Building Wealth

For the first 30 or so years of working, saving and investing, you’ll be first in the mode of getting out of the hole (paying down debt), and then building your net worth (that’s wealth accumulation.). But don’t forget, wealth accumulation isn’t the ultimate goal. Decumulation is! (a separate category here at the Hub).

Marketing for your Side Hustle

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By Christina Sanders

Special to the Financial Independence Hub

You may be running a small business on the side to achieve financial independence. These side hustles can be anything from lawn mowing to website design. No matter what your side hustle is, you’ll need marketing to gain new customers. It doesn’t have to cost you an arm and a leg either. There are plenty of options and methods for promoting your business through cheap, yet effective means.

1.) Focus on local markets

In marketing, there is a constant focus on target markets. These are the people that you want to buy your product or service. They’re the people most likely to buy your product because it solves a problem they have or they trust it to improve their life. This comes down to not only geographics, but also demographic data focused on income level, family size, interests, gender, and age. All these factors will help you to hone in on who you should spend your marketing efforts on.

For a small business, it’s likely best to focus on your surrounding geographic area. Utilizing a local market is usually less expensive and you have a competitive edge by being based in the same region as your customers. That geographic intimacy provides a better understanding of local culture, including common pain points and values. Use that to speak to your potential customers on a more personable level.

2.) Design distributables

You’ll likely want to make some business cards and flyers for your business. Digital marketing is crowded, often difficult, and can be expensive. Physical distributables are very effective, especially in local markets. They can be passed for referrals, posted on community boards, and distributed through mail. If you’re unsure about how your design should look, check out some flyer examples and look at what other businesses have done. There are simple and free online programs for designing flyers, brochures, and posters. Simply do a Google search to find one that works for you.

Having a personal brand in your advertisements goes a long way. You can build trust and confidence with your potential customers by having high-quality designs and messaging. Your brand should represent what values you and your customer both deem important. Having brand consistency will be important for becoming recognizable and memorable in your community. So don’t ever settle for less than high quality, because your brand defines what people will think of your service.

3.) Create a website

People may hear about your business and then wonder more. Where will they likely go? The internet. You need a webpage that answers questions they will likely be wondering and that drives further interest.

This doesn’t have to be difficult. Sites like Wix.com make it easier than ever to build your own website based on beautifully designed templates. Make sure you choose a website design that values ease of use over anything else. Make it incredibly simple for your customers to understand exactly what you do and any other information that would be valuable to them. This is called UX, which you can research online for a more in-depth understanding. Continue Reading…

The straight dope on Marijuana investing

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By Chris Arthur

(Sponsor Content)

Is all the buzz around marijuana investing deserved? How did the value of marijuana stocks get so high in the first place? Why are they currently on a bit of a low? And with valuations at a discount, is now a good time to get in on the action?

Clearly, there are big risks. But there are also big rewards for investors in this fast-growing new industry. After all, marijuana legalization is scheduled to take place very soon.

Anyway, it seems inevitable at this point. How can you add marijuana to your investment mix? With Canadian investors in mind, we took an in-depth look at these questions.

Legalization isn’t as simple as when the House of Commons votes to create a new marketplace. Many politicians are enthusiastic. However, they know that there are many other considerations and costs involved. For those interested in marijuana investing, it’s top of mind.

The marijuana marketplace has grown up fast, even before legalization

When is the absolute best time to invest in the fast-growing marijuana industry? Actually, that was probably more than a year ago. Canada’s Prime Minister campaigned on legalizing marijuana in the last election. The thinking was to disrupt the black market. At the same time, while they could create a windfall of tax revenue and they’d get a substantial cash infusion from a legalized marijuana industry.

In response to the enthusiasm, investors poured money into cannabis companies. Some of these quickly went from penny stocks to high-flying billion-dollar firms.

For instance, the market cap of the top five cannabis stocks alone grew by 400%. Canopy Growth Corp., the leader in Canada, has a market cap of over $5 billion. If you got in early enough, you saw a 261% return on your investment. Aurora Cannabis had a slightly smaller market cap. However, it posted a 1-year return of 353%. PharmaCan Capital’s stock was up 385%.

The whole reason we saw such startling triple-digit returns for marijuana stocks year? Deregulation. Sooner or later, it’s coming.

A bigger market than just Canada

Marijuana legalization creates a global opportunity. It is not confined to the Canadian marketplace. However, it is a also a unique situation. The usual big gorilla on the block, corporate America, is a no-show. Consider legalization in individual American states like Colorado and California. There, federal law still cuts American companies out of the competition.

That means, for once, Canadians can step over their southern cousins and become global leaders in a brand-new industry. This is green pasture territory. It is a dreamy prospect for investors looking for profit.

The marijuana industry includes over 85 companies with a combined market value of $30 billion. Some believe the global medicinal marijuana marketplace alone could be worth US$31.4 billion by 2021. According to Eight Capital, it could be worth $180 billion by 2025. Some think Canadians might be coming late to this market. Medical cannabis programs started here as early as 2001. If anything, we set the trends.

