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The objectives of this website are to encourage you to take more responsibility for your financial future, to help you learn how to invest on your own, and hopefully to make at least a modest contribution to achieving your financial goals.
See also: A Primer for Canadian Do-It-Yourself Investors
Comments? Questions?
Financial Webring Forum or 
Bogleheads Forum |
Barclays Canada launches iShares Portfolio Builder Funds [BGI Canada, 18Nov08] "Two of the new funds, the iShares Conservative Core Portfolio Builder Fund (XCR) and the iShares Growth Core Portfolio Builder Fund (XGR) are a convenient way to achieve cost-effective, efficient and diversified solutions to meet specific portfolio needs based upon your risk tolerance. Designed to be the sole holding in a small account or a core holding in a large account, these funds offer risk-mitigating diversification. The fees for these funds are 60 bps."
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Only the Good Buy Young [Slate, 15Nov08] "Why 20-year-olds should invest way more in the stock market, and 50-year-olds, way less."
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The End of Wall Street's Boom [portfolio.com, 11Nov08] "Sooner rather than later, someone was going to identify me, along with a lot of people more or less like me, as a fraud. Sooner rather than later, there would come a Great Reckoning when Wall Street would wake up and hundreds if not thousands of young people like me, who had no business making huge bets with other people’s money, would be expelled from finance.
"
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BGI announce "couch potato" and "target date" ETF portfolios [ETFguide.com, 10Nov08] "Target date funds automatically adjust the ratio between equities and fixed income as you get closer to your retirement date (target date). Target date funds appeal to [RRSP] owners who prefer to leave the research and allocation models up to fund managers." Note the ~0.3% MERs. Can Canadian versions be far behind?
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Stick to the plan [MarketWatch, 05Nov08] "You have to invest knowing that times like this are going to happen, just as you know that the market will also have its good times. Your portfolio may have problems on any given day or year, but you're trying to have a strategy that will pay off in time, and there's no doubt that the stock market will pay off for investors again."
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The Street should do the right thing. Dig a grave for those wretched PPNs [Globe&Mail, 01Nov08] "If we've learned anything in the past year, it's that we don't want to buy something we don't understand and/or is a layer or three removed from the underlying asset, whether it be stocks, commodities or home loans. Because of their complexity and poor disclosure, PPNs are incomprehensible to all but the most sophisticated investor and adviser. Most people can't possibly know what tradeoffs they are making when they buy a note."
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Good Riddance [Forbes, 29Oct08] "The silver lining around Wall Street's collapse... I do not wish suffering on the people of New York City. But maybe we should be grateful for any shrinkage in a system that has too many people engaged in shuffling the assets owned by the rest of us."
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Extolling the Value of the Long View [NY Times, 25Oct08] "Despite 'an orgy of speculation' that has hurt the global economy, [Bogle] remains convinced that if long-term investors stick to the basics, 'put blinders on' and try to have 'strong stomachs,' they can ride out the rough patches and ultimately prosper."
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Why stock picking is a losing game [CNN Money, 21Oct08] "Don't bet on it. Here's why trying to outguess the market will always be a losing game."
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Top Theorists Examine Rippling Economic Turbulence [NPR, 21Oct08] "As the financial sector shifts, so does the reach of the jolt to economic structures around the world. Economist Nassim Nicholas Taleb and his mentor, mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot, speak with Paul Solman about chain reactions and predicting the financial crisis."
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Market Moralist [philly.com, 19Oct08] "Investment bankers caused this mess, and apparently they're not going to pay anything to get out of it! Any time you have a system that privatizes the rewards of an enterprise and socializes the risks, you're going to be in trouble!"
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Take a Deep Breath, Turn Off the TV, Calm Yourself [Wall Street Journal, 18Oct08] "With stocks swinging wildly, it's easy to panic; some advice for fighting the herd mentality"
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It's the economy, Charlie Brown [Globe & Mail, 17Oct08] "In an online discussion this week, U.S. investing guru Jack Bogle outlined a series of steps he would like to see to help heal financial markets"
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Buy American. I Am. [NY Times, 16Oct08] "Equities will almost certainly outperform cash over the next decade, probably by a substantial degree. Those investors who cling now to cash are betting they can efficiently time their move away from it later. In waiting for the comfort of good news, they are ignoring Wayne Gretzky’s advice: 'I skate to where the puck is going to be, not to where it has been.'"
