What’s On Your ETF Wish List?
It seems like ETFs are appearing in Canada every month, but it’s been a while since I got genuinely excited about a new product. It was great to see both Vanguard and BMO create S&P 500 funds with [...]
Under the Hood: Vanguard FTSE Canadian Capped REIT (VRE)
This post is part of a series called Under the Hood, where l take a detailed look at specific Canadian ETFs or index funds. The fund: Vanguard FTSE Canadian Capped REIT (VRE) The index: The fund track [...]
Scary When They’re Down, Scary When They’re Up
It’s been barely a month since Alexander Green remarked that we’re currently enjoying “the most disrespected bull market in history.” Green described how investors who were shell-shocked by 2008 were [...]
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 case study would help readers see how they work. Our real-life example comes from [...]
Planning to Drive a Monte Carlo
One of the lessons I’ve tried to stress is that investing is not about choosing the right products. ETFs changed the game by giving the little guy sophisticated and low-cost investment tools—no doubt [...]
Does a 60/40 Portfolio Still Make Sense?
For as long as I can remember, the traditional balanced portfolio has been 60% equities and 40% bonds. Indeed, all of my own model portfolios use that overall asset mix as a starting point. But a lot [...]
What Investors Can Learn From Weather Forecasts
I’ve never made a secret of my opinion that acting on market forecasts is destructive to investors. Nate Silver’s fascinating new book, The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail—But Some [...]
Ask the Spud: Combining e-Series Funds and ETFs
I use the Global Couch Potato with e-Series funds in my TD Waterhouse account, but I eventually want to use the Complete Couch Potato. Once my portfolio gets to $50,000 and I qualify for $9.95 trading [...]
Don’t Invest in the Rear-View Mirror
Investors face many behavioral biases—that’s just part of being human. Perhaps the most difficult to overcome is recency bias: the tendency to believe what has happened in the immediate past is likely [...]
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 the right strategy for their children’s education savings accounts. Both were smart questions that st [...]
