Short Takes: Deferred Pensions and more

Here are my posts for the past two weeks:

It’s Too Late to ‘Re-Evaluate Your Risk Tolerance’

Reader Question: What to do about the Stock Market Crash

Many “Experts” are Wrong about Risk

Here are some short takes and some weekend reading:

Robb Engen at Boomer and Echo has a big choice to make about whether to take a deferred pension or take it’s commuted value. The deciding factors are how long the pension would be deferred and the current health of the pension plan.

Tom Bradley at Steadyhand says that if you choose to get out of the market, expect some tough choices on when to get back in.

Preet Banerjee explains the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) in a 3-minute video.

Ben Felix discusses how to handle the recent market crash. Stay calm and think.

Canadian Mortgage Trends describes the big banks’ mortgage referral relief. It’s hard to see how this differs very much from normal operation for banks. I used to get skip-a-payment offers from my bank when I had a mortgage. I don’t know if I could have done it 6 months in a row, so maybe that’s new. This CBC article confirms that interest accrues on the mortgage during the 6 months without making payments. Mortgage deferral will definitely help many people, but it’s not free. Banks will make money from this.

Big Cajun Man has a guest post from his daughter explaining how COVID-19 is affecting her small business.

Jim Yih at Retire Happy tries to gently steer people away from selling stocks in fear.

The Blunt Bean Counter explains the impact of the coronavirus on small business owners.

Comments

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