Short Takes: Trapped Trillions, Getting the Best Mortgage Rates, and more

The winners of the TurboTax giveaway were

1. Rob
2. Lyne

Congratulations!  Both winners have been contacted by email.  Thanks to all who entered.  On with the interesting articles this week:

Jason Zweig explains why U.S. companies are sitting on mountains of cash they can’t access. This hurts job recovery and explains why some companies borrow money even while they have large cash reserves.

Canadian Mortgage Trends summarizes the Bank of Canada’s study on how people get the best mortgage rates. The most interesting part to me was the fact that new clients get better deals from banks because existing clients face switching costs.

Canadian Couch Potato shifts his gaze to the best way to rebalance a portfolio. Beyond rebalancing with strategically-applied deposits and withdrawals, the number one way that people can benefit from rebalancing is to buy stocks during a crash and sell them during a boom. Sadly, these are exactly the times when investors are most likely to decide not to rebalance.

Big Cajun Man reminds us that if your medical expenses are high enough you can get a break on your income taxes.

Money Smarts says that retirement isn’t all-or-nothing. Don’t give up just because you don’t think you can save up the magic number of dollars you’ve been told you need. A modest retirement is better than a poor retirement.

Million Dollar Journey explains the danger of chasing dividend yields.  Spoiler alert: the danger is loss of capital (dropping stock price) from unsustainable yields.

MoneyNing explains how to blow $10 million in 10 years.

Financial Highway lists 8 degrees that give a poor return on investment.