2008 September | WhereDoesAllMyMoneyGo.com

Tina Fey = Power and Money

Posted by Preet on Sep 30, 2008 | 3 comments

Tina Fey is a comedic genius and many know her from either Saturday Night Live or 30 Rock, not to mention her roles in Mean Girls and Babby Momma. She originally started as a writer but was persuaded to get in front of the camera – a move which proved to be wildly successful. I found a great interactive feature on Portfolio.com which highlights just how monetarily important Ms. Fey has become. Not only is Tina Fey money in the bank, she is now potentially playing a role in the election thanks to her portrayal of Sarah Palin on a recurring Saturday Night Live bit. The latest sketch was a parody of an actual interview with Katie Couric, in which Palin came off...

Do Not Call Registry Goes Live Today in Canada

Posted by Preet on Sep 30, 2008 | 4 comments

Finally, SOME reprieve from those pesky telemarketers who seem to know exactly when you are sitting down to eat dinner, watch your favourite show, or blog about personal finance! :) The much awaited Do Not Call Registry is available to register yourself on for your personal home phone, cellular and fax numbers. There are some exceptions and here is a list of entities that can still call/fax you: Registered charities looking for donations Newspapers looking for subscriptions Political parties and their candidates Companies with whom you have an existing relationship, or have done business with in the past 18 months To sign up for the official Do Not Call Registry:...

Risk and Return in Pictures

Posted by Preet on Sep 28, 2008 | 8 comments

The trade off between Risk and Return is something that will always be talked about when it comes to investing. Unfortunately, while investors seem to indicate that they understand the concept, they normally don’t in reality. This can be due in part to short term focus with long term investments and lots of “noise” from friends, the newspapers, TV, etc that serve to make one second guess themselves all the time. Let’s Make It Visual I’ve put together a graphical back test of 10 portfolios that vary in exposure to equities from 10% equity to 100% equity. The 100% equity portfolio is allocated as follows: 35% Canada 25% US 25% EAFE 15%...

A Lap Of The Blogs

Posted by Preet on Sep 27, 2008 | 4 comments

If you are new to WhereDoesAllMyMoneyGo.com, every Friday I run a post called “A Lap Of The Blogs” which provides links to articles I found interesting and think that others may want to read for themselves. I also include some commentary on what’s going on in my personal life and a weekly “racing video” since my former life was in the auto-racing industry. The name “Lap of the Blogs” is in reference to “A Lap Of The Gods” which is an old video series which chronicled on-board footage of the world’s greatest F1 drivers lapping various racetracks from around the world. For anyone who is interested, I will be speaking at the 4th Annual ETF and Indexing...

The Largest Bank Failure In The History Of The World

Posted by Preet on Sep 26, 2008 | 1 comment

As I write this, the FDIC (Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation) has seized Washington Mutual and it has been subsequently bought by JP Morgan Chase. The failure of Washington Mutual represents the largest bank failure in the history of the world. Washington Mutual (WaMu for short) had $307 Billion in assets and $188 Billion in deposits. But note that the deposits are safe – in fact, customers can perform their regular banking in the morning. It will be a fairly seemless transaction, but it’s expected that many branches will close in the future as there will certainly be some overlap in branch territories. With the acquisition, JP Morgan Chase now has over...

The Power of Rebalancing

Posted by Preet on Sep 24, 2008 | 7 comments

If you have an asset allocation set up, maintaining that asset allocation forces you to buy low and sell high on a constant basis. This is because the individual asset classes have different return patterns. If you were to start with 60% in equities and 40% in fixed income, then invariably this split will drift from 60/40 over time. You might find equities outperforming bonds, in which case your allocation might drift to 70/30. Or, vice versa stocks might drop if the markets have a correction and your mix might drift to 50/50. Rebalancing Goes Against Emotions If stocks dropped, human nature might make us avoid wanting to rebalance since that would mean shifting money...

20 Year Returns for Canadian Residential Real Estate

Posted by Preet on Sep 23, 2008 | 14 comments

A colleague passed on this information from the Canadian Real Estate Agency which shows the 20 year annualized returns and standard deviation data for average residential properties in the following cities for the period ending March 31st, 2008. Standard Deviation is a measure of the volatility of the returns – a higher standard deviation indicates wilder swings in price essentially. 20 Years Ending March 31st, 2008 Toronto Homes: 3.3% Annualized Return, 9.5% Standard Deviation Vancouver Homes: 7.3% Annualized Return, 12.0% Standard Devitation Calgary Homes: 7.6% Annualized Return, 8.7% Standard Deviation Halifax-Dartmouth: 4.5% Annualized Return, 18.6% Standard...