Short Takes: Readers Vote, Hating Debt, and more

top Canadian finance blogsJeremy at Modest Money hosted a poll of the best Canadian financial blogs. Thanks to all who voted for this blog.

Preet Banerjee did a very interesting TED Talk about changing the way we think about debt.

Tom Bradley at Steadyhand sees risk and valuation problems with dividend-based portfolios.

Money Smarts believes open houses are useful for selling your home even if some real estate agents don’t think so.

My Own Advisor tackles the question of how big a portfolio needs to be before it makes sense to go from mutual funds to ETFs. The answer depends on your costs and trading patterns. The time to switch is when ETF MERs and trading costs add up to less than the MER costs of the mutual funds. This will depend on how much you pay for trades, how often you trade, and other factors.

Big Cajun Man has been writing about his TD RDSP troubles long enough that TD tracked him down to talk about it.

Million Dollar Journey takes a look at how to optimize your split between RRSP and TFSA contributions. A good starting point is to just save something somewhere. Once you get the saving habit you can worry about optimizing where you’re saving the money.

Comments

  1. Big Cajun ManFebruary 15, 2013 at 6:58 AM

    I suspect they wanted to do more than "talk" with me, however I stood my ground and they did agree that their system is "... flawed ...". Thanks for the inclusion!

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnatoliNFebruary 15, 2013 at 8:48 AM

    voted for your blog ... look forward to the weekend :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Michael JamesFebruary 15, 2013 at 9:08 AM

      @AnatoliN: I'm sure the vote will help your weekend :-)

      Delete

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