Investing

Canadian financial speaker and author Talbot Stevens has written a new book called, The Smart Debt Coach, which hit the shelves this week.  In it he explains a key concept that gets overlooked by most investors: when you’re saving for retirement, you should never put dry pasta in your RRSP. Related: 5 common RRSP myths…

In a recent Carrick Talks Money video series on the Globe and Mail, Rob Carrick discussed the “I’m finally ready to invest” portfolio for young adults.  He asked Canadian Couch Potato blogger Dan Bortolotti, and PWL Capital wealth manager Justin Bender to come up with a portfolio of exchange traded funds (ETFs) for the young…

In a recent Toronto Star column, I wrote that mutual fund fees in Canada are some of the highest in the world and because of these fees the vast majority of actively-managed funds lag behind the market.  I said that switching to low-cost index mutual funds or ETFs will cut your investment fees to the…

Choosing the right investments for your goals is just the beginning. You need to monitor their performance to see how you are progressing towards those goals. Many times investors look at their statements and check out the investment return. If the total has increased by say, 7 percent, from the last statement, they’re happy. On…

Last year, with the help of Justin Bender from PWL Capital, I went back and calculated the rate of return from my portfolio of dividend stocks since I started buying shares in 2009.  Why?  Because it’s important to calculate and compare your portfolio returns to an appropriate benchmark so you can figure out whether active…

I’ll admit I’ve never liked the idea of taking out an RRSP loan to boost contributions and generate a higher tax refund.  If you can afford to pay back the RRSP loan over 12 months then you probably should have budgeted and saved for higher contributions in the first place instead of borrowing. However, after…

Whether you are a do-it-yourself investor or you rely on a financial advisor you have an overall strategy of choosing your investments based on your profile, risk tolerance and beliefs that will enable you to achieve your objectives. Related: 5 Challenges DIY Investors Face What investing style fits you? Index investing An index is a…

The top mutual funds have trounced the Canadian index this year, which again opens up the debate of whether active management can outperform a passively managed portfolio after fees.  Fans of passive investing say it’s nearly impossible to beat the market over the long term, and equally as difficult to pick the investments that will…

I have always dismissed preferred shares.  The definition I heard was that preferreds are a hybrid of both equity and fixed income investments with the worst characteristics of each, and who would want that?  Plus their special added features – redeemable, callable, retractable, convertible, perpetual, cumulative – just seemed too complicated to me. Related: Why…