A ban on DSC mutual funds is a step forward for investor protection

By this point in January, it’s a safe bet that many New Year’s resolutions have already been broken. Change is never easy and using the dawn of a new year, or a new decade, as motivation doesn’t seem to help much. Temptation derails us in so many subtle ways!

For our very first episode of 2020, we kick things off with some quick updates before sharing Cameron’s ten best financial planning strategies for the new year. After laying out some statistics about the great asset class returns that 2019 saw, we get into the wonderful listener questions we have been receiving over the break.

Today on the show we welcome the Head of Investing Solutions at Dimensional Fund Advisors, Marlene Lee. Marlene has a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago where she served as the TA to Eugene F. Farma.

As we see 2019 out and enter a new decade, we thought it only fitting to do a round-up of some of our shows this year. While we had 26 guests throughout the year, we chose 14 that best captured the sensible investing and education-focused spirit of our show.

We are joined by Mark Goodfield of The Blunt Bean Counter blog to talk about estate planning and wills. Mark is a partner at BDO Canada, a national accounting firm and has created a wealth of content on investing, tax and the relationship between the two. 

I came across an interesting article recently about the Norwegian Oil Fund, the largest sovereign wealth fund on the planet. The Norwegians certainly showed admirable foresight in setting up the fund after oil was discovered in the North Sea in 1969, according to the article, which summarizes a talk given by Anton Mork, an economics professor at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology.

We kick off the show today with some great listener feedback before diving into the content of a new podcast by Dr. Laurie Santos called The Happiness Lab. In a recent episode of her show, she gets into the idea of human adaptability to fortuitous or catastrophic events.

Have you been thinking about helping your adult kids buy a home? Today’s housing and postsecondary education costs can make it a tough go for your offspring. Plus, you’ve been their parent for so long. Taking care of them is a hard habit to break, even once they’re plenty old enough to take care of themselves.  

There seems to be confusion, among the public in general but also among professionals, about what smart beta (or “factor”) funds really are. Are they passive? Are they active?

On today’s episode, we have Dr. Daniel Crosby joining us for an insightful discussion about the psychology behind investing behaviour. Dr. Crosby is a behavioural finance expert and asset manager who applies his study of market psychology to help people better understand the financial decisions they make and to shed some new light on our ability to be rational.