Hot Off the Web- March 5, 2012 Personal Finance and Investments In the Financial Post’s “How much does retirement really cost” Mark Miller reports that “Although the median income for retired households is 57% that of working households, retired households spend about 80% of what working households spend. More affluent households, which have been able […]

Hot Off the Web- February 27, 2012 Personal Finance and Investments In the Globe and Mail’s “Understanding MERs, Management fees, and other costs” John Heinzl explains different components of fund costs and where you can information on these: management fee (which only covers what is paid to fund manager and mutual fund trailer fee paid […]

Hot Off the Web- February 20, 2012 Personal Finance and Investments In the Financial Post’s “Early CPP will cost you” Fred Vettese writes that “About 40% of all CPP recipients get their first cheque at age 60, the earliest age possible. This is a surprisingly high take-up rate considering they incur a 36% penalty by […]

Hot Off the Web- February 13, 2012 Personal Finance and Investments In the Globe and Mail’s “ETFs spurring shift to fee-based advice”John Heinzl writes that “Traditionally, many advisers used a transaction-based compensation system in which they earn commissions for executing trades or selling mutual funds. But the move to low-cost ETFs is going hand-in-hand with […]

Hot Off the Web- February 6, 2012 Personal Finance and Investments In Vanguard’s “Recessions and balanced portfolio returns” the authors write that “we calculated the historical returns of a balanced 50% equity/50% bond portfolio under two distinct U.S. business-cycle regimes: recessions and expansions. We show that the average real returns of such a portfolio since […]

Hot Off the Web- January 30, 2012 Personal Finance and Investments In the WSJ’s “Can you sum up your investing philosophy in 10 words?” Jason Zweig provides his answer and some answers provided by a few prominent investors: “Anything is possible, and the unexpected is inevitable. Proceed accordingly.”  (Zweig), “If everybody wants it, I don’t. […]

Hot Off the Web- January 23, 2012 Personal Finance and Investments In the Globe and Mail’s “Your portfolio performance needs a regular check-up” Tom Bradley writes that “Ideally, investors should construct personalized indexes. This default portfolio, or benchmark, would blend the returns from various market indexes in proportion to their particular long-term asset mixes (cash, […]

Hot Off the Web- January 16, 2012 Personal Finance and Investments In WSJ’s “Does total freedom boost returns?” Karen Damato discusses tactical asset allocation (TAA) funds where managers have leeway to move money between asset classes (e.g. stock funds, bond funds, cash, real estate and commodities) in the hope of avoiding or minimizing the impact […]

Hot Off the Web- January 9, 2012 Personal Finance and Investments In WSJ’s “How to build your financial dream team”Karen Blumenthal defines her financial Trust Team as a combination good estate lawyer, accountant and financial adviser. For an adviser she suggests credentials such as CFA, CFP or CPA. In addition (unlike stockbrokers, insurance and mutual […]