The third episode of the Canadian Couch Potato podcast is now live. You can listen in your browser using the tool below, or download it using iTunes or your favourite podcasting software.
My first podcast of 2017 features an interview with Lars Kroijer, author of Investing Demystified, which will soon be released in a second edition. Based in the UK, Lars is a former hedge fund manager, but today he advises investors to give up the dream of market-beating returns in favour of a simple indexing strategy. As he says in our chat: “It’s my view that the overwhelming majority of investors have no chance whatsoever of beating the financial markets and they should act accordingly.”
Lars outlines his arguments in a new series of YouTube videos. The clips are well-produced and provide a good introduction to the principles of index investing.
What’s your expected return?
In the Bad Investment Advice segment, I scoff at an advisor who recently told one of my readers that he could expect 12% returns from traditional mutual funds. Then I encourage investors to challenge advisors and others who casually mention expected returns without explaining how they came up with their numbers. You can use this calculator to estimate the expected return on a balanced portfolio using several assumptions for asset class returns, fees, and inflation.
For more guidance on expected returns, see the white paper I co-wrote with my colleague Raymond Kerzhéro.
Starting young
In the Ask the Spud segment that closes the show, my colleague Amanda Dalziel and I discuss whether it makes sense for young investors to have very aggressive portfolios. The conventional wisdom here is that young people should invest their entire portfolio in stocks, but I don’t necessarily agree with that advice.
While it’s true that people in their late teens or 20s have many decades before retirement, that doesn’t necessarily mean they have the fortitude to deal with the volatility of a 100% equity portfolio. Many young investors today think they have a high risk tolerance, but if you started investing after 2008 you really haven’t been battle tested. No one truly knows their risk tolerance until they have lost a big chunk of their savings.
My concern is that when we finally do have a nasty bear market, many new investors will be so shocked by the losses that they’ll be scared out of the market for years. There’s some anecdotal evidence this happened to millennials (and many older investors!) after the financial crisis of 2008–09.
Enjoy the podcast, and if you like what you hear, please take some time to leave a rating or review on iTunes.
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The original version of this podcast and others can be found on the Canadian Couch Potato website, developed and maintained by Dan Bortolotti.