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7 Warning Signs It’s Time to Change Your Investment Advisor
Like any profession, there are competent advisors and not-so-competent advisors in the wealth management industry. Our experience is that there are always warning signs for clients that it’s time to change investment advisors. Here are seven signs...
SPIVA Report Interesting but Misses Key Message for Investors
S&P Dow Jones Indices (SPDJI) publishes two reports annually comparing the performance of actively managed mutual funds against common financial market benchmarks. The recently-published mid-year SPIVA Canada Scorecard doesn’t paint a...
Get the Truth about Costs: Top 5 Questions for Investors to Ask Investment Advisors
When you are choosing an investment counsellor to manage your ongoing investments, it can be challenging to get a full picture of the costs involved. Of course, there is a fee associated with any investment firm – but what about all those other...
Are you chasing an investment celebrity or the superior money manager?
So-called ‘Bond King’ Bill Gross made headlines with his recent decision to leave PIMCO – the firm he founded more than 40 years ago – to join Janus Capital Group. How best to deal with manager changes and whether investors...
CalPERS’ hedge fund decision offers important lessons
The California Public Employees’ Retirement System – aka CalPERS – announced plans to liquidate its $4 billion hedge fund portfolio. It’s big news because CalPERS is considered a well-run pension plan. It’s huge...
Beware of aggressive investment product marketing
Aggressive marketing of investment products is nothing new. Throughout my career I have expended plenty of energy pointing out what I believe to be misleading or overly aggressive marketing initiatives and advertisements. More than four years...
Illiquidity may be floating rate funds’ biggest risk
Floating Rate Debt (FRD) is getting an increasing amount of attention. Over the past year, several new products have been launched focusing on floating rate debt such as leveraged loans and so-called senior loans. All pay floating rates of...
Making sense of experts’ picks for your RRSP
There are seemingly more ‘experts’ picks’ columns for the first 60 days of this year (i.e. RRSP season) than in previous years. In the Globe & Mail alone over the past month, there have been 5 articles giving readers ideas...
Check up on financial advisors before hiring them – it’s easier than you think
Financial advisor titles are generally unregulated in Canada (Québec being the exception). Designations – denoted by the letters after advisors’ names on their business cards – can be downright confusing. Some are earned only after a few...
When Patience is Not a Virtue
There is an old saying attributed to philosopher John Dewey, “Patience is a virtue, possess it if you can, seldom found in woman, never found in man.” In the investing world, patient investors usually do better than impatient investors....
