Low Interest Rates Make This an Option Worth Considering When my wife and I bought our first house, the interest rate was 7.5%. That sounds awfully high today when you can sometimes see mortgage rates posted for less than 2%. On the other hand, we were...
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Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) Investing My introduction to Socially Responsible Investing began at church. Michael Jantzi, who was raised in the church where I was then a pastor in London, Ontario, and where his parents were still members at that time, came one Sunday from...
Read MoreMore Choice Is Not Always Better In liberal societies, the usual understanding is that the more choice we have the better. Freedom is about having the ability to choose. Instead, however, what we often find is what is termed “analysis paralysis.” We are given so many...
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Gender and Investing Writing on gender is almost guaranteed to get the author in hot water. What value is there in discerning differences between men and women? From the point of view of the investment advisor, it seems like another justification for stereotyping the client rather...
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Finance is Scary Financial matters tend to scare a lot of people away: “Finance is all about money and numbers. I don’t have enough of the former and I don’t understand the latter.” At least that is a common impression. The financial advice industry exists in...
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Recapping the Earlier Post Earlier this month (July 2020) I compared the one-year return of the Vanguard Growth ETF Portfolio (VGRO) ending 2020-07-13 using a lump-sum investing approach versus a dollar-cost averaging approach. I invested a $60,000 inheritance in a TFSA in a single lump sum...
Read MoreIt is the nature of my profession that I read a lot about personal financial matters. One of the most difficult of such matters has to do with retirement. Financial economists will say that retirement planning is difficult because there are so many variables, or...
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The Situation A relative of yours has died. You have received an inheritance. With that money, you have paid off your mortgage and your car loan. You have topped up your Registered Retirement Savings Plan (RRSP) and you have set aside six months of living expenses...
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Sources for checking on an advisor’s registration and disciplinary history I am a big fan of the combination of Do-It-Yourself (DIY) investing with Advice-Only, Fee-for-Service financial planning. I think it can be a cost-effective combination for many. On the other hand, there are many people who...
Read MoreAn Introduction to Estate Planning – Part 5 Once you die perhaps the most obvious observation one can make is that you are no longer in charge. The only way to establish some degree of control over what happens to your assets, your estate, is to...
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