Short Takes: Identity-Theft Mortgages and more

Gail Vaz-Oxlade offers some straight-from-the-hip advice about not being suckered into taking on loans (in a post no longer online). I found the most interesting part of her advice to readers to be her assertion that you don’t need to keep a secured line of credit backed against your home to protect against identity thieves who try to take a mortgage out in your name. She says that courts side with the original owner. This is an area where it is easy to scare homeowners and I’d like to understand it better.

Rob Carrick advises us to choose an investment strategy that is as rational as we can live with. I’d extend this line of thinking to say that as we learn more about investing and the inevitable ups and downs of the markets, it becomes easier to control emotions and tolerate more financial turbulence.

Big Cajun Man has an important message about periodically changing your online banking passwords.

Million Dollar Journey explains the many tax issues of buying property in Florida. If this doesn’t scare you off buying in Florida, then nothing will.

Money Smarts has a detailed review of Interactive Brokers.

Comments

  1. Mike HolmanMarch 25, 2011 at 12:06 PM

    Thanks for the mention.

    I won't be buying land in FLA or anywhere else, anytime soon.

    ReplyDelete
  2. PreetMarch 29, 2011 at 9:03 AM

    A belated thanks for the mention!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Short Takes: InvestorLine’s HISAs, 24-Hour Trading, and more

I recently moved some cash into BMO InvestorLine’s high-interest savings accounts (HISAs) that are structured as mutual funds.  Their designations are BMT104, BMT109, and BMT114, and they purportedly pay 4.35% annual interest (which they can change whenever they like).  However, the way they report the monthly interest payments is so baffling that I wasn’t able to sort it out in my first 15 minutes of trying.  A further complication is the following text in the HISA description: “The Bank may pay, monthly or quarterly, compensation to your Dealer at an annual rate of up to 0.25% of the daily closing balance in the BMO HISA.”  I couldn’t find any evidence of such a charge, but I haven’t been invested for a full quarter, and I can’t yet say that such a charge isn’t buried somehow in the confusing reporting.  I have more digging to do before I can recommend these HISAs. Here are some short takes and some weekend reading: Preet Banerjee explains the dangers of Robi...
Read more

My Asset Allocation

I’ve resisted discussing my asset allocation for some time, but now is finally the time to describe it and the reasons behind it. I’m not holding it out as a model portfolio; I believe it’s suitable for me and not necessarily anyone else. With that warning, enjoy the discussion and feel free to ask questions or take some pot-shots. The main reason why I haven’t discussed my asset allocation in detail before now is that I don’t want readers to treat it like a model portfolio and follow it blindly. Everyone’s situation is different. The need for variation in asset allocation from one investor to the next usually isn’t huge, but there is no one-size-fits-all portfolio. A secondary reason for keeping my asset allocation to myself is that I can’t be sure I’ll never change it. For example, I recently made the minor change of switching from an ETF of small-cap stocks to an ETF of small-cap value stocks . I don’t have any plans to change my current allocation, but I may think differe...
Read more

Updated Currency Exchange Method at BMO InvestorLine

There is now a more recent update of the method I use for exchanging currency at BMO OnvestorLine . I recently changed the procedure I use to convert large sums between Canadian and U.S. dollars at BMO InvestorLine. The method I use saves a lot of money compared to using the InvestorLine foreign exchange system. The latest change I made eliminated an annoying interest charge that I had to ask to be reversed. Most people don’t realize how expensive it can be to exchange currency. The extra charge banks and brokerages add gets hidden in the exchange rate. To see this extra charge, start by taking a sum in Canadian dollars, say C$10,000, and finding out how many U.S. dollars you can get. Then see what this U.S. amount would get going back to Canadian dollars. Many people might guess they’d get their original C$10,000 back, but they’d be wrong. In a recent test I did at BMO InvestorLine, I’d get back C$9754, for a loss of C$246 in two currency exchanges. That’s $123 per excha...
Read more

Archive

Show more