Canadians | WhereDoesAllMyMoneyGo.com

The Staying Power of Mutual Funds: Finally At Risk

Posted by Shishir Nigam on Mar 22, 2010 | 3 comments

This is a guest post penned by Shishir Nigam. I met Shishir a few years ago while giving some presentations at the University of Toronto. Now, he is the Founder of ActiveETFs | InFocus (http://etfshub.com), the only site on the web providing focused coverage of Actively-Managed ETFs. He is also Chief Editor at Young & Invested (http://youngandinvested.com). The Staying Power of Mutual Funds Mutual funds are ingrained in nearly all retirement portfolios, whether we’re talking about RRSPs in Canada or 401(k) plans in the US. They’re so ingrained that in the US, most of the operational systems used to invest client funds can only handle mutual funds because they...

iShares Now Commission-Free For Yanks with Fidelity

Posted by Preet on Feb 22, 2010 | 2 comments

I just saw an ad on TV for Fidelity’s trading accounts (available in the United States only). What was interesting is that they are now offering commission free trading on 25 of some of the most popular iShares ETFs. Charles Schwab also offers commission-free trading on their own lineup of proprietary ETFs, but I don’t believe they have any fixed income offerings. Their equity index ETFs are a bit more limited than the commission free list of iShares being offered by Fidelity as well. Take a look here to see the details and ETFs available. Remember, this isn’t available for Canadians. We’re...

A Lap Of The Blogs

Posted by Preet on Feb 18, 2010 | 5 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 sometimes 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. NOTE: you have to visit the actual website to see the embedded...

GIVEAWAY: Two Copies of QuickTax Standard from Intuit

Posted by Preet on Feb 17, 2010 | 51 comments

A representative for Intuit contacted me last night to offer up two copies of Intuit’s QuickTax Standard (handles up to 8 returns) for a giveaway on the blog. With the deadline for filing your taxes coming up I thought I would agree to the giveaway if they would explain exactly how they can guarantee the maximum refund possible. Their answer is as follows. Theoretically, if you follow the tax code to the letter, and you know about every possible credit and deduction available to you, you should end up with the same refund/amount owing no matter what method you use to prepare your taxes. In practice, the number can vary quite a lot. Variations in results tend to be...

New Mortgage Rules For Canadians Starting April 19th 2010

Posted by Preet on Feb 16, 2010 | 7 comments

Jim Flaherty announced changes to mortgage rules in Canada on February 16th, 2010 which are to take effect on April 19th, 2010. Here is a list of the changes: Borrowers will be tested on their ability to make payments on a five year fixed-rate mortgage, even though they may choose different terms (e.g. a three year variable mortgage). Currently borrowers are tested against a three year fixed rate mortgage. This means people will qualify for lower maximum mortgage amounts. This will protect people from taking out larger mortgages than they can really afford. What some people are doing is opting for variable mortgages (with lower payments) and this exposes them to the...

New Firm Focusing On Reducing Currency Conversion Fees For Canadians

Posted by Preet on Feb 15, 2010 | 9 comments

Canadians can pay as much as 2.5% in currency conversion fees which are hidden in what is known as “the spread”. If you are a small business and you convert $5,000,000 per year between US dollars and the loonie, a 2.5% spread means your bank earned roughly $125,000 before costs (which I think we can all agree are not going to be close to $125,000). A firm based in Toronto has set up shop to compete with the banks in fulfilling the currency conversion needs of customers. Their goal is simply to reduce the spread, which translates into more money in the customers’ hands at the end of the day, and a slice of the pie for the firm. They would earn less than...

A Lap Of The Blogs

Posted by Preet on Feb 12, 2010 | 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 sometimes 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. NOTE: you have to visit the actual website to see the embedded video – it...