Canadian Capitalist

A Canadian Personal Finance Weblog

Entries from May 2005

Canadian Inflation Report

May 21st, 2005 · No Comments

Statistics Canada released the inflation report for April 2005 yesterday. Inflation came in at 2.4% higher than year-ago prices. The report said that prices of gas (up 15.3%), new homes (up 5.8%), restaurant meals (up 3.1%), fuel oil (up 31.6%) and property taxes (up 4.3%) rose, while computers (down 20.1%), women’s clothing (down 2.9%) and [...]

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Tags: Canadian Interest

Best Canadian Investment Blogs

May 19th, 2005 · 11 Comments

I am really honoured to find this blog listed among the best Canadian Investment Blogs in MoneySense magazine, a leading Canadian finance publication. The article by columnist Larry MacDonald is in two parts: the first mentions really good commentators like Bill Cara (check out Mr. Cara’s post about the mention), Irwin Michael and Norm Rothery [...]

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Tags: Miscellaneous

Retirement Account Decisions

May 18th, 2005 · 3 Comments

I started at a new job recently and one of the benefits is partial matching of contributions to my retirement account. Problem is, the plan administrator offers a wide selection of more than 80 funds and I had to decide which fund(s) to buy in a day or two. It is going to take me [...]

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Tags: Personal

Reptilian Behavior

May 17th, 2005 · 3 Comments

Behavioral Finance is a fascinating subject that studies why most people make poor financial decisions like buying greedily at market tops and panic-selling at market bottoms. Turns out it is our reptilian brains that makes us irrational beings.
Another recent story suggested that women make better investing decisions than men. More men than women cite greed, [...]

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Tags: Investing

Will Boomers Cash Out?

May 16th, 2005 · 4 Comments

In a recent interview with MarketWatch.com Prof. Jeremy Siegel says that as the aging baby boomers retire in the next 20-40 years, stocks could suffer a meltdown, unless investors from developing nations step-up and buy the equities that the boomers are selling. Is this scenario possible?
Donald Luskin, on the other hand, suggests that investors should [...]

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Tags: Investing

Excel India Fund

May 15th, 2005 · 2 Comments

The Toronto Star (Bypass registration here) has yet another story on investing in India and mentions the only India focussed mutual fund available in Canada: the Excel India Fund. The story quotes the fund’s CEO: “We’re the only game in town”. That may be, but there are other India-focussed funds available which have a longer [...]

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Tags: Investing

Checking out RiskGrades

May 15th, 2005 · No Comments

The WSJ Sunday has a story on various tools that investors can use to measure portfolio risk. I decided to try out RiskGrades to find out how much risk I am taking with our personal portfolios and the Sleepy Portfolio.
RiskGrades assigns a number to each security depending on how risky it is (Cash has a [...]

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Tags: Investing

Investing in Taiwan

May 14th, 2005 · No Comments

BusinessWeek magazine is running a special report on the importance of Taiwan to the global economy. In technology, Taiwan plays a leading role in making chips, notebook computers, LCD monitors, PDAs, digital cameras and servers. The lead story notes that the revenues of the top 25 key tech companies should hit $122 billion this [...]

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Tags: Investing

Should I get a VoIP Phone Service?

May 13th, 2005 · No Comments

Recent events in Canada have made a VoIP phone service an attractive option. The CRTC has ruled that the large local phone companies like Bell and Telus would not be allowed to price their VoIP services below cost to stifle competition. Their smaller rivals like Vonage, Primus, Yak and the cable companies will be allowed [...]

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Tags: Spending

Avoiding Retirement Mistakes

May 12th, 2005 · 2 Comments

While retirement seems so far out in the future, like a majority of Canadians, we don’t have defined benefit plans to rely on. The Canada Pension Plan and Old Age Security may or may not be there for us. So, we are very keen on avoiding mistakes in saving for our retirement.
Money magazine has published [...]

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Tags: Investing