Short Takes: Pay Equity, Recommending Active Management, and more

Here are my posts for the past two weeks:

New Year’s Financial Resolutions

The Index Card

Questions from Financial Hell

Money Talks

My Portfolio Return for 2015

Here are some short takes and some weekend reading:

Freakonomics has a fascinating podcast on the pay equity gap between men and women. Claudia Goldin, a professor of economics at Harvard University, explains research showing that the gap exists mainly because men and women make different choices in their careers. Popular explanations such as discrimination and pay negotiation are minor factors at most.

Scott Adams briefly describes the situations where he would recommend an active money manager. Don’t drink anything while reading this one. I just about shot water through my nose.

Big Cajun Man reports that TD has added a new $75 fee to transfer money to a TFSA at another financial institution. If I banked at TD, that would definitely be a one-way transfer.

The Blunt Bean Counter describes various reactions among his clients to the higher marginal tax rate for high incomes in Canada. His clients seem even more concerned about potential changes to the small business deduction.

Potato has a decision guide for when to use a TFSA or RRSP. There are a number of individual factors that enter into this decision and Potato does a good job of simplifying the decision process.

Robb at Boomer and Echo digs into his portfolio performance for 2015. In it he mentions that his return target is 8% per year before inflation. I prefer to choose an after-inflation target. What matters to me is purchasing power, not number of dollars. This has the added advantage that I don’t have to guess both inflation and my portfolio’s nominal return.

Canadian Couch Potato reports the returns for his various model portfolios.

My Own Advisor plans to kick three investing habits. But make sure you know what he means by each one. For example, he plans to “stop focusing on portfolio return,” but that doesn’t mean he’s going to keep all his money in GICs.

Million Dollar Journey looks at how dividends are taxed differently in each province.