Every day ROB Insight delivers exclusive analysis on breaking business news and market-moving events. Streetwise offers news and analysis on Bay Street and the world of finance.
Here are our editors' picks of some of the best reads of the week. (The articles are available to Globe Unlimited subscribers only.)
What's in a name? Big money, apparently
And the top 2013 performer on the TSX so far? That's right, you guessed it – a label maker. Toronto-based CCL Industries is up 43 per cent since then (and 64 per cent over the past year), Tim Kiladze writes in Streetwise. Most of its sales come from product labels, and the January deal for two divisions of office supply and name tag maker Avery Dennison lit a fire under the shares.
Can't we work this out?
Royal Bank of Canada's use of the temporary foreign worker program became a cause célèbre over the week. But the incident shines a light on much bigger issues, Sean Silcoff writes in ROB Insight – the exploding population of workers from abroad, their lengthening stays, and the relaxation of rules employers must follow to bring them over.
So where should you park your money?
With unprecedented levels of monetary invention worldwide, two contradictory scenarios appear most likely: hyperinflation or stagnation, Scott Barlow writes in ROB Insight. With the latter looking the more likely of the two, the best place for your money right now may be under the mattress.
Why Fairfax battened down the hatches
Fairfax Financial's Prem Watsa has a pretty grim outlook on the markets, he told his company's annual meeting. Illustrating his point with a chart showing 22 decades of real GDP in the U.S., he pointed out that only the Depression years fared worse than now, Jacqueline Nelson writes in Streetwise.
How about a Clarity Act for tariffs?
Ottawa announced new rules last month that will remove 72 emerging-market nations from its General Preferential Tariff category in 2015, as David Parkinson explains in ROB Insight. The change affects hundreds of product categories, and will see higher levies on products such as the iPod. Or not. Or possibly. It's hard to say, because the government's guidance on the change has been pretty fuzzy.