Investing

No, I’m not asking how you’re doing (sorry, I know everything sucks right now!). I’m talking about your investments. Active managers love to tout their ability to capture all of the upside of the market while deftly avoiding the downside. We know empirically that is not the case (the SPIVA scorecard shows that more than…

We’re nearly halfway through 2022 and the year has not been kind to investors, to say the least. Global stock markets are suffering their worst prolonged losses in recent memory. The S&P 500 is down about 18.5%, international stocks are down about 17%, and emerging market stocks are down about 15%. Domestic stocks have fared…

It’s common for investors to be concerned about inflation because it brings to mind the high inflationary period of the 1970s that completely wrecked stock and bond returns. It’s also easy for investors to draw spurious conclusions about government debt and linking that to the hyperinflation that occurred in Zimbabwe or Venezuela. This article aims…

Investing has often been an expensive and/or complicated endeavour for Canadians. The vast majority of investors put their money into mutual funds sold by their bank or investment firm – funds which typically charge 2% or more in fees and leave Canadians with less money for retirement. Then along came exchange-traded funds (ETFs), then robo-advisors,…

Building on my evidence based investing guide, this article further explores why we invest. When we think of investing it’s only natural to dream about discovering the next Microsoft or Amazon stock or about becoming a world-class investor like Warren Buffett. But why invest in the first place? Is it the thrill of building wealth?…

It’s hard to put into words the impact Vanguard has made on the investment industry and for individual investors. Perhaps Warren Buffett described it best when he paid tribute to the late Vanguard founder Jack Bogle in 2019: “Jack did more for American investors as a whole than any individual I’ve known.” Vanguard brought its…

Happy New Year! 2021 was another crazy year for investors. Unlike 2020, which saw global stock markets shrug off a 30% decline before posting positive returns for the year, 2021 began with a meme stock craze and ended with a flurry of new all-time highs in both Canadian and US stock markets. In this post…

This article has been sponsored by BMO Canada. All opinions are my own. I’m on record to say that the vast majority of self-directed investors should simply use a single asset allocation ETF to build their investment portfolios. What’s not to like about asset allocation ETFs? Investors get a low cost, risk appropriate, globally diversified…

Many investors like to take the reins and self-manage their own investment portfolio using a discount brokerage platform. DIY investing can be relatively straightforward during your contribution years, but investing can get more complicated when it comes time to withdraw from your portfolio. This article will explain the steps involved in converting your RRSP to…

For years I’ve railed against Canada’s mutual fund industry for high fees, conflicts of interest, underperformance, poor disclosure, and lack of accountability. But today I’m going to zero-in on another major problem with mutual funds in Canada – closet indexing. Canadian equity mutual funds sold by Canada’s big banks, in particular, are some of the…