Canadian Capitalist

The fall of Bear Stearns is the biggest business story of the year by far and many books will likely be written on the topic. The Wall Street Journal weighs in with a three part series (Missed Opportunities, Run on the Bank and Dear or No Deal?) on the swift collapse of the brokerage firm.
The [...]

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The following question is from Ed, who wants to switch from index mutual funds to ETFs:
Many years ago I set up my RRSP using TD’s low MER e-Series index mutual funds. I learned quite awhile ago that most actively managed funds cannot beat the indexes over the long haul. I’m now thinking of [...]

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Sometime back, I wrote how the urge to keep up with our friends and neighbours drives our spending habits. In a humorous column in The Financial Post (available here), author Neil Steinberg writes:
Call it envy. Call it competitiveness. Call it a desire to meet community standards. But the need to keep up with the Joneses [...]

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Yesterday’s post elicited a comment from a reader who wondered if it’s worth joining Costco because their prices aren’t always the cheapest and they offer a limited selection of merchandise. We have been Costco members for more than 10 years now and looking into Microsoft Money reports, we have spent more than two-and-a-half times at [...]

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I don’t think it is all that difficult to save money. You can find tons of money saving ideas in books and on the internet but the trick is figuring out which ones work for you. In my opinion, the best saving ideas are those that require a one-time effort and takes advantage of our [...]

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Jason Zweig stresses the importance of asset and time diversification when U.S. equity returns are puny as they are now.
Tips to redeem airline rewards for free flights from the Globe and Mail. One sample tip: book 354 days in advance!
Tim Cestnick on ways to pass the cottage on to the kids.
Jon Chevreau reviewed the movie [...]

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GK sent me an e-mail noting that E*Trade has joined TD Waterhouse and Qtrade in offering some form of “wash trade” capability when buying and selling US dollar stocks in a RRSP. A slightly edited version of GK’s note is posted below with permission:
I followed your post about Questrade allowing customers to hold US Dollar [...]

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The following query is from JU (slightly edited):
I presently have all my investments in mutual funds (locked-in and regular RRSP) and would like to switch to ETFs. I don’t believe there are any DSCs or fees payable if I sell these funds. My question is this: What is your strategy for ETFs as far as [...]

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Many readers are interested in learning more about the possibility of capturing exposure to most world markets in one fund through the Vanguard FTSE All-World Ex-US ETF, which trades on the AMEX under the ticker symbol VEU. The Vanguard website says that the FTSE All-World Ex-US Index tracks the performance of approximately 2,200 stocks in [...]

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Globe and Mail columnist Fabrice Taylor points out the games that income trusts play when it comes to distributable cash.
With the long weekend coming up, here’s some fuel saving tips from Shell. Except that Money magazine says some of those tips are myths.
The Star says that Canadian banks are expected to take a break this [...]

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