Tag Archives: Retirement

Defined Benefit pension plans continue to perform, despite ongoing market volatility

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Image Mercer/Getty Images

By F. Hubert Tremblay, Partner, Mercer Canada

Special to Financial Independence Hub

 The last few years have thrown a number of hurdles on the markets. A pandemic and the recovery phase have been accompanied by recent additional uncertainty from the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and fears of a global banking crash. Canadians looking at their retirement savings realize how volatility can affect their accounts and might have to save more to meet their retirement objectives or delay retirement.

Despite this volatility, the financial positions of defined benefit (DB) pension plans continued to improve over the last quarter, as indicated by the Mercer Pension Health Pulse (MPHP).

The MPHP, which tracks the median solvency ratio of the DB pension plans in Mercer’s pension database, rose in Q1, finishing the quarter at 116 per cent, a jump of 3 per cent from the beginning of 2023. This is on top of a remarkable jump of 10 per cent during 2022.

While the global banking crisis continues to wreak havoc on markets, a strong January and February helped ensure that Canadian DB plans remained unaffected, and most continued to improve. In fact, many plans’ funded positions finished the quarter in better positions than they have been in 20 years. However, looking ahead, there are several factors that may create more volatility and uncertainty for DB plans:

 The global economy at play

The global economy entered 2023 juggling multiple risks. Around the world, central banks were focused on tackling inflation by increasing their policy interest rates and other qualitative tightening activities. On the heels of the failure or takeover of high-profile banks in both the U.S. and Europe, policymakers must now weigh the consequences of continuing these tightening measures with the need to stabilize the banking sector overall.

The war in Ukraine – with no signs of resolution in the near future – could also mean continued global tensions and a reduction in global trade, all of which will negatively impact the global economy.

In North America, there is increased political polarization in the U.S., with the debt ceiling needing to be raised but neither side compromising to reach an agreement. The consequences of the American government debt default would be disastrous for global financial markets.

 The Canada equation

North of the border in Canada, in addition to the inflation scenario, Ottawa’s decision to cease issuing real return bonds (RRBs) and proceed with Bill C-228 caused a stir among pension stakeholders. Continue Reading…

RetireEarlyLifestyle.com interview on Financial Independence & the “Findependent” lifestyle

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By Billy and Akaisha Kaderli, RetireEarlyLifestyle.com

Special to Financial Independence Hub

We at Retire Early Lifestyle like to bring you individual FIRE stories and interviews of interesting people. There is no one single way to retire, and it is our hope that in reading these interviews with those who are on the path to Financial Independence it will inspire you to do the same!

Meet Jon [Jonathan] and Ruth Chevreau

Jonathan (Jon) and Ruth Chevreau

RetireEarlyLifestyle: Could you tell us a little about yourselves? Are you financially independent now?

Jon Chevreau: I’d describe Ruth and me as financially independent, yes, although it’s hard to claim we retired early like yourselves.

I just turned 70 and am still writing and editing, as well as running my own website on Financial Independence. Ruth is a year younger and retired from full-time work when she turned 65. My last full-time employment was at age 61, so by my definition when I became freelance/self-employed that was the start of our Findependence.

But we COULD have left the salaried routine earlier if we had wished to do so: we paid off our mortgage decades ago and our financial assets in combination with small employer pensions and the usual Government pensions are more than enough to fund a modest lifestyle.

REL: What type of work did you do, and what your life was like before FIRE?

JC: I’ve always been a journalist and editor, as well as an author and blogger.

Initially I worked in staff newspaper jobs covering technology in the early 80s ‘for the Globe & Mail (one of Canada’s two national newspapers), then almost two decades covering personal finance and investing for the National Post (Canada’s other national newspaper). I was also editor-in-chief for MoneySense Magazine for a few years after the Post and continue to write and edit for them in addition to running Financial Independence Hub, which I launched in 2014 when I left my full-time job at MoneySense.

REL: Because Billy has a background in finance and securities, he’s very familiar with US investments. Tell us about Canadian-backed assets.

JC: Canada is similar to Australia in its investment profile.

We’re dominated by energy and materials stocks and by six big banks. We have virtually no health care stocks and our consumer staple stocks are really just publicly traded grocery store chains like Loblaw;  our tech sector is small. Every once in a while Canada spawns a technology winner: Nortel, which went bust after China’s Huawei “borrowed” some of its technology; Research in Motion, whose Blackberry was a big-time success until the Apple iPhone ursurped it; and currently Shopify is our big tech winner.

