Canadian Capitalist

The Finance Department’s decision to scrap 40-year mortgages and requiring homeowners to come up with a downpayment of 5% received widespread press coverage. Ellen Roseman of The Star says that the urgent reason is to protect tax payers in default rates increase. The Globe and Mail’s Rob Carrick says that aspiring homeowners need to rediscover [...]

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What the Government giveth, the Government taketh away. Barely two years after allowing amortizations of as long as 40 years, the Finance Department has decided to cut back the longest amortization to 35 years and increased the minimum downpayment to 5%.
Et, tu President’s Choice? The bank with the popular no-fee, free chequing accounts will start [...]

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[This post is part of a group writing project titled "Summer Fun Guide" on the Personal Finance Network. You may also want to check out 10 Free Ways to get into Fitness this Summer, Cool frugal ideas to stay away from the heat, Tips for packing light, especially when flying with young kids, Frugal fun [...]

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ING Direct is the first out of the gate in announcing a no-fee, no-minimum, high-interest Tax Free Savings Account. Also, check out the top ten things to know about the TFSA.
Proponents of active management make a virtue out of necessity (of holding some cash) and claim that their style performs better in down markets. Well, [...]

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The Personal Finance Network is a group of six blogs - three Canadian, two American and one ex-pat Canadian - formed as a forum to exchange ideas. The other members of the group are:

Blunt Money lives in South western U.S. and is currently working on saving & learning about investing, building her small businesses. Her [...]

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Peter Bernstein writes in the New York Times that our assumptions about the future may be wrong and risk management should be a process of dealing with the consequences of being wrong.
Jon Chevreau reports that a million dollars ain’t what it used to be. There are now 1.1 million Canadian families with a net worth [...]

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The biggest news this week is the Bank of Canada’s surprising decision to stand pat on interest rates. Actually, surprising is a bit of an understatement. The markets were shocked and bond yields rallied sharply. Though consumers will pay the same interest on variable-rate mortgages and personal loans that are tied to the prime rate, [...]

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Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs) are great products for investors only if: (1) they have rock-bottom fees, which means that investors keep what they don’t pay and (2) they have low turnover, which allows investors to create portfolios that are highly tax efficient. While they can nominally be called “ETF-based”, two new products fail to sport either [...]

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Ellen Roseman says that dividend tax breaks make blue chips a wise buy.
Rob Carrick recently profiled money manager Francis Chou. Steady Hand’s Tom Bradley wrote that a contrarian bent is why Mr. Chou is a successful money manager.
Money magazine’s financial industry insider on what areas planner can add value and what areas they can’t.
The Dividend [...]

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A new columnist for the New York Times kicked off his column by writing about his five basics for building a solid financial future: (1) Investing is simple (2) It still may be worth paying for help (3) Peers may know more than professionals (4) Everything can (and should) be automated and (5) Have the [...]

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