Here’s my latest MoneySense blog, which recaps the two-day Exchange Traded Forum 2016 in Toronto this week.
You can find the full blog by clicking on this headline: Are ETFs beating out mutual funds in popularity?
Pictured to the left is Dave Nadig, ETF director for FactSet Research Systems Inc. of Norwalk, CT, who in his keynote address said that since the financial crisis, net mutual fund inflows were US$61 billion, compared to a whopping US$1.2 trillion for ETFs.
Hockey stick curve
My latest Financial Post blog reports on the Radius Exchange Traded Forum 2016 conference that began on Tuesday and continues Wednesday at the Design Exchange in Toronto.
You can find the full blog by clicking on this highlighted headline: Robo Advisers and ETFs prove it’s time for a new financial advice fee structure.
That model, described before here at the Hub, consists of taking advantage of the scaling possibilities of so-called “fin tech” (financial technology) like robo advisers and the underlying ETF structures, and moving from an asset-based model based on a percentage of client wealth, and moving to a Netflix-like monthly subscription model.
Needless to say, not everyone in the established financial industry is thrilled by that prospect. To quote one of the experts cited, “Index funds are like garlic to vampires for Wall Street.”
My latest Financial Post column looks at how to find a silver lining in the losing stocks in your RRSP. See If you’ve got losing stocks in your RRSP, now may be the time to set them free. It’s also in the Wednesday paper.
I have to admit this is a controversial topic and had I not been introduced to it by the unidentified advisor in the piece, it would never have occurred to me. (the firm’s compliance department didn’t want him identified)
Nonetheless, depending on your tax bracket and your desire to start “melting down” your RRSP or RRIF, it could make sense. See also last weekend’s Hub blog by Doug Dahmer, which provides further context to this particular strategy: Debt is more than a four-letter word during your drawdown years.
Bottom line is, and as Dahmer often says, one of the biggest expenses in retirement is tax. By paying a little more tax now than you have to — if you’re in a lower tax bracket — you may be able to avoid paying a lot more tax down the road, which can happen once you reach age 71 and are subject to annual forced RRIF withdrawals that are fully taxable.
Not intuitive, I realize, but as the Fram Filter folk say, “You can pay me now or you can pay me later. “
I have to hand it to financial author David Trahair. He and his publishers have come up with a catchy title that’s bound to sell a few copies of his latest (sixth) book. It’s titled The Procrastinator’s Guide to Retirement and sports an equally alluring subtitle: How YOU can retire in 10 years or less.
You can find a Q&A I conducted with Trahair about the book here at MoneySense.ca.
When I perused the book initially, my first impression was that there seemed to be relatively little about procrastination and the critical last ten years of Retirement. The book doesn’t have an index but my initial perception was that the book is a standard-issue retirement guide covering all the good things you should do throughout your working career, not just the final ten years.
Which came first, the book or the title?
Perhaps it’s because we are contemporaries who went to the same college and are slightly acquainted, but my wife and I thoroughly enjoyed reading Ian Brown’s recently published memoir/diary: Sixty (Random House Canada, 2015).
While attempting to read some other book, I was constantly interrupted by the laughter Brown induced in my wife. I was soon hooked, in part because some of the names Brown drops were familiar to us.
Sixty started as a Facebook post and a declaration that Brown — a feature writer for the Globe & Mail — would be conducting a diary of his 61st year. It reads more like a personal memoir than a mere day-by-day chronicle of events, although Brown deftly does both.
Not surprising, since Brown is a skilled proponent of what is variously known as creative non-fiction or literary journalism. He has over the years been a literary journalism instructor at the Banff Centre, where we once enjoyed a pleasant dinner with him.
The angst of Boomer envy
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