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If left to drift, your portfolio can morph into a different beast
How can you tell when your portfolio is morphing into a different beast? What do you do about it? Read Robyn Thompson’s advice on how to check your portfolio for suspicious changes in The Globe and Mail’s “Financial Compass” series by Kira Vermond. © 2015 by Robyn...
Baby talk
Cribs, diapers, toys, financial plan Congratulations! You have a baby on the way or already at home. First-time parents are typically excited, flustered, nervous, and distracted – all at once. And usually, money matters are the last thing on their minds. But...
Options, futures, and swaps, oh my!
Is your mutual fund safe? You may have been surprised to see some mutual funds and exchange-traded funds disclose that they use “derivatives” in their portfolio management. It may have come as a surprise, because most investors acknowledge that derivatives can be...
Time for your annual (portfolio) review
How to make sure your investments stay on track An annual investment review not only tells you how your portfolio has performed against your benchmark, but whether it’s time to make changes to your holdings. This could happen, for example, if some investments in...
It’s a matter of priorities
Robyn Thompson is regularly featured in The Toronto Star’s “Money Makeover” series by Deanne Gage. Money Makeover takes a look at how Mike and Constance can juggle their dreams for a home, a family and the...
Is your advisor telling you the whole story on fees?
New reporting rules for advisors on the way You may have recently seen references in the media to something called “CRM2” for financial advisors. It’s basically a set of regulations designed to provide investors with more information on investment advisory costs...
How to find your way through the maze of mutual fund fees
Sorting out MERs, TERs, and loads If you’re a novice investor, and you’ve been looking at the costs of mutual funds, you’re probably finding it more than just a bit confusing. For example, you might have seen a number of different costs and expenses listed for...
Locked-in retirement plans not easy to break
Provincial regulations vary across Canada When you leave an employer, any pension money in a registered plan will be transferred to a Locked-In Retirement Account (LIRA), or Locked-In Retirement Savings Plan (LRSP). Those funds are “locked in” and not available for...
The great ETF vs. mutual fund debate
Should you switch to ETFs for their lower MERs? The lower management costs of exchange-traded funds compared with mutual funds seem almost too good to be true. Many do-it-yourself investors are wondering whether they should switch completely to a portfolio of ETFs....
How to create a secure income stream for life
“Pensionize” your retirement income Will you outlive your money? That’s the big question a lot of pre-retirees are asking. I am a firm believer in “pensioning your retirement income,” which means creating a secure stream of income from a variety of sources that...
Acting on scare headlines can lead to bad investment decisions
How to keep your head when stock markets start gyrating If you got a bad case of market jitters over the latest stock market scare headlines, then the business media will have done their job – which is to get you to look at their websites, Twitter and other feeds,...
IPPs for the maxed out and taxed out
Individual pension plans ideal for professionals, executives, business owners If you’re a high-bracket professional, executive, or businessperson, and you’ve maxed out your RRSP, you may be surprised to learn that there are other tax-efficient retirement plans...