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Survivorship of Actively Managed Funds
A blog I read on relatively daily basis is that of the Canadian Capitalist (link in the sidebar). The main reason is that his ideas, temperament, strategies and goals are somewhat similar to mine. The...
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The Best Action may be Inaction
Warren Buffet once said that there are only two rules to investing successfully: Don’t lose money. Don’t forget rule number one. I’m sure you can find several blogs whose authors talk about the great...
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Lessons From Aesop
One of the textbooks I use in class has a story called “The Hungry Lion,” which is based on a fable by Aesop. Basically, a hungry lion goes out looking for food. He sees a rabbit and begins chasing it....
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Inquiring Minds Get Paid
In January I noticed I had an interest charge on my brokerage account of about $15. It was for one month at 21% per annum. Worse than a credit card. At first I thought it was due to my transferring...
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Maple/Greenback Conversions within RRSPs
With the exchange rate between the American and Canadian dollars at a hair’s breadth from par, it has given me a good opportunity to see what my brokerage is charging me to receive U.S. dividends. If...
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No Market-Linked GICs in Self-Directed Plans
Recently I’ve been trying to consolidate RRSPs. I set up my self-directed RRSP with RBC mainly to hold my U.S. stocks so I wouldn’t be slapped with the 15% withholding tax on dividends. What I didn’t...
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Update on Holding U.S. in D.I. RRSPs
I think I’ve been on the phone with Direct Investing more times in the past 6 months than I had been in the 10 years prior. I was talking to them again last night about something, and thought I would...
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Strip Bond Basics
I have a few posts planned about strip bonds (also called zero-coupon bonds), but I thought I should give a crash course in case some readers aren’t familiar with them. I think the majority of readers...
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Changes to Canada Savings Bonds
Yesterday’s post reminded me that I saw that there were some changes made to the Canada Savings Bonds Program which will take effect later this year. 1. Sales period shortened by two-thirds: Since...
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Dollar Cost Averaging
With the “New Normal” looking like it means that it is commonplace for the markets to move plus or minus 2% in a single day of trading, it can be understood if an investor asks him or herself about...
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Nearly Everything I Learned about Investing I Learned from My Father
My father is not an investor or “bank guy” by any means. But thinking back upon childhood and beyond, I realize that a good amount of the things that are important to investing, are the same simple...
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Another RBC Direct Investing RRSP Update
Back in May I gave an update after I moved all my U.S. securities held in my RRSP back into American dollars. Feel free to take a look at the original post to get the back-story. I was quite happy in...
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Re-Post: Inquiring Minds Get Paid
I am on vacation for a few days and unable to update the blog. I thought I would take the opportunity to re-post a few old posts that I like. I originally posted this in March of this year. In January...
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What is the Carry Trade?
A few months ago I wrote this article about how shoppers in Tokyo using social networking are adding to deflation in Japan. In that article I mentioned the carry trade, which prompted a recent reader...
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Rice Field Art and Your Portfolio
Since 1993, rural farmers in the north of Japan have been using 4 different kinds of rice to make beautiful images that grow in their fields over the summer. What started out as simple images made by...
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Saving Money with Limit Orders
If you buy individual stocks for your portfolio, you might be familiar with limit orders. If you aren’t familiar with limit orders, you should be, as they are a great tool to ensure that you don’t pay...
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Don’t Be Like Ol’ Jim
I’ve been reading “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” recently. Aside from being a great book in general, I stumbled across a great little bit of How Not to Invest, shall we say, in a conversation...
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Smells Like Shoe Polish
My friend and flatmate in my 4th year of university was a geology student. His department had given him some tickets for a dinner and lecture on geology at some geological club in Toronto. Always...
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Nearly Everything I Learned About Investing I Learned From My Father, Revisited
Happy belated Father’s Day to all the Dad’s out there. This is an older post that I have edited, expanded, and added to. My father is not an investor or “bank guy” by any means. But thinking back upon...
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