Here are some of the posts published last month that generated some interesting discussions:

  1. Bucking the conventional wisdom on a fixed-rate mortgage: With bond yields increasing of late, the window on the historically narrow gap that we saw last month between fixed-rate and variable-rate mortgages may be shutting fast. The gap has already increased to 1.04% from the 0.70% we observed last month and a lot of readers concurred with Ben’s opinion that it may be one of those rare occasions when fixed-rate mortgage might be the way to go.
  2. Portfolio Size for Choosing ETFs over Index Funds: My conclusion that ETFs are suitable for larger portfolios and mutual funds for smaller ones came in for some discussion and others felt that under certain circumstances, ETFs can be cheaper for smaller portfolios as well.
  3. When Gurus Gather…: It is interesting to recall the fate of past prognosticators in the context of a gathering of three bears in a Toronto event.
  4. Mortgage Insurance versus Life Insurance: Financial Highway’s Ray showed why mortgage insurance is a lousy idea for homeowners.
  5. Claymore Broad Emerging Markets ETF (CWO): CWO seemed to be an interesting ETF until readers pointed out a few issues that made it not so attractive anymore.

I’d also like to thank our top five referrers:

  1. Million Dollar Journey
  2. Four Pillars
  3. Canadian Mortgage Trends
  4. Michael James on Money
  5. Canadian Dream: Free at 45

Giveaway:

Since I liked When Markets Collide (read review here), I asked the publisher McGraw-Hill if they’d be willing to provide some copies for our readers. They have generously agreed to provide six copies of Mohamed El-Erian’s book for a giveaway. But wait, there’s more! Margot Bai, the author of Spend Smarter, Save Bigger (read review here) is donating one copy of her book for the giveaway. So, altogether we are giving away seven books and entering is, as always, super easy:

Just leave any comment to this post before Tuesday, May 19, 2009 at 8:00 P.M. EDT and I’ll pick seven names at random from all entries. I would really appreciate it if you subscribe to the blog in your favourite RSS reader or e-mail but it is optional. One entry per person per e-mail id. If you receive this post via e-mail, click on the heading to visit the website, scroll down to the end of the page, type in your comment under “Leave a Comment” and click “Submit”. Good luck!