There are a lot of people out there who are risk-averse (well, there are a lot of people out there who don’t understand how to analyze risk at all), and the idea of purchasing an individual stock (e.g. Apple or Google or Barrick Gold or whatever) really freaks them out. This is one of the reasons why so many people invest in mutual funds or ETFs – their bankers and financial advisors tell them that the key to success (and to not losing money) is diversification. Continue Reading…

If you’re an employee in Canada, you contribute to the Canada Pension Plan. And you do so by law, regardless of whether you care about it, or whether you think it’ll actually be there for you when you retire. Admittedly, the idea of the government paying you a pension when you retire might give you warm fuzzies, but the question remains – will that money actually be there when you retire? – and if it is, given the amount of inflation we’re currently experiencing, is it going to be anywhere close to enough to live on? Continue Reading…

Debt is an enormous psychological burden that influences life’s major decisions. It’s why so many people stay committed to jobs that are unfulfilling in cities they detest under conditions they find disheartening.

-Simon Black

Err…? What the…?

In a recent video post from the Financial Times¹, they discuss how recently a small number of investors lent money to the US government at a loss – meaning that the short-term US bills had a negative interest rate. I mean, in real-terms (with inflation factored in), US bills have had negative real returns for a long time now, but according to the Financial Times, these bills were sold with a negative interest rate off the bat. Continue Reading…

I don’t know how much ‘finance’ or ‘investing’ type reading you do on the Internet, but I do a lot. Every day. I can’t even tell you how many comments (hundreds? thousands?) I’ve seen over the past 2-3 years that look like this: Continue Reading…

The first thing investors generally ask me is: “Aren’t alternative investments risky?” This reflects the widespread practice of equating “alternative” with “exotic”. It is true that many alternative investments are exotic and risky, just as many “traditional” investments such as small-cap stocks, options and junk bonds are extremely volatile. Risk and volatility are certainly elements of an investment that must be considered, but not simply assumed by the asset class they occupy.

via financialpost.com

Are alternative investments finally going to make it to the mainstream? Here’s hoping.

One in four [28%] Canadians flunked a test on the new Tax Free Savings Accounts, failing to answer any of five questions on TFSAs, according to a poll released by Mackenzie Investments today.

via network.nationalpost.com

This is absolutely brutal. Canadians: learn about TFSAs and take advantage of it.