Canadian Capitalist

If you are thinking about buying a HDTV in the near future, this report in The New York Times suggests waiting till the New Year to take advantage of even lower prices.
The Globe and Mail reports that a serious security breach has occurred at the discount broker TradeFreedom. The report mentions that the company has [...]

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Mike of Four Pillars blog commented that the RESP information on the Government of Canada website that I referred to in yesterday’s post has not been updated with RESP changes introduced in the 2007 Federal Budget. As the RESP rules are confusing and widely misinterpreted at the best of times, I hope to provide comprehensive [...]

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TD Waterhouse has announced a new commission schedule effective September 4, 2007:
Clients with household assets of $100,000 or more with TD Waterhouse Discount Brokerage will pay a flat rate of $9.99 per Canadian or US equity trade.
If you qualify for the lower commissions, TD Waterhouse becomes the best choice for consolidating all your brokerage accounts. [...]

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Many readers have e-mailed me asking about how to set up self-directed RESPs. We’ve discussed RESPs in many earlier posts and you can find everything you need to know about RESPs and the Canada Education Savings Grant (CESG) on the Government of Canada website. For the purposes of this post, I’ll assume that you are [...]

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The following question (slightly edited) was a follow-up to yesterday’s post:
If I buy into the merits of passive investing, do you think it makes sense to sell the 40 or so stock holdings in my present portfolio and start over with ETFs? Should I instead keep the best Canadian and American equities in place [...]

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Reader C.G. asked the following question (slightly edited) on asset allocation:
I have recently taken over management of my investment portfolio and will convert it over time to an ETF-based portfolio. Can you direct me to sources that will provide me with a proper understanding of asset allocation, stocks-vs.-bonds etc.? Most books are very informative but [...]

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Markets have somewhat recovered from the steep fall last week. If you panicked at the sell-off, now would be a good time to revisit your asset allocation and confirm that you are comfortable with the risks you are taking. Your portfolio could have deviated significantly from your target because some asset classes that have outperformed [...]

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I use PayPal to receive payment from sponsors on this website and small coding projects for clients. Almost all the payments are received in US dollars but transferring funds into your Canadian-based US dollar account from PayPal is not easy. Exchanging US funds into Canadian dollars in PayPal is not ideal because PayPal charges a [...]

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Reader LR wants to know whether he should be buying index mutual funds or ETFs for his portfolio:
I am in my late twenties and after years of studies (engineering and masters), I try to follow most financial advice and good sense. My problem is investing. I tried unsuccessfully to find a good financial adviser and [...]

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I asked reader Dan if he would be willing to share his thoughts on Credential Direct, a brokerage with which he is familiar and I am not. Dan wrote back with the following review (Thanks Dan!). You can also check out the reviews of other discount brokers: Qtrade, Questrade, RBC Direct, TD Waterhouse, BMO InvestorLine [...]

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