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Short Takes: Investing Myths, Discount Broker Rankings, and more

Don’t forget to enter the draw for a copy of John Robertson’s new book The Value of Simple. Here are my posts for this week:

The Point of Diversification

Book Giveaway: The Value of Simple

Future Shop Looks Out for Its Customers

Here are some short takes and some weekend reading:

Tony Robbins does a great job explaining the 9 most common investing myths. The first few are particularly well-written. These are some things I wish I had known in my youth.

 Rob Carrick has published his 16th annual ranking of online brokers. I’m glad to see that my choice of BMO InvestorLine is still high in the rankings.

The Blunt Bean Counter gives some detailed instructions on how to properly do some tax-loss selling. He also discusses flow-through shares. This interests me because I’m having a good year financially, and looking at the total tax listed on my pay stub is painful. However, I’m not sure if it is too late for the 2014 tax year, and I’m not sure if I want more risk and complexity in my life. If I just procrastinate for another month, I’m sure to be too late and won’t have to think about this any more.

 The Reformed Broker reports that Jon Stewart now regrets having abused Jim Cramer. For those who missed it, Jon Stewart interviewed Jim Cramer on the Daily Show some time ago and ambushed Cramer with what amounted to an accusation that Cramer played a role in the 2008-2009 financial crisis. Of course, even if Cramer is innocent of this charge, he’s still guilty of encouraging ordinary people to become stock pickers and offers wildly overconfident advice on many individual stocks.

 My Own Advisor has a very good guest article about making good decisions that reduce risk and improve expected long-term returns.

Potato is pleased with the initial reviews of his new financial book The Value of Simple.

 Big Cajun Man wrote about the future possibility of TFSA retirement welfare bums amassing huge TFSAs but still collecting the Guaranteed Income Supplement (GIS). I wrote some time ago about possible changes to GIS rules to take TFSA assets into account.

 Million Dollar Journey updates some model portfolios with some new ETFs.

Boomer and Echo considers whether investors are willing to pay for up-front advice.

 Scott Ronalds at Steadyhand uses an example case to illustrate some sound personal finance and investing advice.

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Comments

  1. My Own AdvisorNovember 28, 2014 at 6:53 AM

    Thanks for the mention, I like Larry's articles, need to read that one this weekend Michael.

    Cheers,
    Mark

    ReplyDelete
  2. Alan W.November 28, 2014 at 7:12 AM

    I think your view is correct, there will be GIS rule changes to "defend average Canadians from wealthy Canadians and their loop holes", I do love the main stream medias ability to turn things into crisis.

    ReplyDelete
  3. The Blunt Bean CounterNovember 28, 2014 at 7:20 AM

    Hey Michael,

    Thx for the mention. Flow through shares as you note, are somewhat complex as they provide tax benefits with risk, but the downside risk is partially protected by the tax benefits making them hard to analyze. Year end purchases can even be more complicated, as the options for purchases are limited and with the drop in price of oil recently, you would have to analyze if the flow through reflects the price drop if the flow through is oil dominated.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Michael JamesNovember 28, 2014 at 7:40 AM

      @Mark G.: Thanks for the additional information. You're definitely tempting me to look into flow-through shares.

      Delete
  4. AnonymousNovember 28, 2014 at 7:49 AM

    The Tony Robbins links is wrong

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Michael JamesNovember 28, 2014 at 8:04 AM

      @Anonymous: Thanks very much for letting me know. I've fixed it.

      Delete
  5. Robb EngenNovember 28, 2014 at 8:59 AM

    That was a good article by Tony Robbins, which is contrary to some of the reviews I've read about his new book. I'll have to check it out myself to see if he's a guru or a charlatan. Thanks for the mention!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Michael JamesNovember 28, 2014 at 9:05 AM

      @Robb: I'll read his book at some point as well. No doubt I'll find some things I like and others I don't. Hopefully, I'll actually learn something new.

      Delete
  6. TawcanNovember 28, 2014 at 2:56 PM

    Really enjoyed reading Robbins' article. Thanks for sharing.

    ReplyDelete
  7. PotatoNovember 28, 2014 at 10:52 PM

    Thanks for the review and the mention!

    ReplyDelete

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