When my wife and I began investing, we did what is probably the most common thing that Canadians do, we went to our local bank branch, sat down with a financial advisor, and invested in a portfolio of mutual funds issued by that bank. We...
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Coping with the Uncertainty of Investment Returns Imagine that you have been putting away $10,000 at the beginning of each year from 2002 until 2019. For the sake of this example, taxes and commissions are excluded; you have been investing that money into the Canadian stock...
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An Introduction to Retirement Planning – Part 1 In the middle of this extraordinary COVID-19 pandemic, many of us may feel like we have been forcibly retired. Our governments have shut down large swaths of the economy in order to enable the physical distancing that, we...
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An Introduction to Insurance and Risk Management – Part 6 Doesn’t this Post Belong Under Investment Planning? While segregated funds are investment products, the fact that they have certain insurance features and can only be bought through someone who is life-insurance-licensed, I have placed this topic under...
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An Introduction to Insurance and Risk Management – Part 1 Wouldn’t you love to be a risk manager? It sounds like a job for the man or woman who gets great joy from being a party pooper. I suppose that might be true in some circumstances,...
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An Introduction to Investment Planning – Part 5.4 Diversification is one of the main benefits of mutual funds. With one purchase you can buy a piece of a wide variety of securities. Nevertheless, some mutual funds are quite narrowly focused and should probably be complemented by...
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An Introduction to Investment Planning – Part 5.2 Within my larger series on investment planning, this is the second post on mutual funds. Mutual funds are popular investment vehicles for investors because they give you instant diversification in a single purchase and they can be bought...
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Introduction to Investment Planning – Part 2.1 Bonds are fixed income investments “Stocks and bonds”: These are the basic building blocks of an investment portfolio. I will write about stocks in an upcoming post, but after my discussion of cash or cash-like assets (e.g., savings accounts) in...
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A Match Made in Financial Heaven The Needs of DIY Investors I have spent most of my financial services career serving Do-It-Yourself investors, people who choose to make their own investment decisions rather than go through an investment advisor. Over the years, I have seen many accounts...
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