Hot Off the Web First on the cost associated with funds, the Globe’s Rob Carrick discusses Trading Expense Ratio in “TERs: Another fund cost to consider” This is an annual cost to you on top of the MER charged by your fund, and can eat 0.06-0.9% of your assets per year. (Actually it is much […]

Hot Off the Web Globe and Mail’s Rob Carrick gives a positive review to the revamped Investor Education Fund website in “Revamped website gives the straight goods on investing”  This website is funded by the settlements of those who broke securities laws. The website’s span includes even the less sophisticated beginning investors like high school […]

Hot Off the Web Chevreau in the Financial Post’s “Common sense says bet on Bogle” reviews the conflicting advice one gets when reading financial how-to books. He contrasts the advice offered in Bogle’s “The little book of common sense investing” with Schiff’s “Crash Proof: How to profit from the coming economic collapse”, and comes down […]

Hot Off the Web Life settlements , also discussed here in the March 7, 2007 blog, are expanded on the WSJ’s “Putting your life insurance on the block” After running through the caveats associated with life settlements, it then suggests options to consider if you no longer can afford or need the policy. Options mentioned […]

Hot Off the Web This week’s Barron’s feature articles are focused on retirement. In “Retirement: The new math” “volatility budgeting” (volatility is risk defined as standard deviation of return) is described as the new analytical tool replacing the old 60:40 stock: bond portfolio asset allocation. It starts with the investor’s risk tolerance from which the […]

Hot Off the Web In the wake of last week’s stock market volatility, you would expect lots of articles to address the value of diversified portfolios for risk reduction. Here are some of them. In “There’s strength in diversity of portfolio assets” Richard Croft of the Financial Post explains how adding an asset to an […]

Hot Off the Web The past week was a reminder to us that stock markets go down as well as up. However, it is the target asset allocation of our portfolios that determines the overall risk that we are taking and hopefully the target was selected to be consistent with our risk tolerance. If we […]

Hot Off the Web WSJ has been prolific on good insurance related articles over the past week. In “Getting a deal on your term life insurance”  Clements encourages you to review the cost of your current life insurance. Not only the prices have dropped precipitously over the past 10-20 years but the policies are now […]

Hot Off the Web The large number of RRSP related articles continue in tune with the season. Rob Carrick of the Globe and Mail in “Are you saying no to free money from your employer? “ reminds the reader to contribute to RRSP or defined contribution pension plans in order to take advantage of the […]

Hot Off the Web In “Is your portfolio ready for a slump?”  we are reminded that good times in the market won’t last for ever, and we should check if our portfolio has shifted significantly away from the target asset allocation. Also, if we have for example a position that has grown to $50,000, we […]