However, the big growth we have seen so far isn’t likely to continue forever. Investors looking into this industry need to manage their expectations.

Today, marijuana investing is about diversification. After all, there’s volatility. You’re betting on companies that must prove their worth by generating sales. What kind of sales? That’s the billion-dollar question.

Not every marijuana start-up has all the answers. So, what are paying customers really looking for? That is still up for debate.

Overview: Where the marijuana industry is today

There are different kinds of potential customers for marijuana. The first, smaller group is the smokers. But the second group includes people who consume cannabis in other ways. After all, customers can do it through food, beverages, supplements or other means. Also, medical marijuana is a big potential area of growth. Additionally, there are specialty products that cross over into the bigger food and beverage territory.

According to Evolve ETFs’ research, in 2015, there were just five countries where medical marijuana was legalized (or in the process of being legalized). By 2017, that shot up to 25 countries.

Canada is a leader in this sector. It legalized medical marijuana in 1999. The big breakthrough though came in 2015. There were new rules to allow value-added products. The Supreme Court said restricting legal access to only dried products was unconstitutional. This opened up the market with new product lines. That in turn transformed the medical marijuana landscape.

The number of adult Canadians who use recreational marijuana could be about 20 per cent of the population. How do we know this? The government is trying to get a better handle on the actual number. It’s tracking the THC-laced product that winds up in our sewers. Canadians spent $5.7 billion on marijuana for medical and non-medical purposes in 2017. Market studies estimate the value of the Canadian recreational marijuana market in 2018 to be about $7.9 billion.

Beverages will likely be big business for the marijuana industry. Energy drinks and health supplements of every variety will separate themselves from the pack by infusing them with marijuana extracts. Some companies are planning cannabinoid-infused beverages for launch in 2018. These products have huge potential for sales.

It could be an easy way for companies outside the marijuana industry to get a foot in the door in this growing industry. Alcohol giant, Constellations Brands, owner of Corona, purchased a 9.9% stake in Canopy Growth Corp (WEED.TSX).

Risks in marijuana investing

There are still many questions around the legalization process. Uncertainty is sure to prompt additional volatility. Continue Reading…

How to add value to your home before selling

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By Emily Roberts

(Sponsored Content)

Over time, the value of your home can be expected to gradually increase in value, unlike most consumer purchases (like cars), which depreciate from the moment they are acquired.

As long as you’re living in the home, this price appreciation is seldom a gain you can pocket, and in fact, your property taxes may rise as a result. But eventually it should be able to be sold at a solid profit.

When you do decide to finally sell, you will want to get as much money for your home as possible. You will want to get a return on your investment and be able to afford your new home. In this article, we are going to give you some ideas on how you can improve the value of your home before selling. Keep reading if you’d like to find out more.

Build an extension

If you have a lot of space on your property, then you might find that adding an extension to the kitchen or the side of your home might actually make a huge difference to the overall value. Think about how much this could cost you and how much more you might be able to make on your house when you are selling it. People love to have extra space but don’t sacrifice a garden completely for a slightly bigger kitchen.

Add Insulation

If your home is not totally insulated, then you are not saving as much money on monthly bills as you could be. Many people forget to insulate their attics and their sheds, which can consume a lot of energy. Not only will you save yourself money on the bills, but you will also save the new buyer in the long run. Make sure to insulate your home and mention it to potential buyers when they are viewing your home.

Add an outdoor building

If you have some extra space in your garden you should think about investing in an outdoor building, which you can learn more about at Armstrong Steel: one of the most renowned providers. The buildings they provide come pre-made and so all you have to do is assemble them. When you have put it together, you can choose to do whatever you want with it. Continue Reading…

Forget the Trade War, already: China is cutting Taxes

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By Jeff Weniger, WisdomTree Investments

Special to the Financial Independence Hub

The market’s obsession with trade wars may finally be exhausted and priced in. Move on to the next market mover: massive Chinese tax cuts, which should aid the WisdomTree ICBCCS S&P China 500 Index ETF (CHNA.B), our tracker exchange-traded fund for the country.

Sure, China exported US$457 billion (C$597 billion) of goods and services to the U.S. in the year through June, and some fraction of those exports is at risk from a deterioration in Sino-U.S. relations. But engage a drastic scenario: lop off US$200 billion or US$300 billion from that figure. Even if that happened, most of that sum wouldn’t even disappear; it would be sold elsewhere, maybe inside China, at concessionary prices. But even suspending logic and having it all vanish, is it really doomsday for China’s US$14.1 trillion economy (US$25.2 trillion at purchasing power parity)? We don’t want to minimize the importance of trade conflicts, but the airtime given this topic is hysterical.

When Obama was in office, many conservatives and free market acolytes convinced themselves he would destroy the U.S. economy, so they ignored massive fiscal and monetary stimulus — the data — and missed the equity bull market. Emotions ruled; logic lost.

