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Ride the summer stocks wave
With the S&P/TSX Composite Index down about 7.5% this month, you might be tempted to heed the long-time investment advice of “sell in May and go away.”
That would have proven to be wise the last few years—the index dropped 12.14% between May 1 and Aug. 31 in 2011—but a new report, released at the end of April, says it’s better to hang on to your investments during the summer.
According...
Get a 50% return, guaranteed
Imagine if your financial adviser came to you with a secure (and legal) way to get a guaranteed 50% return on your money. You’d likely say ‘yes’ pretty quickly. Well, no need to imagine any longer, because that’s exactly what you can get if you’re lucky enough to have a share ownership plan at work.
Brock McEwen, a director at Great West Life, says that with his company’s plan, for...
Tags: investing
How long should you leave your house on the market?
Ever wonder why that house on the corner of your street has been on the market for two years? So does everyone else.
Keeping a “For Sale” sign parked on your lawn for more than three months is a mistake, says Gary Bachman, a real estate agent in Winnipeg. “People start saying, ‘What’s wrong with the house?’”
In Toronto, where homes, on average, don’t sit beyond 27 days, people start...
Homes: Renovate or relocate
There comes a time in every homeowner’s life when he needs to upgrade. Starter homes aren’t meant for long-term living, and when the kids arrive, things quickly start to feel cramped.
At one time, that meant it was time to move, but that’s not the only option. More and more homeowners are opting to build additions instead. Some are even razing their homes and rebuilding from scratch. All...
Mortgages: Befriend your bank
It’s been a busy year for Dan Mass, a Calgary-based broker with Canada First Mortgage. Besides his usual workload, he’s had to deal with a number of clients who have either had their homes foreclosed or have concerns that they won’t be able to pay their mortgage bills. “We’ve seen defaults rise this year for sure,” he says.
While Canada isn’t facing U.S.-style delinquency rates—the...
Mobile phones: How to manage your money on the go
It happens to the best of us: an important bill goes missing or an investment gets ignored. Thanks to modern technology, it never has to happen again. All you need is an iPhone and two minutes to download a personal finance application from the app store. There are plenty to choose from, but we think these six are the best.
Pennies ($2.99)
Proper money management starts with a budget. But it’s...
Is it better to rent than own?
Denis Hancock’s family is your typical Canadian clan. The program manager and his wife Sophie live in a spacious three-bedroom house in Toronto’s trendy High Park neighbourhood with their 15-month-old daughter. He works, she stays at home, preferring afternoons playing with her child in their backyard than slaving away at an office. There’s only one difference between Hancock’s...
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...
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