Review: Millionaire Teacher
It’s hard not to respect Andrew Hallam. I first learned about him in the pages of MoneySense, where he described how his investment club (made up of fellow teachers) had beaten the S&P 500 year af [...]
ETF Risks in Perspective: Leveraged ETFs
This post is the second of three that will look at the potential risks that ETFs may pose to the stability of financial markets. Last week I discussed synthetic ETFs, which use derivatives called swap [...]
Ask the Spud: Can You Time the Markets?
Q. Have you ever done any calculations into the optimal time to purchase index funds or ETFs based on broad market indicators? I’m essentially talking about buying during market dips and corrections, [...]
A DRIP in the Bucket
One of the downsides of using ETFs—as opposed to index mutual funds—is that dividends and interest are not automatically reinvested. Instead, they are paid in cash, where they often sit idly in your b [...]
Does Rebalancing Boost Returns?
Rebalancing your portfolio has two potential benefits. The first is that it helps control risk by keeping your asset allocation more or less consistent. The other advantage—assuming you have the disci [...]
How to Lower Your Rebalancing Costs
Last week I looked at why you should rebalance your portfolio, and considered the question of how often to do it. The frequency with which you rebalance often comes down to cost. If you’re using index [...]
High-Yield Bonds and Your Portfolio: Part 1
With income trusts facing new rules in 2011, investors are looking for other income-producing securities to fill the gap. Many are looking for a one-two punch of dividend-paying stocks and high-yield [...]
Does This Thing Work?
This week I received an email from a reader of MoneySense magazine, where I write regularly about the Couch Potato strategy. Kate was concerned that index investing wasn’t delivering on its promises. [...]
Review: The Gone Fishin’ Portfolio
Alexander Green retired at age 43 after having made his fortune as an investment adviser, market analyst and portfolio manager. He thinks the efficient markets hypothesis—one of the fundamental ideas [...]
Should You Use Index Funds or ETFs?
[Note: A more up-to-date discussion of this idea, including a spreadsheet to help you with the math, can be found here.] This week I got an email from a reader who is in the process of firing her advi [...]
