Around the Blogosphere

This time is different – the four most dangerous words when it comes to investing. We’ve seen it time and time again. From Tulip Bulb Mania to the Dot Com Era, and the U.S. Housing Boom, exuberant market behaviour drives asset prices higher and higher until demand reaches levels that can no longer be sustained,…

The Bank of Canada raised its key interest rate again this week, marking the third time since last summer that they’ve increased the benchmark lending rate. It now sits at 1.25 percent, while Canada’s big banks all moved their prime ending rate to 3.45 percent. The move has financial experts warning of the impact on…

Canadian Couch Potato godfather Dan Bortolotti recently posted the returns for his three model portfolios. Like my two-ETF portfolio, which returned 14.06 percent, Dan’s model portfolios had a banner year in 2017. Here are the results for the most aggressive versions of each portfolio: Tangerine’s Balanced Growth Portfolio – 9.5 percent TD’s e-Series Funds –…

Happy new year and welcome back to another edition of weekend reading – the first of 2018! We’ve got a lot in store for you this year as we continue to share our money stories and help you achieve your financial goals. As always, we’re happy to take your topic suggestions so leave a comment…

Merry Christmas, everyone! Welcome to the last edition of weekend reading for 2017. We’re taking Christmas week off and I’ll be back next weekend to update my net worth for the year. As always, thank you for following our journey towards financial freedom. We feel incredibly honoured that each of you choose to spend a…

A thoughtful, well-written essay by Bank of Canada Governor Stephen Poloz highlights this edition of weekend reading. The Governor spoke before the Canadian Club in Toronto and shared that while the Canadian economy is on pace to be the strongest among the Group of Seven economies this year there are still three (or four) things…

The financial services industry is in dire need of change. It’s such a me-too industry brainwashed to believe that all you need is a regular meeting with your trusted advisor and your financial literacy problems will be solved. Look no further than the 100+ comments to Rob Carrick’s question on LinkedIn, wanting to hear fresh…

We live in the information age and yet in certain industries the information gap between the buyer and seller remains a mystery. The financial industry attempted to rectify the problem by introducing CRM2, which discloses how much investors pay advisors and their firms – and expressing those fees in dollars rather than as a percentage…

Ahh, Black Friday. The day for personal finance experts to get up on their soap-boxes and preach about the evils of consumerism and spending. It’s also the time for news media to reach out to said experts and get their ‘tips and tricks’ to combat the evil forces of The Black Friday, as if we’ll…

Long-time readers might recall last summer when the panoramic sunroof in our 2013 Hyundai Sante Fe spontaneously shattered while my wife and I were driving on the highway towards Lethbridge. I filed a complaint with Transport Canada, and after searching online and finding multiple instances of exploding sunroofs, wondered why a recall hadn’t been ordered.…