Now it’s happening with Trump. Among some investors, emotions are defeating data. The recent Bank of America Merrill Lynch fund manager survey pointed to a trade war as the market’s biggest risk. Some investors so badly wish Trump to fail that, like conservatives during the Obama years, positive news is simply ignored. Forget Japan’s major trade deal with the EU, ink still wet. Forget Trump’s meeting with Jean-Claude Juncker, European Commission president, where they agreed to work toward zero tariffs. The end is near!

Astute investors need a sober, facts-based thesis.

A Thesis without Emotion

A more realistic take on matters is that China finds itself isolated, unable to pair with Moscow in a two-country geostrategic counterbalance to the West. This forces Beijing to backtrack on intellectual property theft, inordinately high tariff levels, state subsidies and dumping because of its weak bargaining hand.

The pain must be offset, so Beijing gives the market that for which it aches: trillions of dollars in tax cuts at the business, product and personal income tax levels. Yes, Trump’s ability to stir the pot is important, but mathematics matters.

Chinese equities are the play here.

Bold actions

We calculate that many Chinese will see their personal income tax liability fall by half or more, effective January 1, 2019. Add to this our estimate of nearly US$500 billion in value-added tax cuts over the next decade, with still-in-the-works business tax relief on top, which would be another US$132 billion to $138 billion if activity grows at a pace of 6% to 7%. For perspective, Beijing’s Lehman-era US$586 billion spending package, hypothesized by some to be the reason the Global Financial Crisis ended, is smaller than 2018’s total announced tax cuts, if we calculate them over several years. This is this year’s big story.

Income Tax Scenarios: Implications for everyday Chinese

The proposed personal income tax code changes are staggering (figure 1). Exemptions and the minimum bounds for the 10%, 20% and 25% brackets are set to gap higher, while tuition, medical and mortgage deductions add to the savings.

Figure 1: China Personal Income Tax Code 

If these become law in October and are implemented in January, someone making CNY15,000 per month (C$2,906), a wage that is common in a city like Shanghai, where 2017 median monthly income is $2,048, would see their monthly taxes cut by CNY1,080 (C$209).1The person making half that amount, or CNY7,500 per month, which is short of the metropolitan median, would save about C$500 per year on an income of C$17,437. This is serious.

Chinese Equity Valuations

With many Chinese equity markets hammered this year, the S&P China 500 Index’s forward P/E multiple has fallen to 11.7, a sharp discount to the S&P/TSX Composite Index of Canadian equities (P/E of 15.8).2  Continue Reading…

The stock market crash that never came

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It’s been 10 years since the global financial crisis bottomed out. Since then stocks have basically been on an uninterrupted tear, with the TSX doubling in value, and the S&P 500 nearly quadrupling in value. In that time, investors have survived the European debt crisis, Greece’s debt crisis, a Russian financial crisis, the Brexit decision, Trump’s election, and countless other doomsday predictions.

Markets have reached all-time highs so frequently that investors are understandably nervous about an upcoming crash. The problem is, nobody knows when a crash might hit, if ever, or how severe it might be if it does occur. Stocks may continue to go up for a few years, or maybe go sideways for a while, or we might suffer a small correction of 10-15 percent before the next bull market begins.

The tech bubble and financial crisis are still fresh enough in our minds to convince investors that declines of 40-50 per cent are normal, when in fact these were major black swan events that perhaps we’ll never see again.

Investing at all-time highs

Let’s say you’re a nervous investor who decided to get out of the stock market at some point in the last 10 years, whether due to Europe, Brexit, Trump, or simply because the markets were looking “expensive.”  What’s the cost of waiting for a correction? It turns out to be quite high.

“Far more money has been lost by investors preparing for corrections, or trying to anticipate corrections, than has been lost in corrections themselves.” – Peter Lynch

The Cogent Advisor blog looked at U.S. investment returns over the period 1927 through 2016. That’s 91 years, or 1,092 months. The average monthly return was 0.95 per cent. But when they removed the returns from the best performing 91 months, the remaining 1,001 months provided an average return of virtually zero (0.1 per cent). In other words, 8.5 per cent of the months delivered almost 100 per cent of the return.

Their takeaway: Even if you believe the probability of a correction is high, it’s far from certain. And when the correction doesn’t happen, the expected opportunity cost of having waited is much greater than the expected benefit.

The Crash That Never Came

One reader who I’ll call Jason emailed me and confessed that while he used to invest in index funds he got nervous after Trump’s election and moved everything to a full service wealth management firm last year. He didn’t say in the email, but I can imagine he stressed this concern with his new advisor, who placed him into a conservative portfolio aimed to provide downside protection in the event of a crash.

Here’s Jason, one year later:

I just took a look at the past 12-month performance and it was 3 per cent vs the market of ~13 per cent. I have a sinking feeling I made a mistake and should move it back to self manage using index funds.

I sent my advisor a few questions and basically got the answer that they protect the downside, and have a lower risk targeting 4-6 per cent average over five years.

I still feel nervous, but at age 42 I think I should be more in the market. We have been at all-time highs for a while so I am torn between a bear market that may start now and the downside protection would be warranted. That said, maybe not.

Continue Reading…