All posts by Jonathan Chevreau

Questrade Poll find many investors still oblivious on how fund fees hurt performance

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My latest MoneySense Retired Money column looks at a press release slated for release next week from discount brokerage Questrade Inc. You can find the full column by clicking on the highlighted headline: Canadians are still paying too much in investment fees.

According to the RRSP study commissioned by the independent discount brokerage (a copy of which was provided to me in advance) finds 87% of Canadians don’t know or underestimate the difference that a 2% or 1% fee has on their portfolios over the long run (of 20+ years).

While the majority think Canadian mutual fund management expense ratios (MERs) are too high compared to the rest of the world, given the increased regulatory climate of greater disclosure, I was surprised by the finding that almost half of mutual fund investors still don’t even know what they’re paying for mutual funds.

There are also disturbing generational differences. According to Questrade, 28% of Canadians agree that paying more for an investment will give them better returns. That’s in contrast to the operative principle behind the surge in indexing and ETFs that “Costs matter,” and the lower the costs the better. Yet Millennials seem ripe for the picking here: 42% of investors aged 18 to 34 believe paying more for investments will give them better returns (vs  just 18% of the 55+ cohort).

Or as the teaser under the main headline at MoneySense puts it: Millennials and Gen Z missed the memo on how much management fees erode returns over the long term, according to a new Questrade survey.

Questrade estimates a 1% decrease in fees over a typical 30-year investing horizon could result in 27 to 29% more money in one’s retirement kitty, assuming a 7 to 8% return in a tax-sheltered account and a portfolio between $1,000 and $50,000. But try telling that to the group of investors Questrade polled: 87% either didn’t know or underestimated the difference a 2% fee makes versus a 1% fee’s impact on the value of their portfolio over the long run. 41% think a 1% cut in fees adds 20% or less to the long-run value of their portfolios. And only 43% of RRSP investors believe cutting fees from 2 to 1% will have a big impact on returns over 30 years.

Questrade notes that on average we still are paying 2% or more in fees, which “are some of the highest fees in the world.” It cites this research from Morningstar.com, which looks at fees in 26 countries worldwide.

47% of mutual fund investors still don’t know what fees they’re paying

I find it shocking that a whopping 47% who invest in mutual funds still don’t know what fees they’re paying. A majority (52%) think Canadian mutual fund fees are too high but a third don’t know if a 2% fee for a mutual fund should be considered high. Continue Reading…

Articles 2 & 3 in my MoneySense mutual fund series: Best Mutual Fund Companies you never heard of; Fixed-Income Funds

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MoneySense magazine has now published the entire package of three mutual fund articles they commissioned me to write. You can find the first article by clicking on the highlighted headline: DSC mutual funds and the future of investment advice. It ran on January 16th. The second ran last weekend, around Jan. 25th, while I was away in Cuba for a week.

You can find the second article here: The best Mutual Funds you’ve never heard of.

The first article looked specifically at the gradual decline of the once-ubiquitous DSC sales structure, or Deferred Sales Charge. It recaps recent regularatory developments surrounding DSC, and addresses the related issue of embedded compensation for financial advisors, or so-called Trailer Commissions. These are gradually being eliminated in various Western nations (notably the UK and Australia/NZ) and they are also being phased out in all Canadian provinces, with the conspicuous exception of Ontario.

The lesser-known “Direct-to-Consumer” mutual fund families

The second article looks at two particular “camps” of mutual fund providers: the big-name Embedded Compensation firms you may have heard from (because they can afford to advertise) and a lesser known camp of Direct-to-Consumer managers whose names may be less familiar because they don’t generally have embedded compensation and whose fees are lower and typically mean they don’t have as much money to throw around on big marketing and advertising budgets. The article focusses on four firms in particular you may not have heard of, except through family referrals and word of mouth: Beutel Goodman, Leith Wheeler, Mawer, Steadyhand.

