We have just posted the latest in the Evidenced-based Investing series of videos courtesy of FWB TV: Why couples need to talk about investing. You can also find it and the rest of the series housed at sister site Findependence.TV.

The 3-minute video features renowned indexer and author Charles Ellis, author of Winning the Loser’s Game. (Link is to the latest or sixth edition).

Citing UBS research, the video notes that most high-net-worth couples do share responsibility for major financial decisions, although men and women tend to focus on different aspects of their finances. For the most part, women take more of a role in dealing with day-to-day household finances and charitable giving; men take more of an interest in investing: in fact, fear than one in five women pay much attention to the investments jointly owned by couples.

The main point of the video is that couples should share responsibility about investing in particular because it plays such a critical role in the health of their jointly held wealth. And naturally, Charles Ellis thinks they should give up on trying to choose high-priced actively managed investments (aka “The Loser’s Game”) and agree on an indexing approach to their investments.

In this respect, the video concludes that men are actually more prone to emotion during periods of market volatility, while women are better at staying the course.

The Financial Post has just run my blog on an appeal to the Liberal administration by Catherine Swift of Working Canadians to keep annual contribution limits for Tax-Free Savings Accounts (TFSAs) at the $10,000 level they reached this summer.

As you’ll see by clicking through on the FP link below, the argument is based on the retirement-readiness disparity of the public and private sectors, a situation David Chilton alluded to in the Hub’s Monday report on his weekend speech to financial bloggers: Chilton to bloggers — Public-sector retirements in far better shape than private sector’s.

Click here for full FP blog: Cutting TFSA limit unfair when our tax dollars pay for gold-plated public pensions, citizens group charges.

The full press release can be found here.

In a telephone interview conducted after the above blog was posted, Swift — who works closely with Pension Ponzi author Bill Tufts — said the situation is “terrible” with billions of dollars of taxpayer money expended every year to prop up gold-plated public-sector pension plans. By the way, I highly recommend the book highlighted above in red: it clearly lays out the disparity that Swift, Chilton and I are complaining about.

Data doesn’t show TFSAs are a tool only for the rich

Continue Reading…

A theatrical presentation that winds up this weekend is a perfect example of one of this website’s major themes: Encore Acts.

At Toronto’s Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, a troop of seven aspiring actors formerly or still employed on Bay Street is performing a one-and-a-half hour play called The Other Side of the Cubicle. They call themselves The Bay Street Performers.

I attended the premiere on Wednesday night: the play runs between October 21st and this Sunday October 25th. Opening night was sold out but tickets are still available for Friday and some of the other engagements. All production proceeds of this charitable production go to Vibe Arts for Children and Youth.

The playwright is Kent Lam, who spent six months writing the play, even while holding down his Bay Street job. One of the actors — playing the part of Malcolm — is a personal friend of mine, David Bacque, pictured on the far right of the above photo.

Now it can be revealed …  Continue Reading…

The fourth in our regular series of videos from FWB TV is now up at their site and at Findependence.TV.

The topic is that perennial one beloved of believers in passively managed index funds or ETFs: the proportion of actively managed funds that beat the market and do so consistently.

But as the preamble below the 3.5-minute video points out:

The funds you tend to you see advertised or mentioned in the media are generally active ones too and yet independent and peer reviewed research has consistency shown that very few actively managed funds are able to be low cost passive ones with any degree of persistence.

The interview is with Professor Keith Cuthbertson of the Cass Business School. He says research shows 70% of these funds are “closet” index trackers; in 20% of cases “your grandmother could do better” and that even the 5% of truly skilled managers are “harder to find than the Higg’s Boson.”

Attempting to pick such funds amounts to a gamble, he says, although it seems plenty of investors like to gamble.

The Financial Post provides my take on Monday night’s Liberal landslide, as it pertains to Financial Independence in this blog that just was published online: So long $10,000 TFSA, and other personal finance fallout from the federal election.

The gist is that we’ll likely lose the $10,000 annual contribution TFSA limits that were only hiked earlier this year but as aging boomers move into semi-retirement or full retirement, it’s likely they’ll fall into the middle tax bracket where the Liberals’ 1.5 percentage point cut should provide several hundreds of dollars of annual tax savings. There are also significant implications for an expanded Canada Pension Plan, Old Age Security and I expect that Ontario will now no longer see a need for the Ontario Retirement Pension Plan or ORPP.

Plenty of other links via my Twitter feed (@JonChevreau), which can also be viewed under the new “Social” tab at the top left of the blue menu bar above.

Update:

A good package of the tax policies is in Wednesday’s FP that go into more depth about some of the points raised in the above blog. Be sure to read Jamie Golombek’s The Liberals’ Taxing Policies: What they mean to you and when.

See also Garry Marr’s Think of 2015 as a bonus year for your TFSA and Fred Vettese’s  Time to expand CPP, ditch ORPP. (paper only last I checked)

The Wednesday Post also contains a longer version of the blog linked at the top of this blog: How the Liberal Victory is a major setback for Canada’s Wealthy.