Short Takes: Fake News and more

Here are my posts for the past two weeks:

Reader Question about Bucket Investing Plan in Retirement

Should You Withdraw the Commuted Value of Your Defined-Benefit Pension?

The Cost of Longevity Risk

Here are some short takes and some weekend reading:

Julian Matthews explains why we’re susceptible to fake news and what we can do about it.

Robb Engen at Boomer and Echo has made the leap to one-ticket investing using Vanguard’s 100% stocks ETF (VEQT). A huge upside with this approach is its extreme simplicity. The downside for large RRSPs is U.S. foreign withholding taxes. By holding U.S. ETFs directly in my RRSP instead of VEQT, I estimate that I save a little over $500 per year for each $100,000 in my RRSP. To save this money, I have the joy of managing multiple ETFs and doing currency exchanges using Norbert’s Gambit. Whether this extra work is worth it depends on portfolio size.

Nick Maggiulli calls out some instances of financial pornography and explains why it’s not going away any time soon.

Ellen Roseman interviews Preet Banerjee to discuss his 5 simple personal finance rules. I enjoyed his story about how his first media exposure majorly pissed off his then employer. His new venture Money Gaps sounds like an interesting way to drive more solid financial advice to those with modest portfolios. Canadian Couch Potato also interviews Preet to discuss problems in the financial advice industry and what Preet is doing to help fix these problems.

Canadian Couch Potato explains what can happen when you trade stocks or ETFs close to their dividend dates. The consequences are generally minor, but sometimes moving your trade date by a day can give a small tax benefit.