Preet | WhereDoesAllMyMoneyGo.com

Breaking: Major changes in mortgage market in Canada?

Posted by Preet on Feb 2, 2012 | 4 comments

This is a guest post from Ross Taylor Today, February 2, will bring even more changes to the Canadian mortgage industry, as one by one, lenders will have no choice but to announce major changes to their lending guidelines. Why is this happening? In recent months, some financial institutions have been quietly offloading the risk of even their low loan to value mortgages (previously uninsured) by securitizing these mortgages and bulk buying CMHC insurance – thus quickly pushing the amount insured quite close to the threshold of $600 billion set by the federal government. Only three years ago, the cap was $450 billion. Yesterday, FirstLine Mortgages announced they were...

Bloggers For Charity Guest Post

Posted by Preet on Jan 17, 2012 | 3 comments

For those of you just tuning in, a number of bloggers got together and auctioned off the opportunity to write a guest post on our respective blogs in exchange for a charitable donation. The top bidder for a guest post on WhereDoesAllMyMoneyGo.com was $5,000 made by Concentra Financial. I have verified the contribution by receiving a copy of the donation receipt. Today is the day that all the guest posts run on all the participating blogs. Regular programming continues on Thursday. Take it away Concentra Financial… *The following is written by Norm Klatt of Concentra Financial Economic Impacts and Social Values In today’s uncertain economic times, there’s value...

Dividends make up 43% of S&P 500 historical returns

Posted by Preet on Jan 8, 2012 | 8 comments

There are a lot of die hard dividend investors out there. Many won’t even look at a stock if it doesn’t pay dividends. There are various reasons as to why this strategy is appealing. Companies that pay dividends are often larger and more stable than non dividend paying companies. If a dividend paying stock’s price gets beaten up, the dividend yield increases making the stock more attractive which means there is a bit of a brake on the price falling. For example if company XYZ is $100 per share and pays annual dividends of $4, it has a 4% dividend yield. If the market tumbles and XYZ is now trading at $50 per share, so long as they maintain their...

2011 stock picking contest results and 2012 picks

Posted by Preet on Jan 3, 2012 | 0 comments

Welcome to the Fourth Annual Personal Finance Bloggers’ Stock Picking Contest. I’m the guy who doesn’t take it seriously. Nice to meet you. Ironically, I’ve done fairly well over the first three years with performances of +56.14% in 2009, +26.56% in 2010, and a rather poor -17.04% in 2011. My hypothetical cumulative return would be +63.94% over the last three years, or an annualized rate of +17.91%. I suppose I should quit my day job and just trade my own portfolio, right? Well, I actually DID quit my day job in 2011 but I’m under no illusion that the performance is due to skill. I’ve just been lucky. And you know how it goes, once you...

Financial advisor not happy with me, demands answers

Posted by Preet on Dec 31, 2011 | 57 comments

A financial advisor sent me an email after reading my column in The Globe & Mail titled, Would you give up 44 per cent of your investment over 25 years. It was actually one of the more cordial emails from financial advisors who were not happy with the column. I decided that I would publish his email on the blog in its entirety and address his points for all to see. I’ll use “Financial Advisor:” and italics to indicate the text from his email, and I’ll reply with “Preet:” and non-italicized text. Subject: MERs FINANCIAL ADVISOR: I am confused. Here I am, having been in mutual funds since 1994, a CFP since 1998 and all of my clients...

Mutual fund costs over time

Posted by Preet on Dec 19, 2011 | 26 comments

Mutual Fund Fees Over 25 Years… Ouch I put together a spreadsheet that will help people really quantify the effect of fees on a mutual fund over a long period of time for investors. It also shows you exactly how those fees are divvied up between your financial advisor, his or her dealer and the mutual fund company. You can make a side by side comparison of two different scenarios so you can see a fully advised, actively managed option versus a DIY, couch potato option, and everything in between. Here’s a screen shot (or download the spreadsheet here: The Real Impact of Fees on Most Mutual Fund Investors): Over 90% of contributions consumed by fees? In this...

Bloggers For Charity Final Update: Winning Bid of $5,000

Posted by Preet on Dec 18, 2011 | 0 comments

The day before the bidding closed, Concentra Financial placed a bid for $5,000. As winners, they will now have to send me a copy of their donation receipt dated between December 17th, 2011 and December 31st, 2011. After that, they have the opportunity to be a “blogger for a day” and I’ll run a guest post written by them on January 17th, 2012. Congratulations to Concentra, and many thanks to all the bidders.