Jon & Ruth sitting on a sand dune in Morocco

But mostly the Toronto Stock Exchange is dominated by banks like Royal Bank, BMO, Bank of Montreal, and TD Canada Trust (all with some US presence) and energy giants like Enbridge and TransCanada Pipelines. An American investor can get away with almost exclusive home country bias since the US is roughly half the global market cap and many of the big players are international anyway.

Canada is maybe 3% of the world’s total market cap, so we are forced to look to the US and global markets to be properly diversified. Once upon a time we were limited to just 20% foreign content in our pensions and retirement plans but that got scrapped so now we can overload on the S&P500 if we wish.

REL: Are discount brokers available to you in Canada like Fidelity, Charles Schwab and Vanguard?

JC: Oh yes, mainly through the big banks, so there’s TD Waterhouse, RBC Direct Investing (both of which we use) and the other banks have similar operations. There are also several independent online brokers like Questrade. Fidelity and Vanguard have Canadian divisions but mostly to sell their mutual funds and ETFs.

REL: Are capital gains taxed more favorably than income in Canada?

JC: Yes. Only half of capital gains are taxed, so that means about half as much tax as is usually paid on interest income or employment income. Also, unlike the US, the capital gains tax in Canada does not rise or fall depending how long you held before taking a profit. Dividends paid by Canadian companies get a lower tax rate than foreign dividends, which are taxed like interest and so best held in tax-sheltered retirement vehicles like the RRSP (Registered Retirement Savings Plan, similar to America’s IRA).

Ruth hiking in Spain

REL: Could you explain Canada’s Old Age Pension, how that works, at what age one can begin receiving it, and how one qualifies for it?

JC: Canada’s equivalent to Social Security is actually three programs we dub CPP/OAS/GIS.

The main one is the Canada Pension Plan, to which all employees must contribute. Like Social Security you can take CPP early (even at age 60) but it pays much more if you wait till 70.

There is also Old Age Security or OAS, which people normally take at the traditional Retirement Age of 65. You can’t get it earlier than that but like CPP, can defer it to 70 and get paid more. It’s funded by the government’s general tax revenues but it’s means-tested, so if you have taxable income above $80,000 or so (the threshold rises a bit each year), you start to have OAS taxed away and you lose it all around $120,000. This is for each person, so retired couples normally try to keep their taxable income below $80,000 each, so $160,000 between them.

Finally, there is the Guaranteed Income Supplement (GIS) to the OAS: which is means-tested and aims to top up income for seniors who have no real pensions or retirement savings. Personally, we don’t plan on receiving GIS: most middle-income seniors worry more about preserving OAS benefits: CPP is taxed but benefits are not clawed back.

REL: Could you tell us a little about how your portfolio is structured?

JC: I always used to wonder [in articles] why anyone would need more than a single global balanced mutual fund or these days a comparable Asset Allocation ETF from firms like Vanguard, BlackRock or BMO ETFs.

I believe in diversification by asset class, geography, investment style, and market cap. To some extent I keep in mind the All-Weather Portfolio championed by Ray Dalio, or before that, Harry Browne’s Permanent Portfolio. The latter was 25% in bonds for deflation, 25% stocks for prosperity, 25% gold for inflation and 25% in cash for really bad times. Dalio is a bit like that but would add commodities and maybe real estate. I don’t believe you can consistently predict markets and asset classes so I believe in being exposed to all of these over the long haul, with perhaps shorter-term tactical tweaks if trends become obvious (like interest rates bottoming a year ago.)

REL: How big a part of your retirement plan does the Canadian-based healthcare play? Would you consider permanently relocating to another country? If so, which countries have you considered?

JC: Canadians are a bit spoiled with universal health care. US Democrats would probably call it socialized medicine.

Jon in Malaga, Spain

It’s not entirely free as Ontario levies an annual Health Premium [i.e. tax] depending on income, but it’s lower than private insurance would be. We don’t worry about sticking with a single employer just to keep their health care insurance, although of course some will buy private Blue Cross and that kind of thing beyond what employers provide.

