Investorial

No amount of dis-pleasure or protest will stop the goliath from rumbling over the average joes and there’s no David in sight to free us from its shackles. But if you are an Ameritrade Canada account holder with old habits, chances are you will be surprised for a second. You probably forgot that today is your first trading day where you have to start using TD Waterhouse’s platform instead.

I’m anxious to hear from users what their experience logging into their new account was like. Especially users who have never had the TD Waterhouse experience! Are you not used to having those wonderful Ameritrade tools. Are you happy about that $9.99 trade commission? (though it’s temporary). Maybe somebody will start a tdsucks.com or tdwaterhousesucks.com webpage like this person did for CIBC!

Let me preface the remainder of this article by saying that calling this study inept is indeed generous. Does anybody feel like they are being fattened up for the slaughter like those brokers that screamed “tech stocks forever” in late 2001?

I read a recent Financial Post article that is helping to keep the well oiled financial marketing machine running. What’s selling like hotcakes off the shelves? One only has to look at the artificially propped up TSX composite index to realize that trusts (especially oil income trusts) are the ’special du jour’. First the article attempts to provide damage control.

The recent headlines generated by business income trusts cutting payouts have led some investors to a simplified view of the world of payouts: Trusts’ distributions bad, common-share dividends good. Right?

Wrong, according to Scotia Capital’s trust analysts. They compared the payout history of business trusts against common equities since January, 2002, using the members of the Scotia Capital business trust index and all stocks in the S&P/TSX composite index.

First, have you ever known trust analysts to signal that trusts are bad during its boom? Second, that’s only 4 years worth of data! If we looked at the stock market narrowly from 1997 to 2001, everything was smelling like roses too! Using trending data to glorify study results means that the underlying fundamentals are disregarded; thrown out the window in favour of what’s looking good. (more…)

Today, we are putting the finishing touches on the series, Rich At Any Age - A LifeCycle Guide To Personal Finance, by taking a look at financial living in your 60s. I can hear you already - why not go beyond the 60s? That’s a question you have to ask MoneySense.ca, who originally organized the series. This is also a perfect time to challenge other PF Bloggers out there who feel they can collect together articles that are relevant to people living in their 70s, 80s and beyond! Without further delay, I present …

Freedom At Last!
Congratulations — you’ve made it to retirement, the Holy Grail for people still hauling a nine-to-five workload. After decades of socking away money in your RRSP (or IRA/401K) and watching your paycheque get skimmed by pension contributions, you’ll finally get to enjoy that money in your 60s. Before you do, though, you’ll still have to (more…)

We are getting closer to the end of the series, Rich At Any Age - A Life Cycle Guide To Personal Finance. So you made a decision on how to live your financial life in the 40s. But that’s nothing compared to crossing the big FIVE-OH. Living half a century is something to be proud of, but are you planned and ready for the next half? What do you need to know? Let’s find out!

Show Time
By the time you reach your 50s, you’ve got a lot to look forward to. Suddenly retirement, which once seemed as far away as Pluto, is coming within reach. It’s time to start thinking about when you can stop working — or at least when you can slow down and ease into retirement. If you’re no longer supporting (more…)

Day 3 of the series Rich At Any Age - A LifeCycle Guide To Personal Finance puts you at a fork in your financial path. You’ve dug yourself out of the crammed life of your 30s. But how would you react to the next decade of your life? It’s no wonder that mid-life crisis usually begins at the beginning of your 40s! Remember to supplement this article by reading the related MoneySense.ca articles!

Prime Time
Your 40s are the years when you finally begin to see the fruits of your hard work. But not everyone reacts in the same way. On the one hand, you may find yourself becoming more cautious as retirement draws closer. On the other hand, you may feel that after two decades of working hard to advance in your job, you deserve a year away from the office. Maybe you’re (more…)

Welcome to day two in a series rehashing MoneySense’s Rich At Any Age - A LifeCycle Guide To Personal Finance. We discussed starting out in your 20s. We will be observing the financial journey that people in their 30s undergo. As before, we will supplement it with related articles from MoneySense.ca

The Crammed Years
The balance sheet for your 30s looks pretty lopsided: heavy on the debt, stress and responsibility; light on the free time. If you’re like many people in their 30s, you’re juggling mortgage payments, a young family and a demanding job. Your financial plan needs to address some important questions. (more…)

Over the next few days, I will rehash a series that was featured a while ago from MoneySense.ca. The series was called Rich At Any Age - A LifeCycle Guide To Personal Finance. It was basically a synopsis of what most people could expect at a given stage of their life, with links to related MoneySense.ca articles.

I explained on Canadian Capitalist that MoneySense merged and reappeared as a sub-section of Canadian Business Online. As a result, that particular feature had links to articles that were no longer functional. I thought I might as well do a favour to MoneySense and direct readers to the stories that I found manually for each section. American readers may not understand the minor differences in the Canadian system but I’m sure you can follow along quite nicely!

Starting Out
Your 20s are all about new opportunities. Maybe you’ve been working for a couple of years and you’re starting to think about investing for the first time. Or perhaps you’ve just finished school and are looking for your first job that doesn’t involve flipping burgers or planting trees. Either way, this is the ideal time to be laying the groundwork for your financial future. “If you do your 20s right, you’re set for life,” says Paul W. Lermitte, a certified financial planner in Vancouver. (more…)

Irwin Michael, fund manager of ABC funds, has just put up his latest monthly commentary for April 2006. Investorial readers will know that Irwin is my favourite Canadian fund manager, and is often talked about in these articles.

What’s so refreshing about Irwin is that he lets everybody in on his thought processes so that you may learn about how he picks stocks. This month, Irwin focuses on the oil & gas run-ups and comments about metal prices.

… Interestingly, the oil & gas and mining sectors now comprise over 45% of the TSX index causing many investors to question whether the current market boom is akin to the high technology boom (and bust) of six years ago. In fact, for these investors who cannot recall, one TSE stock out of 300, Nortel, comprised at its peak price of $124½ over 35% of the TSX 300 index. Is the present resource boom reminiscent of the high tech mania of 1999-2000? Probably not, however, we are becoming increasingly concerned about the spectacular price rise in metals prices …

I was pleasantly surprised to see that Irwin has a podcast syndication feed on the site! Kudos to Mr. Michael for getting with the times!