on March 2nd and despite the reality that many of his facts are wrong, President Trump appears intent on picking on Canada and sowing uncertainty. Aside from “the Donald being the Donald”, this note will table one possible reason for these actions but first let’s wrap up the month in markets and the performance of our funds.

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]]>Forge First Asset Management Inc.Mon, 10 Feb 2025 14:50:47 +0000/s/January-LP-2025-Commentary-lbhx.pdf5f83559f66ed51796e1ad8c6:5f8355f066ed51796e1adfab:67a9fed1e9dfb13548bc74baWhat a crazy last couple of weeks in the markets! First, it was DeepSeek, then it was tariffs. Yet despite DeepSeek’s blind-siding of AI-related stocks and a worse-than-expected (at least for a few hours) scenario tabled on tariffs, at the time of writing, U.S. markets are flat year-to-date while the decline in the TSX isn’t even 1%. In last month’s year ahead commentary we suggested 2025 would be a year of higher volatility and we’ve sure started the year with some big bangs. After discussing January’s performance in the funds, this commentary will focus on the two topics clients have been asking about: tariffs and DeepSeek.

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]]>Forge First Asset Management Inc.Thu, 09 Jan 2025 14:15:00 +0000/s/December-LP-2024-Commentary-59e2.pdf5f83559f66ed51796e1ad8c6:5f8355f066ed51796e1adfab:677eb7481a50e17f3f2c0d89From this chair, last year’s top story was what has been coined “U.S. exceptionalism.” Catalyzed by the impact of an unprecedented amount of fiscal stimulus and ongoing ample liquidity, U.S. growth topped consensus estimates for the third straight year. Handily so for 2024, causing global investors to pile into U.S. stocks, in turn fueling a second consecutive year of >20% price gains for the S&P 500 (SPX) and a bull market in the U.S. dollar (USD). The ‘Magnificent 7’ (M7) accounted for 53% of last year’s price appreciation for the SPX (46% of total return) while the value of the equal-weighted SPX increased +13%. Price gains for Canada’s TSX totalled 17.8% (21.5% total return). This commentary will recap some highlights of last year, discuss our macro-outlook, the positioning of our funds, and the double-digit net gains of our funds.

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]]>Forge First Asset Management Inc.Mon, 09 Dec 2024 14:00:00 +0000/s/November-2024-LP-Commentary-j874.pdf5f83559f66ed51796e1ad8c6:5f8355f066ed51796e1adfab:67531c321b864774d11f2250Without doubt, the U.S. Presidential election was the catalyst for strong equity prices last month. Predictive polls were wrong once again as the race was called in President-Elect Trump’s favour early the morning after the election (Nov. 6th), and the expected too-close-to-call results became a clear Trump victory. The initial market reaction to the results featured a broad market advance lead by high beta factors and cyclical sectors, ones expected to benefit from the presumed stronger economic growth catalyzed by a Trump Presidency. The list of winners included Financials and small cap stocks while the losing side of the ledger included solar power companies, issuers dependent upon imports from China, including dollar stores, along with some housing and real estate issues.

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]]>Forge First Asset Management Inc.Wed, 13 Nov 2024 13:45:00 +0000/s/October-2024-LP-Commentary.pdf5f83559f66ed51796e1ad8c6:5f8355f066ed51796e1adfab:6733b8e67e365443e1edd8eaThanks to the relative overweight in Resource stocks in the Canadian market, the S&P TSX index was able to buck the first losing month in U.S. markets of the past six months. While the monthly decline was attributable to a rough last day of the month, arguably the negative month was not unexpected given that 32% of the worst 25 trading days in index history have occurred during the month of October. Gold continued to shine while bonds were smacked, as yields on 10-year U.S. government bonds climbed more than 50 basis points. As for our funds, the Class F Lead Series of our Multi Strategy LP advanced +1.60% net of fees, boosting its year-to-date net gain to +12.27% while the Class F Lead Series of our Long Short LP squeaked out a +0.10% net gain such that its year-to-date net stood at +12.29%. But then the U.S. election happened. Hence, post some comments on key drivers for our funds and markets during the month, we’ll offer up a few thoughts about the outlook for markets on this day after President Trump’s historic non-consecutive second term victory.

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]]>Forge First Asset Management Inc.Tue, 08 Oct 2024 12:45:00 +0000/s/September-2024-LP-Commentary-wsls.pdf5f83559f66ed51796e1ad8c6:5f8355f066ed51796e1adfab:6703eb13394d534bcc415e98While the historically challenging month of September (average decline for S&P 500 of -1.2% since 1926) started on the wrong foot (down -4.25%), the trend turned quickly enabling stocks (and bonds) to post another winning month. The intra-day graph below of the S&P 500 (red line, left axis) and long term U.S. bonds (white line, right axis) highlights their flip-flopping correlation, from negative to positive to negative. After the fourth trading day of the month, several items catalyzed the change in investor sentiment.

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]]>Forge First Asset Management Inc.Tue, 10 Sep 2024 12:45:00 +0000/s/August-2024-LP-Commentary.pdf5f83559f66ed51796e1ad8c6:5f8355f066ed51796e1adfab:66dc94ac09df645161be9dc2While several variables drove markets down then up during August, the seminal event was the more dovish than expected interest rate guidance provided by Fed Chair Powell at Jackson Hole (JH) on August 23rd. Making it clear the Fed intends to initiate rate cuts on September 18th, Powell enunciated the FOMC is now focused on the employment side of their dual mandate. His language implied the Fed will now be proactive in its attempt to prevent further weakness in the labour market. This was an important pivot in the Fed’s messaging and directionally supportive of a soft-landing economic environment.

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