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ETFs & Funds
Are ETFs Growing for the Wrong Reasons?
On the day his company announced it was acquiring Claymore, BlackRock’s CEO Bill Chinery called ETFs “electric cars ...
ETF Risks in Perspective: Synthetic ETFs
Not so long ago, ETFs were simple and transparent. But with the tremendous growth in the industry, ETFs ...
How ETFs Came Under Fire
ETFs are on the hot seat these days. On Wednesday, a US Senate subcommittee held a hearing to ...
Couch Potatoes: Not the Next Financial Time Bomb
I would have been kicked out of journalism school for writing this: “The culprit behind the epidemic of ...
More Swap Talk With Horizons
Here's part two of my interview with Jaime Purvis, Executive Vice-President, National Accounts, for Horizons ETFs. (See part ...
Currency Hedging in International Funds
Currency hedging can be confusing for investors who use index funds and ETFs that hold foreign stocks or ...
Indexing Basics
Scott Burns Interview: Part 2
Here is part two of my interview with Scott Burns, the newspaper columnist and Chief Investment Strategist at ...
Where Do Returns Come From?
You don’t need a lot of mathematical horsepower to be a Couch Potato investor. Indeed, simplicity is one ...
Couch Potato Portfolio Returns for 2019
The numbers are in and no one is shooting the messenger this year. If 2018 was disappointment—returns were negative ...
A Different Perspective On the Last Three Years
Your eyes open slowly, and the light stings your retinas. Your mouth is burning with thirst, your muscles ...
Another Reason to Distrust the Fund Industry
I recently had a chance to interview Ken Kivenko, who runs Canadian Fund Watch and is allied with ...
Are Target Date Funds Right For You?
Think about all the elements you need to be a successful index investor. First, you need to choose ...
Financial Planning
What Is the Advisor’s Role?
John Lawrence Reynolds' newest book, The Skeptical Investor, argues that Canadians were badly served by their advisors during ...
Dividends: Not As Tax-Friendly As You May Think
If your investments include RRSPs, TFSAs and taxable accounts, asset location is an important consideration. The returns of ...
A Monte Carlo Case Study: Can I Retire Early?
Last week’s post about Monte Carlo simulations in financial planning sparked some interesting comments, so I thought a ...
It’s Time to Ban Advisor Commissions
Should financial advisors be banned from collecting commissions on mutual funds? That’s been hotly debated for years, and ...
Why Plans Should Come Before Products
When I wrote the MoneySense Guide to the Perfect Portfolio [now out of print], I waited until Chapter ...
Ask the Spud: Is My Pension Like a Bond?
Q: My wife and I have been using the Couch Potato strategy for a few years now, but ...
Behavioural Finance
Why RESPs Should Be Kept Simple
In the last couple of weeks I’ve received two questions from readers who were trying to figure out ...
Cost Versus Convenience in “ex Canada” ETFs
I used to own one of those one-piece cutlery tools designed for hiking and camping—the kind with a ...
Why Simple Is Still a Hard Sell
Last January, I overhauled my model portfolios to make them simpler. Some of the older options included small-cap ...
Podcast 20: One-Stop ETF Shopping
I’ve always tried to stress that successful investing is about the right process, not the right products. But ...
Should You Buy Stocks For Your Kids?
If you’re a parent, how can you set your child on the road to investing success? One popular ...
Podcast 25: Dr. Steve Wendel on Investor Success
The latest episode of the Canadian Couch Potato podcast features an interview with Dr. Stephen Wendel, Head of ...
Portfolio Management
How to Set Up a Hands-Off ETF Portfolio
For DIY investors, asset allocation ETFs may be the greatest gift to come along in decades. It’s never ...
It’s Time to Reboot Your Portfolio
It’s been a while since the last new article appeared on the Canadian Couch Potato blog, and over ...
A New Rebalancing Spreadsheet for ETFs
It’s easy enough to build an index fund portfolio with your desired mix of stocks and bonds. But ...
TD e-Series Returns for 2020
The TD e-Series index mutual funds remain a useful alternative to the asset allocation ETFs that take centre ...
Ask the Spud: Can I Make Taxable Investing Easier?
In Episode 4 of the Canadian Couch Potato podcast, I answered the following question from a listener named ...
Is VRIF Right for Your Portfolio?
In my last few posts, I introduced the newly launched Vanguard Retirement Income ETF Portfolio (VRIF), explained where ...

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