The increase in the age of eligibility of the Old Age Security program in Budget 2012 was widely telegraphed in advance but there were still a few surprises. Here are the other major initiatives introduced by Finance Minister Jim Flaherty in Budget 2012: Travellers’ Exemptions Increased The travellers’ exemption is a dollar limit that Canadian [...]
As I am preparing my income taxes, I am reminded yet again of the trap that the Canada Revenue Agency has set for taxpayers in the T1 General form with this innocuous question: “Did you own or hold foreign property at any time in 2011 with a total cost of more than CAN$100,000? (See “Foreign [...]
TD Canada Trust has recently released an update to its mobile app that now allows clients to place trade orders from their smartphone. The TD Canada Mobile App previously provided features such as viewing bank and brokerage account balances, bill payment, Interac e-Transfer, fund transfer between TD accounts, stock quotes etc. TD Waterhouse has now [...]
Financial Advisor Carl Richards explained how to think about portfolio diversification in a Bucks blog post in The New York Times. Recently, Direct Energy, which rents water heaters in Ontario, managed to yet again anger customers with a confusingly-worded agreement that would impose stiff buyout fees for clients who want to switch to a competitor. [...]
Since my previous update, the Sleepy Mini Portfolio has gained 5.4 percent. About half of the gains can be attributed to the S&P 500, which is up 9 percent in Canadian dollar terms in the past quarter alone. Long time readers will recall that the Sleepy Mini Portfolio started out with an initial investment of [...]
