There is a common belief among investors that the secret to building wealth lies in your ability (or your advisor’s ability) to hit home runs with your investing – and it is complete nonsense.  I’m not exactly sure who started this myth, but I know that it has been kept alive by some in the [...]

Have you ever had the feeling you should sell your investments and hold cash in your investment accounts? Have you ever actually done it? Ever wished you had?
Most people don’t move to cash, or money-market funds, even though they really want to do so. Too often their advisor talks them out of it. I’ll bet [...]

Behind every financial product is a clever marketing machine. The marketing machine behind Principal Protected Notes (PPNs) doesn’t need to be all that clever, however. The features are attractive: 100% principal protection at maturity, exposure to a diversified portfolio of great performing stocks (or to almost whatever asset class, sector, or geographic region you want), [...]

Value investing is a process of selecting stocks that trade for less than their intrinsic value. “What does that mean?” you might ask. Well, if you think about the earnings of a company in relation to the price of its stock, you start to get an idea whether the stock is cheap or expensive.
If the [...]

Most of the time when rates of return get distorted, the distortion exaggerates the upside and makes an investment appear more attractive than it really is. This is not always the case, however. Sometimes a distortion makes the investment look less attractive. This can be the case with individual stocks that pay dividends.
Barry is evaluating [...]

Real Return Bonds are bonds issued by the Government of Canada. They operate differently from regular government bonds in that they don’t pay a fixed rate of interest. Their interest payments are adjusted for inflation. As inflation increases, the interest the bonds pay increases. This protects your purchasing power and acts as an excellent hedge [...]

Whether you are building a new back deck or a financial plan, you will need tools to do the job properly. If you have the right tools and know how to use them, you can defend yourself against lousy advice and misleading information.
The most important tool – knowledge.

The fact that you are reading [...]

This is Theodore and Linda Jensen’s Story.
Theodore spent many years working for a large oil and gas company in Calgary.  He had a senior position, a corner office and he was well paid.  Like a lot of his counterparts, Theodore could have worked his whole career there and retired with a nice pension at about [...]

Advice is cheap and plentiful, especially lousy advice.  Good advice, while hard to find, can be extremely valuable for your financial plan.  How can you tell if the advice you’re getting is good or bad?   You need to understand the source.  Meaningful, unbiased advice is out there.  Asking your advisor these 12 questions will help [...]

A unique feature of ETFs is that they can use leverage and options. This allows them to borrow money and purchase derivatives. By using derivatives, some ETFs are built to move in the direction opposite that of the sector they invest in. These ETFs are called inverse ETFs because they go up when the market [...]