The Canadian financial services industry is facing some existential challenges. Over the past decade, the investment sector has seen a slow decline in best practices and value-driven client service. Consumers have taken note of this industry shift and the results are worrisome: investor trust in financial professionals in Canada has... read more →
Aug
19
Jul
15
Capital markets were sailing along smoothly in the second quarter until the Brexit tidal wave came crashing down. Equity markets around the world sold off sharply for two straight days after the people of the U.K. surprisingly voted in favour to leave the European Union. As we mentioned in our... read more →
Jun
24
Yesterday, a referendum was held in the U.K. to determine if the U.K. would exit the European Union, known as the “Brexit” vote. Despite advance polls indicating that the likely outcome would be for the U.K. to remain, the surprising result was a 52% majority in favour of leaving. This... read more →
Jun
24
The mutual fund industry is a mature industry that remains extremely profitable despite overwhelming evidence suggesting that alternative options such as exchange traded funds (ETFs) are far more beneficial for investors. Although mutual funds continue to have their market share eroded by ETFs, the fact that the assets in mutual... read more →
Jun
17
Most investors are aware of what a mutual fund is, but there is less general understanding about what an exchange traded fund (ETF) is. Much of the discrepancy can be explained by the fact that mutual funds have been around for more than 50 years longer than ETFs which were... read more →
May
26
Want an (almost) immediate 20% return on your investment? How about keeping that return re-invested for a number of years in a tax-shelter and then have taxes payable on the gain at a reduced rate or pay no tax at all? Sound too good to be true? If you have... read more →
May
06
When we produced our document, Five questions you should ask your financial representative, we actually had seven questions that we thought were relevant, but it made the piece a pretty long read. Fortunately for readers, we are releasing from our archives the two remaining questions in this blog post. We... read more →
Apr
29
At Justwealth, we expend a lot of energy and produce a lot of communication materials that focuses on educating investors about some of the troubling aspects of investing their hard-earned money. Outrageous fees (quite often hidden), conflicts of interest, poor service, and deceptive sales practices are just a few of... read more →
Apr
22
I was recently reading through an industry publication and came across some news that an investment firm, F-Squared Investments Inc., had filed for bankruptcy protection a few quarters ago. As it turns out, the American-based money manager admitted to fraud charges brought on by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission... read more →
Apr
14
Does your financial representative only contact you once per year (usually in January or February) with nothing much to say other than “Are you planning on making an RRSP contribution this year?” Well if it is, then you likely have an “old school” salesperson as your financial rep and that’s... read more →