In a recent column, The Globe & Mail’s Rob Carrick (see Beware the limitations of buying the index, May 11, 2012) pointed out that investing in just the TSX Composite index might leave an investor with an unbalanced portfolio because of the index’s concentration in just three sectors: financials, energy and materials. The criticism is [...]
Recently, I had a chance to chat with Mary Anne Wiley, head of BlackRock Canada on what the 800 pound Gorilla in the ETF marketplace plans to do after the blockbuster acquisition of the #2 player Claymore Investments was recently finalized. After the acquisition closed, iShares rebranded all Claymore products (ticker symbols remained the same) [...]
If you are a DIY investor who holds a brokerage account, the reality is that your portfolio is split between many accounts – his and hers RRSPs, his and hers TFSAs, joint or his and hers CAD and USD investment accounts and if you have kids, perhaps a few more RESP accounts. Typically, discount brokers [...]
There is much enthusiasm among investors for dividend stocks these days. Some of the enthusiasm may even be warranted based on studies that have shown that dividend paying stocks have higher returns than non-dividend payers even though dividend payers have a lower standard deviation. But there are also a lot of misconceptions about dividend payers. [...]
Horizons launched a whole slew of covered call ETFs last year of which the Horizons Enhanced Income Equity ETF (HEX) turned out to be the most popular. Enticed by the initial yield of about 20%, investors purchased as much as $247 million worth of HEX last year. The ETF invests in an equally-weighted portfolio of [...]
Background: I started the Sleepy Portfolio in 2005 to benchmark my personal portfolio, which at that time was mostly invested in individual stocks. The portfolio started off with an initial outlay of $100,000 and no new money has been added since. This is not a model portfolio; it reflects investment returns that can be obtained [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
In a column in Fortune magazine (see Warren Buffett: Why stocks beat gold and bonds), Warren Buffett explained why he prefers stocks over cash, bonds and gold. It is true that cash does not fluctuate in nominal value but its returns are close to zero after one accounts for inflation and taxes. At today’s low [...]
BMO launched its Covered Call Canadian Banks ETF (TSX: ZWB) in January 2011. The ETF immediately started attracting investor attraction. Investors were mesmerized by the initial annualized yield of 10% and piled money into the fund: among ETFs launched in 2011, ZWB ranked first by Assets under Management by a wide margin. Interestingly, the second [...]
