Short Takes: Chinese Stock Interventions, Future of Robo-Advisors, and more

Here are my posts for the past two weeks:

Pound Foolish

4% Rule Experiments Using Longevity Statistics

Another Take on Retirement Withdrawal Strategies

Here are some short takes and some weekend reading:

Jason Zweig puts the Chinese government’s attempts to control their stock market into historical context. A good quote: “The Chinese government regards markets as clay that can be molded. Instead, markets are like water: They always find their own level, no matter who or what tries to control them.”

Dan Hallett brings us a thoughtful critique of robo-advisors and a look at their future.

Canadian Couch Potato beats up on Tony Robbins’ All-Season Portfolio. Okay, “beats up” is a little strong. He says it’s not really much different from a balanced portfolio. Canadian Couch Potato also has a new white paper discussing how to calculate your portfolio’s return.

Preet Banerjee explains credit card balance protection insurance in his latest Drawing Conclusions video. He sets out to answer whether you should get such insurance. The answer for me personally is an emphatic NO.

Big Cajun Man digs into some Bank of Canada data to see whether Canadians are borrowing to invest or to consume.

Boomer and Echo say that Aeroplan rewards aren’t all that rewarding.

My Own Advisor uses an article by Paul Merriman as an opportunity to revisit his decision not to own bonds.