Get the facts on fixed income
MoneySense’s Invest for Success event brings people together with investing experts to hear their hard-worn advice.
In this video from the conference, Stephen Lingard, portfolio manager with Franklin Templeton Investments, talks about how bond investing has changed in the past 10 years, with returns from fixed-income falling to about 2% from 40-year historical levels of around 8%.
“From a return perspective, we’re going to count on them less, it’s really as more of a portfolio diversifier,” he says.
He also gives his outlook for Canadian equities for the next five to seven years.
Follow this link to watch the video
Cardinal Update – August 2016
Where the Real Value Lies – Recent market moves have delighted many of our clients as they have seen the market value on their accounts continue to march upward, albeit in choppy fashion. We enjoy having happy clients, but fear that rising market values distract some clients from the real value in their accounts. Market values go up and go down, at the whim of the marketplace. What value there is today can be drastically diminished tomorrow. Market value is the wrong measuring stick. Recall that investing and wealth is the ownership of strong, profitably growing companies.
Click here to read more: Cardinal Update – August 2016
Investors: Don’t do dumb stuff when it gets hard
Try not to abandon your strategy as soon as it lags the alternatives.
Given the choice between a simple solution and a complex one, which would you choose? When it comes to investing, many people seem bent on making their portfolios needlessly complicated.
My blog—canadiancouchpotato.com—includes a model portfolio with just three exchange-traded funds (ETFs): one covering Canadian stocks, another for foreign stocks and a third for bonds. This trio of funds includes more than 3,000 companies from around the world, plus hundreds of bonds of all maturities. It’s super-cheap with a fee of less than 0.20%. And during the last 10- and 20-year periods it would have returned about 6% to 7%. Yet so many investors have an unshakable urge to tinker with it.
I routinely get emails that go something like this: “I like your Couch Potato portfolio, but I would like to make some changes. What do you think about adding some gold, small-cap stocks, commodities, real estate, global bonds, sector ETFs, infrastructure and maybe some blue-chip stocks to the mix?” I’m exaggerating, but only a little. Even those who admit they have no experience are convinced their tweaks will improve the portfolio.
Read the rest of this article from MoneySense Magazine on their website.
Protect your valuables
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When it comes to protecting your home and ensuring you’ve got the right insurance coverage, there are a number of areas that are easily overlooked in high-value homes.
Unique Upgrades
Many high-end homes include unique upgrades—there is a big difference between marble tiles that you can find at the big-box retailers and custom-made marble tiles that are chosen for their colour and thickness from a quarry in Italy and flown overseas. The same goes for hardwood floors—if you have a rare or exotic hardwood that has to be imported, you will want to make sure that your insurance broker knows and includes that in your insurance policy. If you have a unique or expensive chandelier, you’ll want to let your broker know that as well, so that it is specifically included in your insurance policy.
