Canadian Capitalist

A Canadian Personal Finance Weblog

Entries from May 2008

The High Cost of Eating Out?

May 14th, 2008 · 17 Comments

Yesterday’s Globe and Mail carried a column titled “As food costs skyrocket, the restaurant generation pays a hefty tab”, which wonders how we can afford to eat out so much:
We are the restaurant generation. Many of us have raised our kids to think that eating out in restaurants is no big deal, something you do, [...]

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Tags: Spending

Reader Question on EEM versus CBQ

May 13th, 2008 · 9 Comments

The following question is from AJ:
I am wondering about an online article titled ETF Sector: Slop du jour published in the summer 2007 issue of Canadian Business magazine. The relevant section says: ‘The other building block advisers typically recommend is an emerging markets ETF. John De Goey, a senior adviser at Toronto-based Burgeonvest Securities, cautions [...]

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Tags: ETFs · Mailbag

Tax Implications of Foreign Dividend Investing

May 13th, 2008 · 10 Comments

If you invest in US-listed stocks or foreign stocks that trade on U.S. exchanges as American Depository Receipts (ADRs), you need to be aware of some tax implications:

If you hold American stocks in your investment account, you will be subject to a 15% withholding tax on dividends (for Canadian residents; Check with your broker that [...]

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Tags: Investing · Taxes

The Costs of Currency Hedging: Taxes

May 11th, 2008 · 5 Comments

In an earlier post, we discussed how investing in funds that hedge the exposure to foreign currencies entails a significant cost in terms of a large tracking error. There is a further cost involved in holding these funds: taxes. It is no surprise that currency-neutral funds could generate large taxable distributions - by their very [...]

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Tags: Investing

This and That

May 8th, 2008 · 5 Comments

The Globe and Mail is asking readers to vote for their favourite blogs. If you haven’t done so already, you can vote for your picks here.

This Sunday is Mother’s Day. Unlike a column in the Ottawa Citizen today that suggested organic cleaning supplies (which Mom wouldn’t appreciate that?) Mike from Quest for Four [...]

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Tags: Miscellaneous

The Costs of Currency Hedging

May 7th, 2008 · 27 Comments

With the steep increase in the value of our dollar compared to other currencies, hedging against currency fluctuations has become popular and many US and international equity funds are now available in currency-neutral flavours. There are two schools of thought on currency hedging: one holds that currency fluctuations “cancel out” for a long-term investor and [...]

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Tags: Investing

Are you comfortable with your portfolio?

May 6th, 2008 · 21 Comments

Stocks have staged a significant recovery after falling sharply in the first quarter of 2008. The TSX Composite is up about 19% from its low in January and the S&P 500 is up about 11% from its mid-March swoon. If the lows reached in the first quarter was indeed the market bottom, we can classify [...]

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Tags: Asset Allocation · Investing

Welcome Globe and Mail Readers

May 6th, 2008 · 14 Comments

I picked up a copy of The Globe and Mail newspaper this morning and was pleasantly surprised to see that Rob Carrick and Boyd Erman picked this blog for a column titled “Best of the Blogs”. Other blogs mentioned include The Dividend Guy Blog, Million Dollar Journey, Quest for Four Pillars and Middle Class Millionaire. [...]

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Tags: Miscellaneous

News from the Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting

May 5th, 2008 · 5 Comments

Warren Buffett hosted the annual general meeting for Berkshire Hathaway shareholders in Omaha last weekend. The most anticipated part of the meeting is the Q&A session that Buffett and partner Charlie Munger hold with shareholders and this year the duo lived up to expectations and dished out wit and wisdom:

Jason Zweig of Money magazine reported [...]

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Tags: Investing · Warren Buffett

Historical Dividend Growth

May 4th, 2008 · 18 Comments

Like everyone else, I’m excited when a stock I hold increases the dividend. Dividend increases in recent years have been very strong. TD Bank (TSX: TD), for instance, has raised its dividend from $1.12 per share in 2002 to $2.36 per share today, a compounded annual rate of more than 12% per annum. The joy [...]

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Tags: Investing