I tend to look at the financial markets and the bookies for a hint of collective wisdom in situations like this. Both were badly wrong on Brexit, surprising many and leading to a sharp reversal in the anticipatory market rally in the days leading up to the vote. The UK stock market (FTSE 100) is now right back to […]
Stoicism – “Imagine smiling after a slap in the face. Then think of doing it twenty-four hours a day.” – Markus Zusak, The Book Thief We love to read and share – here’s some notable things from the last week covering investing, financial planning and happiness. Investing 10 Things I Believe About Investing – “4. I believe […]
This week Dalbar released its annual study of investor behaviour. According to the study, in 2015, the S&P 500 index of US large cap stocks returned +1.38%. But the average investor lost money. The average return earned by end investors based on when funds were invested was -2.28%. Over the last 20 years the S&P […]
I don’t watch a lot of TV but was sent a 20 minute clip from Last Week Tonight with John Oliver which was well worth watching – hilarious actually. He takes a satirical poke at the investment industry which is pretty spot on target: Source: YouTube Strip out the wit, metaphors, f-bombs, sarcasm and irony […]
A couple of interesting round number thresholds in the finance world were crossed recently and we thought it worth pointing out! 1) Canadian Exchange Traded Fund aggregate assets under management reach $100 billion in May: ETFs in Canada continue to grow, offering investors an increasing variety of low cost and transparent investment options. According to […]
Canadian investors continue to suffer some of the highest mutual fund fees in Canada. It’s not that there aren’t very effective low cost investment fund solutions available. There are plenty covering most asset classes and certainly enough to give any investor a globally diversified low cost portfolio. We figure that for about 20 basis points (one […]
In 1896 Thomas Burke from the USA won the 100 metre Olympic final in a time of 12.0 seconds beating the bronze medal winner by 0.6 seconds. In 1936 in Berlin Jesse Owens slayed the Olympic record and won gold with a time of 10.3 seconds but only managed to beat the Dutch bronze medalist by […]
Stocks are volatile – the chart below shows the return on the S&P/TSX Composite for one year rolling periods each month from March 2016 going back to 1976. Scary stuff right? While there are a lot of good return years, there are a lot of months where you would have lost more than 20% of […]
An “article” in a leading Canadian financial daily last week urged investors to consider alternative investments such as hedge funds, private debt funds, factoring funds, etc in order to achieve solid investment returns without taking on high risk. Once the privilege of the ultra-rich, such investment opportunities are now becoming increasingly available to a larger swath of the […]
Ever wonder why sometimes it just seems to take forever for the elevator door to close despite how many times you hit the close door button? That’s because the button doesn’t work – at least on the vast majority of elevators and usually if it does, only with a fireman’s key. “Liar!”, you shout! “I […]