Space precludes mentioning that in the good old days of mutual fund mania (the 90s) there were several other direct-to-consumer firms that either were acquired or are now a shadow of their former selves: the list includes Altamira, Saxon, Sceptre and a few others. We also look at two deep value firms that are still around but get so much publicity about their performance that they can hardly be dubbed as “firms you’ve never heard of.” They are Irwin Michael’s ABC Funds and Francis Chou’s Chou & Associates.

Actively managed mutual funds may also work for Fixed Income space

MoneySense.ca: Photo created by pressfoto – www.freepik.com

The third article, which ran January 30th, looks at the related topic of whether mutual funds can make sense in the fixed-income space, given today’s minuscule interest rates and the relatively higher impact investment management costs can have on active management of fixed-income investments. You can find it by clicking on the highlighted headline: Can Active Management pay for itself in Fixed Income Funds?

Arguably, GICs, direct investments in government and corporate bonds (or strip bonds) is more cost-effective, and if you prefer the “basket” approach that mutual funds provide, fixed-income ETFs. But the article links to some surprising research that even in fixed income, actively managed mutual funds may be able to recoup their fees and “add value” to investment returns.

MoneySense: Mutual funds still have a place, especially those without Embedded Compensation

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MoneySense magazine has begun to publish a package of three mutual fund articles they commissioned me to write. You can find the first article by clicking on the highlighted headline: DSC mutual funds and the future of investment advice. It ran on January 16th.

The first article looks specifically at the gradual decline of the once-ubiquitous DSC sales structure, or Deferred Sales Charge. It recaps recent regularatory developments surrounding DSC, and addresses the related issue of embedded compensation for financial advisors, or so-called Trailer Commissions. These are gradually being eliminated in various Western nations (notably the UK and Australia/NZ) and they are also being phased out in all Canadian provinces, with the conspicuous exception of Ontario.

The lesser-known “Direct-to-Consumer” mutual fund families

When it’s published, the second article will look at two particular “camps” of mutual fund providers: the big-name Embedded Compensation firms you may have heard from (because they can afford to advertise) and a lesser known camp of Direct-to-Consumer managers whose names may be less familiar because they don’t generally have embedded compensation and whose fees are lower and typically mean they don’t have as much money to throw around on big marketing and advertising budgets. The article focusses on four firms in particular you may not have heard of, except through family referrals and word of mouth: Beutel Goodman, Leith Wheeler, Mawer, Steadyhand.

Space precludes mentioning that in the good old days of mutual fund mania (the 90s) there were several other direct-to-consumer firms that either were acquired or are now a shadow of their former selves: the list includes Altamira, Saxon, Sceptre and a few others. We also look at two deep value firms that are still around but get so much publicity about their performance that they can hardly be dubbed as “firms you’ve never heard of.” They are Irwin Michael’s ABC Funds and Francis Chou’s Chou & Associates. Continue Reading…

Q&A with author David Aston about his new book, The Sleep-Easy Retirement Guide

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Author David Aston, whose book becomes available today

Today is the formal release date for David Aston’s new book, The Sleep-Easy Retirement Guide. Below is a Q&A I conducted with David to mark the occasion. See also my review of the book at MoneySense that appeared in December, as well as the Hub’s throw to that piece. 

Jon Chevreau: What inspired you to write the book after so many years of writing about Retirement?

David Aston: I have covered most of the key issues in planning for retirement in stand-alone articles I have written over the years.  But I wanted to update that advice for current circumstances and figures, show how all the issues fit together as an interconnected whole, and provide it in a combined reference guide that people could have on their shelf and readily turn to when questions came up.

Q2: What do you think about the FIRE movement?