We travel a lot: Florida for a while, more recently Morocco, Mexico and other Spanish-speaking places including Spain itself. But I doubt we’d permanently leave Canada.

Just today we were walking around our home turf by the lake in Toronto. It’s called Long Branch, which was originally a Summer Resort when founded in 1884: affluent families in downtown Toronto would take the street car to their summer “cottage” in Long Branch. It’s now just another bedroom community but only a 15-minute GO train ride from downtown Toronto.

Canada overall is a blessed place: we’re protected by two oceans and it’s nice having a friendly neighbor and military power to the south. The rest of the world probably considers us boring, which suits us fine: we’ll keep us a best-kept secret! At one point we considered Mexico as a way to avoid Canada’s long winter and relatively high taxes but the high apparent levels of crime in recent years scared us off. My parents were British and French so we like to visit the UK and France, as well as Spain. But we are happy to keep Toronto a home base and to visit places for months at a time through AirBnB.

REL: In your retirement life, what will you do about access to health care? Are you open to Medical Tourism?

JC: Again, Canada’s health care system is almost free for citizens and reasonably accessible. In fact, it’s so attractive that it may prevent some of us from permanently pulling up stakes. I can see Dental Tourism as more likely, as only recently have the NDP started to badger the Trudeau Liberals to provide universal free dental care for young people and low-income seniors.

Sadly, neither category is us!

REL: Are you a traveler or more of a stay-at-home, community kind of guy? Are you and your wife on the same page regarding retirement and travel?

JC: I think we are. Ruth retired from her full-time job in the transportation industry three years ago but still does a bit of consulting and a lot of church work, volunteering, tutoring and the like.

Lake Ontario, a 30-second walk from Jon and Ruth’s home

As I said to you before this interview, I still put in a “gruelling 3-hour day” Monday to Thursdays, with Friday mornings if necessary. Like yourselves, I can run the web site from anywhere with good Internet access. Most recently we spent 4 weeks in Malaga, Spain and I kept things going from there. But in our next stage we will try to avoid more of the long Canadian winter and spend 2 or 3 months at a time abroad in January/February/March. Continue Reading…

Investing in your financial future: how 4 stages of life align with your journey

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By Brian Shinmar

Special to Financial Independence Hub

If there’s truth to the statement that “change is the only constant in life,” your savings goals, habits and risk tolerance should follow closely. The topic of financial planning can be uncomfortable and intimidating for many people, but it doesn’t have to be that way. Having a sound investment strategy that evolves with your stage of life can set your mind at ease, so let’s break it down into four stages and purposefully account for some general changes you should expect along your financial journey.

Early 20s & 30s: Starting your financial journey

In this stage, many clients are just starting their careers, gaining a sense of financial independence and likely have higher risk tolerance. At this early stage of life, we don’t want clients to just invest it and forget it, we want them to build key (healthy) financial habits. The key habits that I stress are:

1.) Finding a balance between paying off debt and saving for your future: A financial advisor can help young clients establish goals and determine the balance between how much and how often contributions to debts and savings should be made.

2.) Goals with a plan: Setting attainable goals, with a clear plan to help meet them, will keep your bank account growing, and debt lowering.

3.) Saving a portion of your monthly income: A general rule is to save 10-15 per cent of your income each month, but given the higher inflation and interest rates in today’s market, that might not be realistic for everyone. The bottom line is to get into the practice of saving a portion of your monthly income. This helps build your nest egg for long-term goals, like retirement or purchasing a home. Continue Reading…

Retirement investments to avoid? Here are our thoughts on this critical subject

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Retirement investments to avoid include everything from bonds down to stock options. Here’s why.

Image courtesy TSInetwork.ca

Our best retirement planning advice is to invest early and often — and don’t forget to use our three-part Successful Investor philosophy.

But if you’re heading into retirement and are short of money, you should move your investing in the direction of safer, more conservative investments. That’s a far better option than taking one last gamble on retirement investments to avoid like the ones we look at below.

Investing in bonds will hurt your retirement finances

As some investors near retirement, their advisors recommend switching to bonds and other fixed-income investments instead of holding stocks.

To some extent, this is an understandable retirement investing strategy, since bonds can provide steady income and a guarantee to repay their principal at maturity.

