There are some really good reasons to choose an investment. When we hear things like, “it’s low cost, liquid, diversified, fits with my risk profile and is complementary to my other portfolio holdings”, we shout bravo! Unfortunately we hear lots of other reasons that aren’t so good – here’s a selection: “The people involved in it are […]
Canadians exhibit far too much home bias with their investments – while some home bias is normal and maybe useful if it helps reduce psychological barriers to investing at all, it can be particularly dangerous in Canada not only because of economic and stock market industry concentration but also the high proportion of total market capitalization […]
Good financial planning is about exercising control over income, expenses and investments over time to achieve what you desire in life. Exercising control over those three areas pays off when you focus your efforts pulling levers that have an impact. While people seem to understand what the levers are that both matter and are […]
We and many others spend a lot of time and effort trying to educate people about the importance of keeping costs low as part of a sensible long term investment strategy. The evidence of the importance of costs is so overwhelming that you really have to take your hat off to the marketing departments and sales […]
“When you rely on incentives, you undermine virtues. Then when you discover that you actually need people who want to do the right thing, those people don’t exist because you’ve crushed anyone’s desire to do the right thing with all these incentives.” – Barry Schwartz, psychology professor and author “If I, taking care of everyone’s […]
We believe in an evidence-based, disciplined approach to investing. Once an investment plan is established and courses of action predetermined, market volatility like that which we’ve been experiencing lately won’t phase you at all. Right? Wrong. Having a plan in place doesn’t mean you feel any differently during market swings, but it just might stop you […]
No matter how you feel about investing – whether you think it’s fun, a chore or you are totally indifferent – you can’t neglect it. It’s important for the financial well being of your family, to fund your children’s education, and of course to secure your future and restful retirement! Getting the “Where”, “What”, “How” […]
“Why copper and gold are ready to shine” “Fed rate hike fears ripple through Canada, world….” “Futures higher on Greek deal” “Bill Gross: 6 conditions for a bond crisis” “Traders don’t want to hear this problem with banks” “This should concern every oil bull in the world” “Wealth secrets of the one percent – how […]
“Michelangelo was asked by the pope about the secret of his genius, particularly how he carved the statue of David, largely considered the masterpiece of all masterpieces. His answer was: “It’s simple. I just remove everything that is not David.” – from Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s Antifragile I am currently reading this book. You may be […]
And I don’t mean sharing ice cream and I don’t mean little sisters…..I mean family budgets…… “Budgeting”, “tracking expenses”, “generally trying to figure out where the money goes”, whatever you want to call it…….everybody feels it should be important but it perpetually rides the to do list. Or else budgeting for some reason suddenly becomes relevant or […]