Advice is loud when the person giving it has something to gain – and the financial services industry has a lot to gain by convincing you that the best place for your money is in their hands. To be fair, […]
Lessons from the COVID crash and recovery
Success is not the result of knowledge, talent, or even skill. These things help, to be sure, but the most important determinant of achievement is step-by-step improvement. It doesn’t matter how many times you fail, as long as you take […]
Method vs. Madness: the benefits of rules-based investing
There has been a lot of discussion here recently about whether or not certain stocks should be included in the Beating the TSX portfolio. IPL, PPL, and BPY-UN have all landed on the list in the last few months. Some […]
BTSX after bear markets
In a recent post we talked about why investing in the stock market during a market correction can be one of the best investment decisions one can make. But what about dividend paying stocks? Data shows that dividend-paying stocks in […]
Why now is a good time to invest
What a month. Humanity is living through the worst pandemic in a century. Canada’s oil and gas sector is on the ropes. And our investments have taken a beating. Is this a good time to invest in stocks? I think […]
Why is the stock market crashing?
Two days ago the stock market officially entered bear market territory, coming down 20% from its high just a few weeks ago. Yesterday the TSX dropped another 12% – the largest one day drop in its history. The beating investors […]
Coping with a market correction
As I write these words, the TSX Composite is down 11.2% in the last week – officially a market correction. News headlines are screaming that it’s the fastest sell-off in history. The talking heads on BNN are turning shades of […]
BPY.UN: does Brookfield Property Partners belong in your portfolio?
I am no stock analyst, I just play one on this blog (from time to time). With a recent shake-up of the TSX 60 index, Encana (ECA) is out and Brookfield Property Partners L.P. (BPY.UN) is in. BPY sports an […]
How did BTSX perform in 2019?
How did your investments perform in 2019? Some will be surprised that it was such a good year. The S&P/TSX Composite Index returned about 22% including dividends. The bad news for mutual fund investors is that, as usual, the vast […]
What is SPIVA?
If there is one thing every investor should know about before considering the purchase of an actively managed mutual fund, it is this: the SPIVA report. SPIVA stands for “S&P Indices Versus Active” and it describes a semi-annual scorecard comparing […]