Just over six months after having narrowly avoided an inquiry and after welcoming a new president, the Caisse de depot was once again in the news last week following publication in the newspaper Press a text by Denis Lessard. The reason? Always the same, bad yields. The scenario is almost the same as that ignited the financial press last November and which led the former president Henri-Paul Rousseau testified before the Finance Committee of the National Assembly. First, a leak from an applicant to the journalist reporting on the results known only to customers of the fund. Then, a series of statements and a few little confused with some contradictions on the part of the body and his ultimate boss, the finance minister Raymond Bachand.

It seems that the Fund will achieve this year a return of 5 to 6%, while its peers will instead of 11-12%. Is that the Fund could have missed the rise of the stock market. It will be recalled that all scholarships have bottomed March 9, but they have rebounded more than 50% since then. Minister Bachand said he agreed that the yields of the Fund will be lower than those of other large pension fund, and with the cause stated. But the Caisse de depot retorted and said not to have missed the rise of the stock market. The spokesperson of the institution, Maxime Chagnon said the journalist Sylvain Larocque Canadian Press that the weighting of shares in the Fund was 34% at the end of September, against 22% at the end of 2008 . Unfortunately, this explanation is too simplistic. If the fund has bought shares heavily only in September, she still missed much of the rise. To find out if it does, it should consult the transactions of the Fund. Knowing how tight the Fund has always been about communications on its investments, we can forget that. Moreover, the circumstances preach in favor of this scenario stock purchases later. First, between December 31 and March 9 the financial crisis has reached its highest intensity. As the Fund was managed by an interim president following the illness of Richard Guay, and that all team managers nest egg of Quebec was shaken by the disastrous results of the year just ended, it would be surprising if we had decided at that time to buy shares. Then Michael Sabia was brought in April in the controversy over the total. It would be surprising if it had never previously managed a portfolio manager would have prompted the portfolio to buy shares on arrival. The argument that the Fund has missed a portion of the rise of awards seems very plausible in these circumstances.