1. The biggest news this week that will directly affect your personal finances is the Bank of Canada’s decision to hike interest rates. The prime rate at the chartered banks immediately jumped to 6.25% and you will be paying more interest on variable rate mortgages and personal loans. Fortunately, the bank clearly signalled that it is not planning on a long series of rate hikes at this time by suggesting that future increase is likely to be “modest”.
  2. The rate hike was the first increase in interest rates in more than a year. The Toronto Star’s Ellen Roseman writes that the rate hikes are bearable.
  3. The online high interest savings space is getting very crowded. Rob Carrick reports in The Globe and Mail about the new trend of offering “teaser rates” for new contributions.
  4. Paul Farrell tracks “lazy portfolios” designed by David Swensen, William Bernstein and others and regularly reports on their progress in his MarketWatch.com column. In his latest update, most of these boring portfolios have beaten the returns of the S&P 500 over three and five years.