SlowRhythm

Yes, the S&P 500 is up a bunch over the course of the last five years....but over the last ten years, the returns are more like mid single digit....gotta remember the crash of 08/09 which took the S&P down to 666 in early March '09.

Given current elevated PE's (mid to upper teen's), and the fact that we are now eight years into a "recovery" (such as it is....), mid to upper mid single digit returns from equities sounds about right.   At least until the market hits the next bump in the road, and sells off 30% or more....

As for just buying Canadian banks....a very, very dangerous strategy.   Banks sell at low PE's for a reason i.e. they are leveraged something like 25 to 1 (on common equity), making them very sensitive to a spike in loan losses, for whatever reason.  Again, given that we are eight years into a recovery (and eight years from the time that people were concerned that BMO or CM would cut their dividends), it is easy to forget the risk in owning bank shares.