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).

Settling on the elusive definition of Financial Independence

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Money flying out of cage birds , Financial independence , eps10Here’s my latest MoneySense column, which tries to nail down a definitive definition of Financial Independence. As I note in the above headline, this exercise is a bit more elusive than you might think, and the waters continue to be muddied by the mainstream term, Retirement, which I do NOT regard as synonymous.

As also noted in the Hub’s version below, I’m inviting reader feedback: Has Wikipedia’s definition nailed it, or can the term be improved?

Maybe I should grab the bull by the horns and create my own formal definition of Findependence, even though I view that term simply as a contraction of Financial Independence.

Reader input welcome! Continue Reading…

Why are all these Canadian financial experts in Chicago this week?

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Trump International Hotel and Tower in Chicago, IL in morning
Trump International Hotel and Tower in Chicago

By Jonathan Chevreau

This week, a chunk of Canada’s financial community and media commentators are descending on the Windy City for a half-week conference on ETFs and mutual funds.

They include CBC’s Rick Mercer, BNN’s Larry Berman, author and radio host Andrew Busch, BMO Capital Market’s chief investment strategist Brian Belski and BMO private Bank CIO Jack Ablin, robo-adviser pioneer Randy Cass, Morningstar director of global ETF research Ben Johnson, ShareOwner CEO Bruce Seago and even myself.

You can find the full agenda here. Located at the Trump International Hotel, there are two concurrent streams, one devoted to mutual funds, the other to ETFs.

Wednesday morning (April 8th) kicks off bright and early with a keynote by Brian Belski on the market outlook: It’s titled (reassuringly) The Secular Bull Market is Very Much Alive.

Robos crash the party

One of the big topics within the ETF stream is robo-advisers, most of which have ETFs as their fundamental building block. Continue Reading…

ETFs: the next 25 years

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Mark Yamada

By Mark Yamada, PUR Investing Inc.

Special to the Financial Independence Hub

From zero assets in 1989, to $79 billion in 2000, to $2.7 trillion into 2015, it has been quite a ride for global exchange-traded funds (ETFs). Few financial sectors have approached the over 25% compounded annual growth that ETFs have enjoyed. Yet many industry observers are disappointed.

ETFs’ value proposition is well known: diversification, professional management, shared expenses, all the benefits of mutual funds at a fraction of the price plus better transparency and continuous intraday trading. Yet ETFs represent only 12% of US and 6% of Canadian mutual fund assets (10% if US-traded ETFs owned by Canadians are included). If ETFs are so much better than mutual funds, why haven’t they replaced them by now?

Adopting new ideas Continue Reading…

On Retirement — early or never?

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MarieEngen
Marie Engen (photo: Google Plus)

By Marie Engen, Boomer & Echo

Special to the Financial Independence Hub

Our current concept of retirement is relatively new. Past generations had no idea what it meant not to work. They stopped only when they physically had to.

Here’s an interesting tidbit – in 1890, nearly everyone died while still employed, and if they were healthy enough not to expire on the job, they retired at age 85.

Boomer parents were retirement pioneers.

The retirement age of 65 was first set in Germany in 1916, adopted by the U.S. in 1935, and in Canada shortly thereafter. It was probably the advent of CPP and OAS benefits that created the mindset to retire at age 65. Then came the lure of Freedom 55 and people were led to believe that 55 was a reasonable retirement age.

Related: How much do you need to save for retirement?

Presently the average age of first retirement is about 56 years, often followed by a return to work, at least part-time.

According to Statistics Canada, the retirement age is actually increasing. Continue Reading…

Why “Healthspan” trumps “Lifespan”

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danrichards
Dan Richards (youtube.com)

By Dan Richards,

Special to the Financial Independence Hub

Advisors spend a great deal of their time with clients who ask, “Will I run out of money?” As a result, few issues get more attention than the sustainable withdrawal rate in today’s environment.

But new research shows that an equally pressing question is, “How can I enjoy life in my 60s, before health issues creep in?”

Remarkable growth in lifespans

A couple of years back, I wrote an article titled “Will I be able to pay for a hip replacement when I’m 85?,” highlighting the boomer focus on withstanding the ravages of age. In another article, I described boomers as not your parents’ retirees. Compared to their parents: Continue Reading…