- Comments (11)
- Text Size: Down Up
moneysense.ca, 16/07/10
This and That: Dog Days of Summer Edition
- Out with toasters. In with cash, trinkets and baubles. Rob Carrick explained how banks are trying to attract new accounts.
- Years ago Ben Graham identified an investor’s worst enemy: himself. Larry Swedroe is writing an excellent series on psychological factors that affect investment decision making.
- Intuition, discipline, sound fundamentals and expert advice. Home Cents’ Chaya Cooperberg says that successful golfers and investors share many of these traits.
- Forget trinkets and baubles. Newcomers to Canada are the next battleground in banking, says Thicken My Wallet.
- Fans of active management seem to suggest that all you have to do to beat the index is build a portfolio that sufficiently differs from it. If only beating the benchmarks were so easy!
- Blessed by the Potato explains asset allocation to StarCraft fans.
- Larry MacDonald highlights a recent Department of Finance paper that suggests widespread worries over low retirement savings may be overblown.
- It’s a fee. No, it’s a tax. Preet Banerjee and Ellen Roseman weigh in on the expanded Eco Fee program that kicked in on July 1.
- There is little awareness of how attractive Registered Disability Savings Plans are for saving for a loved one’s future. Canadian Financial Stuff featured a guest post that covers the basics of a RDSP and the grants it attracts.
- The Financial Blogger shared how he values his online business.
I’m unable to highlight all the articles worth checking out in my weekly round up but you can check them out through my Twitter feed. Have a great weekend everyone!
moneysense.ca, 16/07/10
Thanks for the mention, it is important for folks who SHOULD use the RDSP to learn as much as possible and put one in place as soon as possible.
Interesting article by the financial blogger.
The Larry MacDonald link is incorrect – I think he added the word “revised” later one.
Thanks Mike. I’ve updated the link.
I like the golf analogy. Good golfers focus on their own game, not the leader board. And they have to keep an emotional equilibrium. That reminds me, I got to get back out on the links sometime …
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Canadian Capitalist, bigcajunman. bigcajunman said: RT @CCapitalist: New Blog Post: This and That: Dog Days of Summer Edition http://bit.ly/cZ2geD , #RDSP mentioned here too! [...]
Rob Carrick’s article seems timely. I’m a BMO customer and they’ve been heavily promoting a new offer to have 20 free ETF trades with new accounts with an initial deposit over $50K. As an existing customer, they gave me a rebate on two of the trades I made in June.
In his article, Mr. Carrick seems to poo-poo the efforts of the Big 5 banks. To me, it all does seem gimmicky and I would rather they just reduced their regular trading fees… But any effort to keep me on as a customer is appreciated, regardless of how cheesy and complicated that their efforts may be.
As far as their approach goes, it’s almost like they took a page out of the Harper Government’s play book. Don’t bother reducing our tax rates – just give us some unnecessarily complicated tax credit programs that require people to jump through hoops and if there’s even the slightest mistake, disqualify them… Then, spend countless millions of dollars advertising these programs and leave out the fine print!
Come to think of it, insurance companies work this way as well… The list goes on and on.
Thanks for the mention CC!
@Phil: I wouldn’t switch just to get some trinkets but last time TD Canada Trust ran this program, I took advantage of it to consolidate all accounts at TD. Having everything in one place makes it very convenient to move money between bank and brokerage accounts.
I agree with your viewpoint that the offers to switch are all very gimmicky. If someone is really intent on switching, I suppose these incentives offer that extra push. But, I think that switching just for the rewards is a bit pointless seeing it takes at least a few hours of work setting everything right. Hopefully, one of the discount brokers will offer a 1% bribe to switch. Now, that would be a sweet incentive
Belated thanks for the link Ram.
Belated thanks for the link.