Nearly every equity exchange-traded fund (ETF) has had a big price run-up over the past year. In Canada, one exception is the iShares CDN Growth Index Fund (XCG) -- at least in relative terms.

One of the inefficiencies in the stock market may be a tendency for investors to give growth companies too much credit during economic upturns and not enough during economic downturns. That is, they fail to differentiate between growth tied to the company’s business model and growth tied to the economic ...