What’s in a name?

According to a 2014  Advocis sponsored  PwC report there are approximately 100,000 financial advisors in Canada (yes, 1 for every 350 man, woman and child).  Of those, 44% are insurance based, 33% non-bank dealer based, 13% bank based and 10% at full service brokers.  (The report only lists 450 “fee-only financial planners”). Business models run the […]

Beware the man bearing low risk stable returns

An “article” in a leading Canadian financial daily last week urged investors to consider alternative investments such as hedge funds, private debt funds, factoring funds, etc in order to achieve solid investment returns without taking on high risk.  Once the privilege of the ultra-rich, such investment opportunities are now becoming increasingly available to a larger swath of the […]

Fee transparency bad for investors? Unlikely….

Canadian securities regulators are currently going through the process of trying to reform our investment industry practices for the benefit of investors.  Specifically they are trying to address fee and performance transparency and are also thinking about implementing a “best interest” standard for financial advisors in Canada.  I know, the idea that advisors should work in […]

Dimensional founder and co-CEO David Booth wins Lifetime Achievement Award

Most sensible surveys of peer-reviewed academic evidence will conclude that investors are best served with low cost, well-diversified investment strategies.  Practically what that means for most investors is investing in passive low-cost market access products like index mutual funds and exchange traded funds (ETFs) based on simple commercial indices like the S&P500 for US stocks, the S&P/TSX […]