By: Allan Schieman
Monday, September 12, 2011
It’s starting to look more and more like Greece will default on its debt. A sovereign default like this one would likely throw the financial markets into turmoil and erase trillions of dollars of wealth worldwide. If you haven’t already taken measures to defend your wealth, the time [...]

By: Allan Schieman
Friday, September 10, 2011
I just got off the telephone with a client who asked me several questions about investing in gold. While I’ve been preaching the importance of including gold in your investment plan for a few years now, I’ve received more question about gold in the last few weeks [...]

Here’s a question for you.
Would you rather have $100 USD or $100 CDN?
If you are trying to think of the exchange rate today, you’re on the right track. At the time of this writing, the exchange rate is 1 CAD = .9345 USD. That means that one U.S. dollar will buy $1.07 Canadian dollars.
So today, [...]

Retiring in this new financial world order requires a new approach to financial planning. An old world plan in the new world is a recipe for disaster.
Life expectancy for Canadians has increased steadily; this is a good thing. A Canadian male born in 1930 had a life expectancy at birth of 60 years; a female, [...]

Your financial planner doesn’t want you to know this: investments are just financial products.  The financial industry has been successful in convincing you that you’re ‘investing’ when you’ve just been buying products.
A mutual fund is a classic example of a financial product.  Like other products, mutual funds are manufactured and then distributed. They aren’t made [...]

Ever heard of a DRIP?  Chances are you didn’t hear about it from your advisor.  This is a subject that investment advisors and financial planners don’t want to discuss.  They’re worried that if you find out about Dividend Re-Investment Plans, they’ll lose business.
A dividend re-investment plan or a DRIP is a plan that allows you [...]

In general, your financial advisor’s income increases when the value of your account increases. Said another way, the more money an advisor manages the more money he makes.  Often, financial advisors use this fact in their sales routine; “I have a vested interest in managing your account properly.  I am motivated to make it grow. [...]

Exchange Traded Funds are an investment that many advisors don’t want you to know about. They would rather sell you mutual funds. You see, ETFs have almost all of the same benefits of mutual funds, but at a fraction of the cost. Less cost to you, the investor, means less compensation to your advisor. Therefore, [...]

Early in my career I made a habit of asking the best-producing advisors I met the secrets to their success. One guy was all too happy to share his tactics with me, and I’m all too happy to be sharing them with you.
I’ll call him Shawn.
What Shawn told me to do was invent a fake [...]

A segregated fund is a mutual fund with a principal guarantee. An insurance company provides the guarantee, and investors pay for it with a higher MER than regular mutual funds have, usually by 1% or 2% (see “Management Expense Ratio” ). The guarantee applies on the 10-year anniversary of the purchase. If you invest $10,000 [...]