Here’s my latest Young Money blog for the Financial Post, bearing the headline Web-literate millennials look beyond traditional banks for online investing and lending services.

For the Millennial generation born between 1980 and 2000, the Internet and social media comes naturally to them, as does entrepreneurship. They gravitate to services like Netflix, Uber and much more.

That makes them a prime market for both automated online investment services (aka robo advisors, which we often highlight here at the Hub) and online lending services, at least three of which have started up in Canada in the past year or two.

Go to the above link for the full FP blog.  Former mortgage broker Chantal Chapman, at 32 also a millennial, has just been appointed National Financial Fitness Coach for one of those three companies, Vancouver-based Mogo, which trades on the TSX under the ticker GO.

The U.S. model for these is San Francisco-based Lending Club.  We may look at this space in more depth in the coming weeks.

In the meantime, Chantel is co-hosting a series of Adulting 101 financial education events in various cities this fall.  The Toronto event is on October 25th:  details here.
 

My latest Motley Fool Canada blog is entitled How Monday’s federal election could impact Canadian investors.

As we pointed out Wednesday in an FP blog about an H&R Block survey, a surprisingly high percentage (70%) of voters are influenced by the personal tax implications of the various political platforms and tax is actually the “primary factor” for 28% of voters so polled.

Motley Fool wanted a “non-partisan” look not only at tax but also retirement and pensions, balanced budgets and other economic considerations. But as you’ll see, tax remains a big part of it: income splitting, TFSA contribution room and small business taxation.

Below you can find my latest Financial Post blog, which looks at an H&R Block survey released today that found 70% of Canadians of voting age say the personal tax implications of party platforms “influence” their vote. And a whopping 28% felt tax was the “primary” factor affecting their vote.

You can put me in the latter category too! How about you?

Feel free to append comments below  or in the comments section under the full FP blog, which you can find by clicking on this headline: For many Canadians, this election is about taxes.

My monthly ETF column has just been published at the Financial Post, which you can find under the headline, Jonathan Chevreau: What to consider when buying Emerging Market funds.

Yes, as the piece points out, Emerging Markets have been sustained more than fair share of the market carnage that has been with us — on and off — since late summer. But that, argue some sources, is the beauty of it. Buy low, sell high and all that.

Certainly, there are concerns about Emerging Market debt, but debt is a concern even among the most seemingly vibrant giant US megacap stocks. But if you want to play Emerging Markets equity ETFs, it would seem that now may at least be a time to start nibbling at Emerging Markets.

How much Emerging Markets should constitute of your total portfolio, and which ETFs to play it with, are the subject of the full column.

The third in our series of FWB TV videos is now up at FWB Securities.com and Findependence.TV. Click on How to choose a financial advisor.

In the short (almost 4 minutes), Robin Powell interviews well-known American financial planner Michael Kitces about how the evolution of financial advice has moved from helping clients pick a few actively managed mutual funds that pay commissions to the advisor, to the modern holistic financial planning model that’s generally fee-based. The “Value Proposition” has shifted accordingly from merely helping clients pick funds or investments to helping clients outline their long-term goals, tax filing, retirement strategies, estate and succession planning and all the rest.

If you missed the earlier videos and accompanying introductory blogs, you can find them below:

Who gets the Porsche, you or your investment advisor? (Sept 30)

Don’t assume investment performance is due to manager skill  (Oct 7)