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Investing: Dividend destruction
It wasn’t long ago that a company cutting its dividend would send Leslie Lundquist into a panic. The Bissett Investment Management fund manager makes her living investing in dividend-yielding income trusts, so when one of her companies reduced its payout she couldn’t help but worry that something was amiss.
“If a company cuts its dividend, that’s a sure sign that something...
Music fans watching wallets
David Silverberg is your typical music fan. The Toronto-based writer buys about seven albums a year and goes to shows every six weeks. Or at least that’s what he did until the recession forced him to take a hard look at how he spends his cash.
“I’m definitely buying less music and going to less concerts,” he says. “I can put my money towards more applicable things. Concerts are nice...
Music Meltdown
“I’m feeling this depression,” said Montreal and New York-based musician Martha Wainwright in December, before embarking on a Canadian tour. “No one’s buying records anymore; we’ll have to go back to the life of a touring artist in the 30s, where they’d sleep upright on a school bus and go from town to town.”
While Wainwright might be joking about the school bus, she’s dead serious...
Taking the recession on tour
When U2 put out an announcement about their North American tour recently, there was one detail in the press release that stood out: $30 tickets.
It’s a move, the band’s manager Paul McGuinness said, that was designed to “ensure that U2 fans can purchase a great priced ticket with a guaranteed great view.”
While that’s a welcomed gesture from thousands of followers who are struggling to make...
Hatch an investment plan
Christine Marshall* is a seasoned investor who has money in Registered Retirement Savings Plans and numerous funds, but it’s her earliest investing adventures that she’s most fond of. “My grandparents bought me shares in Irwin Toy when I was very young,” she says, still excited by the memory. “I went to the shareholder meetings and got free toys.”
Eventually, the 35-year-old, who works...
Travel: Rock Cities
Don’t be a slave to your iPod–pack up your leather pants and hit the road to explore these rock ’n’ roll towns.
Winnipeg
It may be easy to knock the ’Peg for its sub-zero climes, but without the frigid temps Neil Young may have taken up surfing instead of the guitar. There’s not much else to do in the winter besides bundling up and heading out to watching top-notch indie talent, such as...
Bryan Borzykowski is a Toronto-based writer and editor working mainly for business publications. He writes for the New York Times, Canadian Business magazine, Globe and Mail, Bloomberg Businessweek Custom Publishing, Toronto Star, MoneySense and more. Bryan's the editor of Review magazine and is a senior editor with Connected for Business magazine. He's also a contributing writer with Hello! Canada and was once a weekly music columnist for Metro News. He's been nominated for several National Magazine Awards and he's co-authored