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Couch Potato Portfolio Returns for 2021
Well, another year is in the books and it's time to review how investors fared if they used ...
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 ...
Inside Tangerine’s Global ETF Portfolios
Asset allocation ETFs were revolutionary when they appeared in 2018, but they were hardly the first products that ...
How Do You Measure Your Rate of Return?
All investors care deeply about their returns, and with good reason. If you’re an active investor, you’ll want ...
Inside the Horizons One-Ticket ETFs
Are asset allocation ETFs cheap, well-diversified and convenient? Absolutely. Are they optimally tax-efficient? Perhaps not, though any tax ...
Inside TD’s One-Click ETF Portfolios
The ongoing popularity of asset allocation ETFs is undoubtedly a good thing—maybe even revolutionary. Canadians have enthusiastically embraced ...
ETFs & Funds
Inside the Horizons One-Ticket ETFs
Are asset allocation ETFs cheap, well-diversified and convenient? Absolutely. Are they optimally tax-efficient? Perhaps not, though any tax ...
Inside the BMO Asset Allocation ETFs
In our last blog and video, Justin and I compared the popular Vanguard and iShares asset allocation ETFs, ...
Will the Real S&P 500 Please Stand Up?
I received an email recently from Scott, a reader with a great question about index funds and ETFs ...
Currency Hedging in International Funds
Currency hedging can be confusing for investors who use index funds and ETFs that hold foreign stocks or ...
Where Does VRIF’s 4% Payout Come From?
In my last post, I introduced the new Vanguard Retirement Income ETF Portfolio (VRIF), an asset allocation ETF ...
Is VRIF’s Distribution Sustainable?
The newly launched Vanguard Retirement Income ETF Portfolio (VRIF) is designed to pay its unitholders a consistent monthly ...
Indexing Basics
A Spreadsheet to Manage Multiple Accounts
You’ve got an RRSP with your employer, another with a discount brokerage, and your spouse has a couple ...
Review: The Elements of Investing
Whenever people ask me where they can learn more about Couch Potato investing, I need to answer carefully ...
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 ...
Letting You In On a Big Secret
Joel Greenblatt has a sense of humour—I’ll grant him that. In The Big Secret for the Small Investor ...
Couch Potato Portfolio Returns for 2013
Here are the 2013 performance figures for my Model Portfolios. Last year was one of stark contrasts: huge ...
When Should You Use an Advisor?
Dan Solin’s excellent new book, The Smartest Portfolio You’ll Ever Own (see my review here), devotes several chapters to ...
Financial Planning
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
Why Plans Should Come Before Products
When I wrote the MoneySense Guide to the Perfect Portfolio [now out of print], I waited until Chapter ...
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 ...
What Is the Advisor’s Role?
John Lawrence Reynolds' newest book, The Skeptical Investor, argues that Canadians were badly served by their advisors during ...
Behavioural Finance
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 ...
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 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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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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