Short Takes: Shaking Up Canada’s Mutual Fund Industry, Brokerage Rankings, and more

I gave a warning about misusing TFSAs this week:

Two Common Misconceptions about TFSAs

Here are my short takes and some weekend reading:

 Tom Bradley at Steadyhand makes a strong case that the mutual fund industry has lost its chance to create practices that are friendly to investors. He says that regulators need to cause a transition in the industry that is “jolting, expensive and soul searching.”

Million Dollar Journey compares the top Canadian brokerages that offer U.S. Dollar RRSPs. He compares them on fees and on how well they handle currency exchanges between Canadian and U.S. dollars. The Globe and Mail has also come out with its 2013 ranking of online brokerages.

Larry MacDonald explains why tax-loss selling is not as valuable as it appears to be.

Retire Happy Blog does a good job of interpreting the latest SPIVA scorecard comparing active versus passive investing. The 5-year results look quite dismal for active investors.

Canadian Couch Potato explains the hidden cost of bid-ask spreads when trading. I wrote about this topic myself in the early days of this blog.

Big Cajun Man takes a look at the “4% rule” for drawing an income from your savings in retirement.

My Own Advisor gives us a primer on TFSAs.

Comments

  1. Big Cajun ManNovember 22, 2013 at 9:38 AM

    Thanks for the inclusion this week, the 4% rule seems to be a lively subject.

    ReplyDelete
  2. My Own AdvisorNovember 26, 2013 at 8:03 PM

    Thanks for the mention Michael!
    Mark

    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