Unfortunately, we don’t think using bonds for retirement is the best strategy for Successful Investors. Bond prices and interest rates are inversely linked. When interest rates go up, bond prices go down, when interest rates go down, bond prices go up — and with inflation still high, there is pressure for interest rates to keep increasing.

We continue to recommend that you invest only a small part of your Successful Investor portfolio — if any — in bonds and fixed-income investments.

Investing in annuities can fall into the category of retirement investments to avoid

Here are 3 key drawbacks you should keep in mind when deciding whether annuities are a good choice for your retirement investment options:

  • It may be hard to get out if you change your mind: Unlike stocks, it can be difficult or impossible to sell an annuity if you decide it no longer meets your needs. Moreover, you will likely get a low price for your annuity because the date of your death is uncertain.
  • Link to interest rates makes today a poor time to buy annuities: The rate of return you receive on an annuity is linked to interest rates at the time you buy it. That makes periods of still relatively low interest rates an especially poor time for buying annuities. However, if you want to buy annuities, you could buy one annuity a year for the next five years. That way, your returns will increase if interest rates rise, as we expect.
  • Tax treatment: When you own an annuity, the income payments you receive are made up of interest and a return of your principal. The return of your principal is tax free, but the interest portion of the payment is taxed as ordinary income.

Retirement investments to (especially) avoid include penny stocks, junior mines, and stock options

Penny stocks: Penny stocks are cheap and that’s why many novice investors think they make great investments when they don’t have a lot of money. Here’s some insight: it’s much easier to launch a seductive penny stock promotion than it is to create a successful, lasting business. Most penny stocks are over-hyped. Penny stocks tend to be speculative, and are engaged in such things as finding mineral deposits that can be mined at a profit, commercializing an unproven technology or launching new software. They are unproven companies that have very little chance of becoming a sustainable business. You’ll also have to be on the watch for unscrupulous stock promoters who will over-inflate earnings and talk up a stock for their own best interests. If you’re headed to retirement, stay away from penny stocks.

Junior mining stocks: One rule of thumb for mining stocks is that you have to look at 1,000 “anomalies” to find one “prospect,” and that fewer than one “prospect” in a thousand turns into a mine. In other words, finding a mineable deposit is a million-to-one shot. Continue Reading…

Surviving a “Bear Scare” in or just before Retirement

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Image Leonard Dahmen/Pexels

Billy Kaderli, RetireEarlyLifestyle.com

Special to Financial Independence Hub

It’s everyone’s nightmare: watching retirement assets vanish in a bear market, especially in or just before retirement.

Many of you will remember the severe market downturn of 2000-2002, the Dot Com Bubble, when the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index fell 37%.

We’d be lying to say that this declining market didn’t affect us. Our finances dropped about the same as most others on a percentage basis. As retirees, with no regular paycheck coming in on Friday, this event could have spelled disaster for our future plans of maintaining our financial independence.

Then there was the 2007-2009 “Great Recession,” where the market fell by almost 50% lasting 17 months, testing our courage.

The 2020 Covid scare shook the market’s foundation, earning the title of the “shortest bear market” in the S&P 500 history, lasting only 33 days.

And now here we are again in 2023, where the market is in the grip of a bear. How much longer will this last? How low will we go?

What should we do? How do we cope?

First, we’ve learned from past bear markets the importance of some cash flow. Having aged a bit and now receiving Social Security we have adjusted our portfolio to a more balanced one adding DVY, iShares Select Dividend ETF as a dividend-producing asset as well as increasing our cash holdings.

Then, there are regular chats about our finances and the state they are in, in hopes of averting a possible worst-case meltdown. We have discussed the fiscal facts and tried to extrapolate them out into the future.

One obvious problem: No one can predict the future.

Friend asks “Billy, why are you investing now? You know the market is crashing, right?” Same friend 10 years later: “Hey Billy I heard you retired early. How did you do that?”

Using history as a guide

Researching bear markets, we take heart from the knowledge that past downturns always ended.

Retiring is definitely easier when markets are rising as compared to when they are falling. But how do you know if you are in a rising or falling market? That depends on your starting point and there has been no 20-year rolling negative returns.

Another question to ask – is this is a good time to buy equities? For every buyer there is a seller and they both think they are right. Maybe the cure for cancer will be announced tomorrow or the global economy will collapse. We just don’t know.

That’s the point. Continue Reading…