Canadian Couch Potato is your
complete guide to index investing

ETFs & Funds

Tips for Trading ETFs

I happened to have Google Finance open on my computer last week when the “flash crash” happened. While ...

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 ...

Dude, Where’s My Distribution?

Investors using the TD e-Series mutual funds may have noticed an unusual episode at year-end. The TD International ...

The Promise of Fundamental Indexing

Last Friday, I had the pleasure of attending a talk by Rob Arnott, the creator of the Research ...

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 ...

Indexing Basics

Can Your Funds Outperform Over a Lifetime?

Advocates of active management admit that only a minority of mutual funds will outperform their benchmarks, but they ...

Review: The House That Bogle Built

In 1951, a Princeton University student wrote a thesis about the mutual fund industry. “Funds can make no ...

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 ...

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 ...

Couch Potato on Ice

This week I was dismissive about the Dynamic Funds that swept this year’s Canadian Investment Awards. I argued ...

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 ...

Financial Planning

Ask the Spud: Am I Vulnerable to US Estate Taxes?

Q: I am ready to follow the Couch Potato and would like to use the US-listed Vanguard ETFs ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

Popular Posts

Unveiling the 2020 Couch Potato Model Portfolios

As long-time readers will know, I review my model portfolios once a year and, …

TD e-Series Funds: The Next Generation

For almost 20 years, the TD e-Series mutual funds have been one of the …

How to Set Up a Hands-Off ETF Portfolio

For DIY investors, asset allocation ETFs may be the greatest gift to come along …

Asset Allocation ETF Showdown: Vanguard vs. iShares

In the brief time they’ve been around, asset allocation ETFs have transformed the way …

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