Canadian Capitalist

The following question is from Todd, who is in his early thirties and wonders how he should invest a lump sum amount:
I have a significant amount of money in an RRSP - $60K, but this is mostly in cash. Each pay cheque more money is being added (matched by employer). How would you go about [...]

[Read more →]

According to a story in The Globe and Mail, principal-protected notes (PPNs) are selling like hot cakes and Bay Street is doing what it does best: cranking out new products to meet the demand. I can’t understand investor enthusiasm for these products:

They are complex. Try reading the prospectus for the TD Dividend Income Fund-Linked PPN [...]

[Read more →]

Vitaliy Katesenelson reckons that equity markets will stay range-bound for another decade or so. What does an era of very modest returns signify for passive investors?

How confident are you in your stock-picking skills? A range-bound market still follows the logic that investors, on average, will earn average returns less expenses. If stocks barely keep up [...]

[Read more →]

In his book, Active Value Investing, Vitaliy Katsenelson makes a compelling argument that equity markets are now trapped in a range-bound market that he estimates will last until 2020 or so. In the first part of the book, he makes the case that secular bull markets are usually followed by secular range-bound markets, in which [...]

[Read more →]

Jeremy Siegel holds forth on what he thinks is ahead for financial markets.
Ellen Roseman points out that you could be dinged for fraud committed using your debit card and offers some tips to deter fraud.
Thicken My Wallet recently posted about his experience with debit card fraud.
Jon Chevreau argues that most average investors should use a [...]

[Read more →]

Today is one of the days I struggled to think of something meaningful to post and came up empty. But, I do have a couple of interesting websites that could keep you occupied for many hours:
Jason Zweig is one my favourite columnists and I just got my hands on his latest book Your Money & [...]

[Read more →]

If you were to pick one culprit to explain the dismal returns experienced by the average mutual fund investor, what would it be? While sales charges and high MERs typically shave off 2% to 3% and taxes take their own toll on returns, the worst culprit was identified by Benjamin Graham:
The investor’s chief problem — [...]

[Read more →]

For the second year running, Qtrade has won the top honours in The Globe & Mail ranking of Canadian discount brokers. Fourteen brokers (Questrade and TradeFreedom are new entrants in this year’s survey) were ranked on seven criteria ranging from Fees and Commissions (the lower the better) to Security. The other spots in the top [...]

[Read more →]

I requested author Vitaliy Katsenelson for a copy of his book Active Value Investing (affiliate link) for review and I just finished reading the first chapter yesterday. So far, the book (website) is living up to my expectations (based on Vitaliy’s columns in The Financial Times) of a scholarly and insightful work.
Somehow, the publisher [...]

[Read more →]

I use Microsoft Money Deluxe 2006 extensively to track our spending and investments and every year, I check to see if it worth upgrading to the latest version. Microsoft gives users an opportunity to try the full version (download here) of Money for free for 60 days. (If you have already installed an older version [...]

[Read more →]