Hot Off the Web In Globe and Mail’s “It’s about time”  Rob Carrick, who’s been among the most vocal columnists pounding away at the Canadian mutual fund industry fee structure, reports that RBC Direct Investing is making available the RBC family of funds in a new series-D form which reduces trailer fees from as much […]

Hot Off the Web One of the best articles this week was “The $1,000,000 retirement fund: how to get there from here”  where Jonathan Clements explains why it’s not as difficult as it seems for a new college grad to achieve the $1,000,000 portfolio. Saving 12% of her pretax income and earning 6%/ year, the […]

Hot Off the Web In “Estate plans best laid out in advance” Jonathan Chevreau suggests that you think of an estate plan as an investment where the returns are in the form of reduced taxes and litigation avoidance. And, of course, the older the client the more urgent it is to get it done! Make […]

Hot Off the Web This week’s Hot Off the Web is a little longer than usual to make up for the missed blog last week, as I spent must of it at the 60th Annual CFA Conference in New York; more about what I learned there in future blogs. It difficult to disagree with Rob […]

Hot Off the Web The Barron’s article about Robert Arnott’s views entitled “ETF pro says stocks aren’t worth the risk” , in addition to covering his negative outlook on stocks and his advocacy for the advantages of ETFs based on fundamental indexes (based on “dividends, profits and book value” rather than market cap), also discusses […]

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 […]