A Touch of (Corporate) Class
ETFs are generally more tax-efficient than mutual funds, but there is one area where they’re at a disadvantage. Investors who use non-registered accounts can take advantage of corporate class mutual f [...]
Worst Mutual Fund Ad of the Year?
The mutual fund industry loves to sell past performance, and it's not above massaging the data to make that performance look even better. But every now and then an advertisement appears that sets the [...]
Looking for Value in Canadian Equity ETFs
Monday’s post about factor analysis was, I admit, too technical for most readers’ tastes. At least that’s the conclusion I drew when the two most enthusiastic comments came from a professor of statist [...]
Going on a Factor-Finding Mission
Pick up almost any financial magazine or newspaper and you’ll find full-page ads touting the recent performance of mutual funds and ETFs. What’s the reason for their outperformance? The fund companies [...]
Finding the Perfect Pair for Tax Loss Selling
If you’re using ETFs in a non-registered account, there’s plenty of opportunity to harvest capital losses and reduce your tax bill. Justin Bender and I tell you exactly how to do this in our new white [...]
More Swap-Based ETFs on the Horizon
I have to admit I was skeptical when the Horizons S&P/TSX 60 (HXT) appeared back in September 2010. In an interview with a Horizons executive a few months later, I asked why the company would go h [...]
More DIY Investing Challenges
In my last post, I looked at some of the biggest challenges faced by DIY investors. I came up with the list after working with clients of PWL Capital’s DIY Investor Service. The theory behind indexing [...]
The Biggest DIY Investing Challenges
At the recent Canadian Personal Finance Conference in Toronto, I participated in a panel discussion that touched on a wide range of investing topics. My co-panelists were Michael James and financial p [...]
How Not to Prepare for a Bear Market in Bonds
The risk of rising interest rates has become an obsession in the financial media. Those risks are undeniably real: it’s quite possible that broad-based bond funds will see multiple years with negative [...]
