Canadian Capitalist

It is heartening to see that Canada’s world-beating mutual fund fees are falling. Rob Carrick writes in The Globe and Mail that RBC Direct Investing is planning to give DIY investors a significant break in the trailer fees on Royal Bank’s in-house funds. The fee reduction will be worth as much as 90 bps on [...]

[Read more →]

After keeping interest rates steady for just over a year, the Bank of Canada has clearly hinted that interest rates will be going up in the near future:
On balance, the Bank judges that there is an increased risk that future inflation will persist above the 2 per cent inflation target and that some increase in [...]

[Read more →]

TD Canada Trust (TSX: TD) is hoping to attract retail banking customers by offering free iPods. Customers could qualify for one of three offers: a 1GB iPod shuffle (retail value: $89.99), a 2GB iPod Nano (retail value: $164.99) or a 30GB iPod (retail value: $299.95).
The 30GB iPod offer isn’t all that attractive when you consider [...]

[Read more →]

Here are some of the new entrants in the Canadian Personal Finance blogosphere:
Ellen Roseman needs no introduction. She writes a popular personal finance column for the Toronto Star and is the author of six books. She has recently started blogging and like her columns, her blog posts cover consumer affairs and personal finance topics. (RSS [...]

[Read more →]

MarketWatch.com is reporting that Vanguard has filed a registration statement with the SEC for a new ETF that will seek to track the MSCI EAFE Index. Pending approval the ETF will be available in the third quarter of 2007.
Unlike the flood of ETFs that are being introduced all the time, the new ETF will be [...]

[Read more →]

I would like to express many thanks to reader George for pointing out an excellent research article by Malcolm Hamilton. The report, titled The Financial Circumstances of Elderly Canadians and the Implications for the Design of Canada’s Retirement System, delves into data from StatsCan’s Survey of Household spending and compares income and spending patterns of [...]

[Read more →]

The following question is about which type of term life insurance to buy:
We are a married couple (30 & 25 years old) expecting our first child in June. I have mortgage insurance for about $170K. Now we are looking to purchase a term-insurance policy of around $500K. My question is what do you think of [...]

[Read more →]

The following question is from Matthew of Welland, ON:
I am a 21-year-old Student and I’d like to buy some low-risk stocks (basically shares selling for no more than $5). Every online trading site I have found requires a steep deposit of $1000, some near $5000. Do you know of any good/cheap sites or have good [...]

[Read more →]

The StatsCan data referenced in Fidelity’s study, which shows that retiring Canadians would need to replace 75% to 85% of their pre-retirement incomes, is available online. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find support for the assumption that consumption levels remain the same in retirement as in working years.
The StatsCan data breaks down households into three categories based [...]

[Read more →]

On request, Fidelity Canada graciously sent me a copy of their research article (unfortunately, not available online), which concludes that Canadians should be aiming to replace 75% to 85% of their pre-retirement incomes, not 60% to 70% as conventional retirement planning suggests.
Based on StatsCan data, the research assumes that retirees will be spending the same [...]

[Read more →]