A look at the Performance of the BMO Covered Call Canadian Banks ETF (ZWB)

BMO launched its Covered Call Canadian Banks ETF (TSX: ZWB) in January 2011. The ETF immediately started attracting investor attraction.

This and That: Buffett on Stocks, Retirement Articles and More…

Buffett prefers stocks over bonds & gold: Warren Buffett doesn’t often express an opinion on the general level of stock prices. But when he does, he is usually worth listening to. In a recent article in Fortune magazine, Buffett explains why stocks look like a much better bet than bonds or gold over the long [...]

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H&R Block At Home 2011 Tax Software Giveaway

If you use H&R Block At Home to file your taxes, this giveaway is for you. Thanks to H&R Block, I’m giving away five (5) coupons that are good for downloading one copy each of H&R Block At Home desktop software (valued at $29.99 plus tax). Please note that the downloaded software will only work [...]

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Investing in Magazine Stock Picks is a Bad Idea

While getting rid of old magazines recently, I ran into a Fortune magazine story from the turn of the century. Titled, 10 Stocks To Last The Decade, the column claimed that investors should bet on four “sweeping” trends that are sure to make money over the next decade: communications networking, entertainment, financial services and biotech. [...]

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Do Penny Mining Stocks count as Investments?

In a recent column in The Globe and Mail, Rob Carrick wrote about a financial adviser who says he is investing based on a new fangled strategy called “the risk barbell”. A barbell is an asset allocation strategy that provides exposure to asset classes at the two extreme ends of the risk spectrum. The adviser [...]

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This and That: Pension Return Assumptions & TurboTax Giveaway

Aggressive Pension Return Assumptions: The Wall Street Journal’s Jason Zweig points out that many private pension plans have unrealistic expectations of double digit returns from stocks. On the other hand, Berkshire Hathaway, whose pension plan is overseen by Warren Buffett, expects stock returns to range between 8% and 9%. Pricey Dividend Payers: This column in [...]

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Under 40? Forget Retirement Planning

Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s speech in Davos last week set off a mini firestorm when he briefly touched upon the need to make social programs sustainable as the population ages rapidly: We have already taken steps to limit the growth of our health care spending over that period. We must do the same for our [...]

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iShares + Claymore is not good for Clients

Recently, BlackRock which offers 48 ETFs in Canada under the iShares label announced that it will be acquiring Claymore Canada, a vendor of 34 exchange-traded funds. The press release accompanying the announcement said that the transaction enhances BlackRock’s ability to “deliver excellence in innovation, quality and choice”. According to the Canadian ETF Association, iShares is [...]

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Economic Impacts and Social Values of Credit Unions

[Note: The following is a guest post by Norm Klatt, Senior Vice-President at Concentra Financial, which made a winning bid of $5,000 in the Bloggers for Charity initiative. I thank them for the generous donation to charity.] In today’s uncertain economic times, there’s value in taking a closer look at a group of reliable financial [...]

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Comparing Currency-Hedged and Unhedged Holdings

In the past couple of updates on the performance of currency-neutral funds, we found that these funds do not quite live up to the expectation of removing the effects of currency fluctuations for a modest cost. Instead the currency-neutral funds show a performance lag ranging from 2.33% for the iShares S&P 500 CAD-Hedged ETF (TSX: [...]

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