Canadian Capitalist

Taxes have a huge impact on investment returns. The Bogleheads Guide to Investing cites a study by Charles Schwab that found that for the 30-year period from 1963 to 1992, $1 invested in U.S. equities would have grown to $21.89 in a tax-deferred account but only to $9.87 in a taxable account for a taxpayer [...]

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A good definition of efficient markets can be found in a paper by Eugene Fama titled Random Walks in Stock Market Prices:
An “efficient” market is defined as a market where there are large numbers of rational profit-maximizers actively competing, with each trying to predict future market values of individual securities, and where important current information [...]

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The Dividend Guy blogged about his top investing mistakes and challenged other bloggers to do the same. Over the years, I’ve committed my share of mistakes and have frequently blogged about them. Regular readers know of blunders such as having too much tied up in employer stock or buying into labour-sponsored funds for the “tax [...]

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Hedge funds employ a variety of management strategies but share some common characteristics - they are structured as limited partnerships frequently marketed to “sophisticated investors”, have a fee structure of a management fee plus a share of the profits (Warren Buffett derisively calls them the 2-and-20 crowd) and are poorly regulated and secretive about their [...]

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Equity markets have recovered somewhat from the deep losses experienced in January and the middle of March and the performance of the Sleepy Portfolio during the first quarter of 2008 reflects that. The portfolio ended the quarter with a small loss of 0.7%. Bonds (XSB and XRB) were the only winners but equities fell slightly [...]

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The Financial Post profiled six of the estimated 1,600 retail investors whose savings were frozen when the asset-backed commercial paper market froze last summer. These retail investors have hundreds of thousands of dollars, often their life savings, tied up in paper they can’t sell anymore. The rest of us learn some valuable lessons from the [...]

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The Wall Street Journal calls the past nine years as the ‘lost decade’ for stocks:
The stock market is trading right where it was nine years ago. Stocks, long touted as the best investment for the long term, have been one of the worst investments over the nine-year period, trounced even by lowly Treasury bonds.
The Standard [...]

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It is a sad, if familiar tale. A storied, blue chip company collapses and tales emerge of employees whose life savings have been wiped out. The same script is being replayed in the stunning collapse of Bear Stearns (BSC), where employees apparently owned a third of the company.
Bear’s employees would have had every reason to [...]

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I’ve written many posts about the investment pitfalls of the Smith Manoeuvre but not being a tax expert, I’ve skipped over the other risks involved in implementing the strategy. A column in the weekend’s Toronto Star quotes a tax specialist warning against the “dark side of the Smith Manoeuvre”:
According to White [the tax specialist], the [...]

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RESPs are already the best way to save for a child’s education. In most instances, a RESP beats out other alternatives - it is better than a RRSP, it will be better than the TFSA and it is certainly better than saving in a taxable account. Bill C-253 introduced by MP Dan McTeague proposes to [...]

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