Canadian Capitalist

Despite Finance Minister Jim Flaherty’s assertions that the income trust tax decision is final, given the political reality of a minority government that has yet to pass the tax levy into law, the trust saga isn’t over yet.
The Liberals and the Bloc have teamed up to vote on whether to call witnesses in parliamentary hearings [...]

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I couldn’t resist commenting on the specious reasoning that Jim Stanford, an economist with the Canadian Auto Workers Union, advanced in a column in The Globe and Mail. Mr. Stanford argues that Canadians should tune out the commercials during the RRSP season and invest in their homes instead because:
At the end of the day, you [...]

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Patrick McKeough, editor of The Successful Investor stock newsletter, points out some of the disadvantages of ETFs in his column in The Financial Post last week. He writes:
The problem is that ETFs’ convenience and low cost works just as well in facilitating dumb moves as smart ones.
The disadvantages that Mr. McKeough points out are:

Ordinary investors [...]

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Globe and Mail columnist Rob Carrick suggests some financial tips for parents-to-be from a recently published book. We personally find that quality day care is the single biggest expense for parents.
Ted Aronson, a very successful money manager, invests his own money in low-cost, indexed portfolios and advises average investors to eschew trying to beat the [...]

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In the past month or so, I have discovered a couple more Canadian blogs out there that I think are worth checking out:
A Canadian on Wall Street is an investment and trading blog written by a Vancouver-based investor. While posts are sporadic, they deal with the topic at hand at some depth. An example is [...]

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I thought I would avoid the bug that is going around the Blogosphere, but Nick of Bring the Cash Flow has tagged me into revealing five things you may not know about me. So, here we go:

I am one of those prototypical immigrants who arrive in Canada with $50 in their pocket. I came to [...]

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In a recent post, Frugal Canadian discussed the size of the downpayment she should put down and whether she should pre-pay her mortgage. It is a question with no right or wrong answer because a number of variables (interest rates applicable till the mortgage is paid down, annual returns from a diversified portfolio during the [...]

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Ben Stein, one of the popular columnists on Yahoo! Finance, suggests a model portfolio in his latest column that takes advantage of the falling U.S. dollar. Note that the portfolio is targeted at American investors.
Developed International Equities (EFA): 15%-25%
Emerging Markets (EEM or ADRE): 10%
Total US Market (VTI): 30%
Small-Cap value (IWN): 10%
Real Estate (ICF): 10%
Cash: 15%
I [...]

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I replaced the two old-fashioned incandescent bulbs in our porch with the energy-saving compact fluorescent light (CFL) bulbs supplied by Project Porchlight last weekend. Project Porchlight is a campaign by a non-profit organization that aims to deliver one free CFL to every household in Canada. The new lamps are 13 Watts and replace bulbs that [...]

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Larry MacDonald of Investment Ideas blog highlights a study, which found that for many model portfolios deferring rebalancing for as long as four years provided the best returns. You can find the original article here.
Canadian Banks & Insurance posted a handy table of the 2006 returns of some of the big names in the financial [...]

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