Short Takes: Self-Driving Cars, Mortgage Complaints, and more

Here are my posts for the past two weeks:

Phishing for Phools

How Much Do You Have to Learn to be a Good Investor?

Replies to Emails I usually Ignore

4 Reasons to Pay Cash for Cars

Here are some short takes and some weekend reading:

Mr. Money Mustache describes his cross-country road trip in a Tesla that drove itself. He also takes a look at how this technology will transform our world.

Canadian Mortgage Trends explains the top three complaints people have about their mortgages.

Canadian Couch Potato offers some clear thinking about target date funds.

Big Cajun Man has some ideas for tricking yourself into saving some money.

Potato looks at the risks and rewards of the “hot potato” investing strategy. It’s not for me but it does illustrate how tempting such strategies can look.

Boomer and Echo give a detailed example of one way to draw an income from your savings in retirement.

My Own Advisor asks what your car says about you. To me cars are nothing more than a form of transportation that say nothing about me or anyone else.

Comments

  1. Big Cajun ManApril 23, 2016 at 7:37 AM

    Thanks for the inclusion this week, and congrats on the 6 birdies too!

    ReplyDelete
  2. SSTApril 23, 2016 at 9:32 AM

    Cars: agree with your position. However, it's painfully obvious as to why people tie their identity to their car -- one of the pillars of the modern North American society is the automobile; a car equates Freedom, right? My take...more often than not driving an automobile severely distorts said driver's mentality and/or hyper-accentuates negative/primordial traits. Great for transportation and hauling (but only after a higher limit of range/weight) but most likely detrimental to the over-all health of a community.

    Don't believe me, watch 'Christine'. ;)

    (Interesting to note that over the last few decades, foreign car manufacturers pursued greater fuel efficiency while US builders pursued greater engine power.)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Michael JamesApril 23, 2016 at 5:57 PM

      @SST: Perhaps cars will become more reasonable when we stop owning them individually and we just order self-driving cars from roving fleets.

      Delete
  3. GarthApril 23, 2016 at 1:13 PM

    Michael. Here is an article by Michael Kitces that you and your readers will find interesting.

    https://www.kitces.com/blog/best-retirement-income-strategy-how-do-you-measure/

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Michael JamesApril 23, 2016 at 5:56 PM

      @Garth: That's an interesting article, but I'm not sure why the comparisons use different spending levels. Another consideration is that today's below average dividend yields lead to a lower estimated future real stock return than we've seen in the past. I seriously doubt that a 6% spending level (plus inflation) is sustainable.

      Delete
  4. My Own AdvisorApril 28, 2016 at 6:20 AM

    I wonder how long it might be before people just don't own cars anymore? I could see this trend happening in more urban areas over time. As long as we work, we need one.

    Thanks for the mention about my fun post :)
    Mark

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Michael JamesApril 28, 2016 at 7:49 AM

      @Mark: One estimate I saw said that by 2030, it would be illegal to "pilot" your own car on public roads and that few people would own car any more.

      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