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MoneySense magazine Canadian Business magazine PROFIT magazine

Canadian Capitalist

  • Sleepy Mino Portfolio Q3-2010 Update

    In the past 90 days, stock markets have advanced a little and the Sleepy Mini Portfolio now shows a modest gain over book value. The Sleepy Mini Portfolio was started with an initial investment of $1,000 in August 2007 and I add $1,000 to the portfolio every 90 days. Here’s how the portfolio components were valued as of August 31, 2010:

    TDB909 – Canadian Bonds – $2,484 (20.3%)
    TDB900 – Canadian Equities – $2,432 (19.9%)
    TDB902 – US Equities – $3,524 (28.8%)
    TDB911 – International Equities – $3,810 (31.1%)
    Total – $12,249
    Total Invested – $12,000

    It is once again time to add another $1,000 to the portfolio and rebalance it to the target asset allocation — 20% bonds, 20% Canadian stocks, 30% US stocks and 30% International stocks. I use this spreadsheet to divide new money between the portfolio components. As you can notice, US equities are currently below the target and International equities are above the target. So, more of the new money will be channelled into US stocks relative to International stocks to bring the portfolio into balance.

    Transactions

    TDB909 – TD Canadian Bond Index (e-Series) – Buy units for $165.79.
    TDB900 – TD Canadian Index (e-Series) – Buy units for $218.16.
    TDB902 – TD US Index (e-Series) – Buy units for $451.15.
    TDB911 – TD International Index (e-Series) – Buy units for $164.90.

    [YTD Sleepy Mini Portfolio Returns as of August 31, 2010]

    That’s all there is to it. Investing so simple that it would make a blindfolded, dart-throwing monkey insanely jealous.

  • From the archives: Fun with Numbers

    [One often runs across articles in the popular press that purports to show how much ahead one can get in the retirement game by starting to save 10 years early. While establishing a savings habit early and allowing time to do its compounding magic are worthwhile goals, these articles overstate their case by ignoring the [...]

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  • Free Download of The Elements of Investing

    The Elements of Investing (read my review here) by Burton Malkiel and Charles Ellis managed to boil down investing to its elements in a short book that could be read in a few hours. You can download it for free here. The Elements of Investing hacks away at all the overtrading and over thinking so [...]

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  • Do Advisors Add Investment Value?

    A recent research paper out of Germany provides ammunition to those who question the value of investment advice. The paper titled “Financial Advisors: A Case of Babysitters?” analyzed two sets of data: 32,751 randomly selected internet brokerage accounts over a 66 month period and 10,434 randomly selected clients of a bank covering a 34-month period. [...]

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  • This and That: Burton Malkiel and more…

    Just a quick reminder that you can read my posts in your favourite reader or delivered by e-mail. Money Smarts Blog featured a guest post that offered six reasons why Canadians should own oil stocks. Canadian Financial Stuff shared the best back-to-school advice his dad gave him, which is sure to come in handy for [...]

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  • Payroll for Employers of Caregivers

    If you hire a nanny or elder care provider, you become an employer and the CRA will require you to withhold employee share of CPP contributions, EI premiums and income tax deductions and remit the deductions every month. You are also required to keep records of regular hours, overtime hours and vacation hours. You could [...]

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  • Free ACB & Capital Gains Tracker in Excel

    In response to yesterday’s post, Reader Kevin asked me to share the Excel spreadsheet that I use for tracking adjusted cost base (ACB) and capital gains. Since I mostly make buy transactions and rarely do a sell transaction these days, my set up is rather simple. I simply input the date, type of transaction (buy, [...]