The Next Smart Beta Revolution
{Note: This post was an April Fool's joke!] As the ETF industry in Canada matures, more and more providers are moving away from traditional cap-weighted index funds in favour of more exotic strategies [...]
What (Returns) to Expect When You’re Expecting
Investing decisions should always be made in the context of your overall financial plan. And although we know short-term forecasts are futile, a retirement plan needs to include some assumptions about [...]
Ask the Spud: Is It Time to Hedge Currency?
Q: “I use non-hedged ETFs for US and international equities, which worked out well as the Canadian dollar tanked. But the loonie is now so low that I wonder if it makes sense to move to the hedged ver [...]
The Curious Case of the BMO Discount Bond ETF
When the BMO Discount Bond Index ETF (ZDB) was launched back in February 2014, it was unique: the first broad-market ETF in Canada made up primarily of bonds trading below their par value. By avoiding [...]
How Long Will You Wait for Smart Beta to Work?
In my last post I shared some insights from Ben Carlson’s A Wealth of Common Sense, which argues that investors are generally better off keeping their portfolios simple and straightforward. This idea [...]
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 stocks, preferred shares, and real estate investment trusts (REITs), but I switched to [...]
Couch Potato Portfolio Returns for 2015
With 2015 now in the books, it’s time to look back on the year that was. It was another year of surprises: after the gurus continued to predict higher interest rates, the Bank of Canada shocked almost [...]
Decoding Vanguard’s New International Equity ETFs
This year has been another reminder of why international equities are such an important part of a diversified portfolio: in the first 11 months of 2015 the Canadian market was down almost 6%, while in [...]
The Trouble With Bashing Bond Indexes
In my last post, I looked at a tired criticism of traditional equity index funds. Similar arguments have been made against fixed-income index funds, most recently in a blog post called The Trouble Wit [...]
Are Index Funds Fatally Flawed?
“No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise,” Winston Churchill famously said in a 1947 speech. “Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those oth [...]
