Blog
Browse hundreds of posts from Dan’s award-winning blog for information about all aspects of Couch Potato investing.
Understanding Swap-Based ETFs
Last fall, Horizons Exchange Traded Funds launched two innovative new ETFs. Rather than simply holding the stocks in the indexes they track, these fun [...]
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 (Wiley, 2011), he pokes fun at the crass title of [...]
Fundamental Indexing for Corporate Bonds
On Monday, I took issue with the argument that cap-weighted bond indexes are fatally flawed. Rob Arnott, the creator of fundamental indexing, has argu [...]
Are Bond Index Funds Stupid?
When Rob Arnott, the creator of fundamental indexing, spoke in Toronto last week, his presentation focused exclusively on equities. When he took quest [...]
Fundamental Indexing in the Real World
Earlier this week I discussed the promise of fundamental indexing. This strategy takes aim at the shortcomings of traditional cap-weighted indexes, wh [...]
The Promise of Fundamental Indexing
Last Friday, I had the pleasure of attending a talk by Rob Arnott, the creator of the Research Affiliates Fundamental Indexes (RAFI). If you’re not fa [...]
How to Track Down Tracking Error
How do you measure the performance of an index fund? That sounds like a simple question, but it’s one I think many investors still have trouble with. [...]
A Case Study in Currencies
In my last post, I explained that US-listed ETFs that hold overseas stocks do not expose Canadians to fluctuations in the US dollar. This is an import [...]
Currency Hedging in International Funds
Currency hedging can be confusing for investors who use index funds and ETFs that hold foreign stocks or bonds. The basic idea, which I have written a [...]
Where Do Returns Come From?
You don’t need a lot of mathematical horsepower to be a Couch Potato investor. Indeed, simplicity is one of the strategy’s virtues: just keep your cos [...]