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Advice for Today's Market? Diversify Wisely [Business Week, 16Oct08] "Two pros say the fundamentals remain in times of market turmoil—and smart risk management can spare you financial pain in the long run."
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Keep Your Money in the Market [Wall Street Journal, 13Oct08] "Just because stock markets have panicked, investors should not... We are not going to have a depression, and we have survived financial crises before. A century of investing experience, as well as insights from the field of behavioral finance, suggest that investors who bail out of equities during times like these are almost always making the wrong decision."
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Older Stuff
Other Stuff
Asset Correlation Data for Canadian InvestorsBuying US Mutual Funds and Stocks from Canada
Bylo's contribution to improving Canadian literacy
Can you afford to invest in mutual funds?
Can you find an honest advisor or broker?
ASL Direct offers mutual fund trailer fee rebate
CIBC's special MER rebate offer to index fund clients with large accounts
How Much Can You Safely Withdraw From Your Savings During Retirement?
How To Measure The True Cost Of Holding A Fund
Exchange-Traded Funds and Indexes
Investment Aphorisms
Low-MER No-Load Index Funds Available in Canada
On MERs, Taxes and Partners
Mutual Fund Fee Impact Calculator
updated Performance of Indexed vs Actively-Managed Portfolios for 15 years ending 31Dec07
Real Return Bonds for Canadian Dummies
Rogues' Gallery
The Stromberg Files
Why Diversify?
Random Stuff
Fama Factors Out French: "I Did All The Work"Bylo rebuts Index-fund pros and cons (and con jobs?)
Bylo rebuts Indexing caused "devastating losses"
Bylo rebuts The problem with indexes
Confessions of a Former Mutual Funds Reporter
Bylo rebuts Investment Café
Dear Bylo
On Buy-and-Hold
Top ten reasons NOT to index
Bylo rebuts Index funds have their dark side, too
Seven Investing Principles
Investing with hindsight
What's in the bag?
Plain language risk disclosure
Securities markets revealed
Improbable probabilities
Investing's rule-of-40
What's a billion?
Something to think about
Warren Buffett's Quiz for Investors
Most clients lost with Lynch? Call it the Magellan Myth
Dilbert, Alex and Herman on Investing
More cartoons on: Investing, Mutual Funds, Retirement, Stocks, Finance
Bylo in the News
We did it! They heard us! Finance department news release of 07Sep00Thank you to everyone who spoke up against the proposed tax changes to US funds and ETFs held by Canadians. With your help we made the Finance department listen to ordinary Canadians before they introduced legislation that would have devastated many of our portfolios. See also Revised Draft of Legislative Proposals for the Taxation of NRTs and FIEs and Proposed rules on treatment of FIEs.
new Seven essential websites for becoming a better investor [Globe & Mail, 29Jul08] "Financial Webring Forum is the online financial-discussion board with the highest level of discourse on investing subjects in Canada, thanks in large part to frequent contributions from knowledgeable participants such as Bylo Selhi (an index-fund advocate), Shakespeare (the author of an online investment primer) and Yielder (a dividend investor). And they don’t mind answering questions."
Index investing: 'Just set it and forget it' [Toronto Star, 19May08] "Index funds are suitable for those who have little money to invest and want to buy small amounts on a regular basis. You can find links to low-cost index funds at www.bylo.org/idxfunds.html... Index investing makes sense for people who don't find finance fascinating... It's the perfect 'set it and forget it' strategy, giving satisfactory results and requiring very little attention, so you can get on with your life."
 No big deal - you don't have to worry about risking your life savings. We do it for you. National Post, 19Feb01 |  National Post, 07May03 |
 Investing web site of the month • March 2002 |
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