Business Wealth

With low interest rates, fewer defined benefit pension plans and longer life expectancies, more people than ever are concerned about outliving their savings in retirement.

At long last, the Ontario government is regulating who can use the titles of financial planner and financial advisor in the province.

Sorry to ruin the suspense, but here’s my answer to whether I think market-timing ever works: No. I’ve looked at an overwhelming amount of evidence, and I have yet to find a rational reason for trying to dodge in and out of the market.

In episode 24 of the Canadian Couch Potato podcast, I’m joined by Preet Banerjee, the Renaissance man of personal finance. After a stint as an investment advisor, which ended in disillusionment, Preet went on to become a media personality, an author, public speaker, fintech entrepreneur and academic.

We all want to leave the world better off than when we arrived. The growing interest in Responsible Investing in Canada and around the world clearly reflects that desire.

On the show today we welcome Randy Cass, owner and founder of Nest Wealth, who were the first financial firm to employ the use of robo-advisors in Canada.

With the increased popularity of ETFs and index funds, traditional commission-based mutual fund advisors must be feeling the pressure. The problem for many of them is that they do not have the infrastructure to buy ETFs for their clients.

It’s hard not to feel a little depressed when you pick up the newspaper or switch on the TV news these days. There seems to no end to the trouble in the world. From the latest antics in Washington to tensions with China to the Brexit mess to riots in France to the lack of progress on climate change, the problems just seem to keep piling up.

Hey, business owners! How’s your estate planning coming along? If you’re like most of us, you may agree with Woody Allen, when he once said, “I don’t want to achieve immortality through my work; I want to achieve immortality through not dying.”

New regulations governing how mutual funds are sold to Canadians have attracted a fair bit of attention this year. In a past column, I criticized those rules as falling well short of the protection Canadians need to ensure their interests always come before those of investment advisors and their firms.