“I’m nearing retirement and the stock market is at an all-time high….what should I do?”

On October 19 Fortune published an article with the headline: “30 Years after Black Monday, the Dow Hits an All-Time High”.  The article goes on to speculate: “only time will tell if we have another crash ahead of us. But in the meantime, investors seem to think that skepticism and caution may be just what we […]

Banning Investment Commissions – moving beyond “if” towards “how”

Yesterday the Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) released a much awaited consultation paper, “Consultation on the Option of Discontinuing Embedded Commissions”.  We say “much awaited” half tongue-in-cheek!  Much in the same way that a large number of Canadians have no idea how or how much they pay for investment products / advice, we expect even fewer are […]

4 Important Psychological Biases for Investors to Understand

In our last post we highlighted that behaviour might just be the biggest source of trouble for investors.  People just aren’t psychologically wired to make investment decisions that are good for them and often do things that are potentially harmful.  Our brains have evolved to create protection mechanisms that in many instances are helpful – just not […]

More big changes coming for Canadian investors – who will be the winners and losers?

Transparency, education and competition should drive better outcomes for investors.  Recent enhancements put in place by the Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) have sought to better align the interests of investors and the investment industry that serves them.  Initiatives like the Customer Relationship Model are designed to increase transparency and to help investors make more informed decisions about […]

Canadian investor survey – encouraging and worrying at the same time….

The Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) just released its 2016 CSA Investor Education Study.  Some of the findings are encouraging while others are a little bit worrying.  There are clearly still key gaps in investor knowledge and behaviour.  For example while many investors rely exclusively on advisors for investment information and knowledge very few investors actually check […]