DA: The Financial Independence Retire Early (FIRE) movement is certainly laudable.  It’s an admirable concept that people should try to achieve Financial Independence as early as possible, which frees them up to do work that is most meaningful to them (rather than being obligated to do work that maximizes income).  As I understand it, it also includes the concept that people should adopt a modest lifestyle that consumes money carefully and wisely without wasting it, which in turn helps make Financial Independence more achievable at a relatively young age.  But from what I’ve read, many of the FIRE scenarios are oriented to extreme examples of people trying to achieve Financial Independence in their 30s.  So it sometimes comes up as a concept for millennials who are looking for Financial Independence as a near-time goal rather than one that is achieved after a long career at work.  That’s only possible for a tiny minority of people.  In my experience, it is far more common for people in their 30s to go through a very difficult financial crunch period where they are struggling to buy a house, then make humungous mortgage payments, and cover the expensive costs of raising kids.  FIRE goals are not realistic and achievable in your 30s for the vast majority of people.  However, the quality of thriftiness and emphasis on saving can be emulated by everyone. I personally think FIRE makes a fair amount of sense for the far more common case of people of average means who might aspire to achieving Financial Independence in their early 60s or possibly their late 50s, but that may not sound particularly appealing to millennials.

Q3: What’s your take on Semi-Retirement and/or Phased Retirement?

DA: The whole world of work for older workers is opening up.  The once accepted norm that people retired from their career job to live a life of leisure close to age 65 has pretty much gone out the window.  There are lots of expanding options for people to do post-career work that is different than their career job.  Often it involves reduced hours, but it can also be full-time work that is less stressful or more fulfilling, or some combination of these attributes.  There are various forms of part-time work, contract work, self-employment, consulting or temp work.  Often it means switching employers or being self-employed, but it can also mean gearing down to reduced hours or a less stressful role with the same employer.   And these post-career options are often started in your early 60s, but they can also happen earlier or later. So there is a vast array of options out there and it’s really up to people to pursue the opportunities that appeal to them the most.

I should mention that “phased retirement” is a term that is sometimes applied to formal corporate programs that allow older employees to adopt a reduced-work schedule or otherwise gear down with the same company prior to full-retirement from their career job.  If you go back about 10 years or so, there was an expectation that these kind of corporate programs would increasingly catch on and be offered by major corporations.  However, it never really caught on as formal corporate programs that are broadly offered to all older employees. What I have seen happen is that you get a lot of these kind of arrangements to offer reduced hours or less stressful/more fulfilling job functions negotiated on an informal, individual basis. They aren’t offered to everybody in the company.  Whether or not an employee can achieve something like that or not depends on the nature of their job, what their boss is looking for, as well as their individual wants and needs. Continue Reading…

Retired Money: David Aston’s The SleepEasy Retirement Guide

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My latest MoneySense Retired Money column is one of the first review of financial writer David Aston’s first book, The SleepEasy Retirement Guide. The subtitle bills the book as answering “the 12 biggest financial questions that keep you up at night.” Click on the highlighted text to retrieve the full column: Good News — Your RRSP is probably in better shape than you think.

Aston is a long-time freelance financial writer, and is also a MoneySense writer. I got to know him when I was the editor and always enjoyed editing his popular Retirement column in the magazine. Now 63, after a corporate career spanning management consulting, corporate financial planning, and operations, Aston turned to financial journalism, which he has now been doing for 12 years.

As I note in the review, I had a small role to play in the creation of this book, since I introduced David to the publisher: Milner & Associates Inc., which is also the publisher of Victory Lap Retirement, coauthored by myself and Mike Drak.

In the case of Aston’s new book, I have to say it seems to have been a good piece of literary matchmaking. In due course, we hope to run some excerpts and/or blogs from David here on the Hub.

A nice feature of the book are the many charts and tables that spell out just how much money you need to accumulate to retire at various ages, whether a “barebones” el cheapo lifestyle, or a high-end luxury one defined as $100,000 in annual income for couples ($80,000 for singles) or the vast swath of retired lifestyles in between. Whether you’re single or half of a couple, all the numbers you need to project finances into your future golden years are there. For most of the calculations in these charts, Aston created simple Excel spreadsheets.

No need for $1 million unless you want a deluxe Retirement

Financial writer and author David Aston

And, as is often made clear at MoneySense.ca, you don’t necessarily need $1 million to retire, although you will need that much and more if you are counting on a deluxe retirement with all the bells and whistles (exotic travel once or twice a year, two cars in the garage, eating out regularly, etc.). Continue Reading…