Segregated funds: a fantastic, yet lesser-known investment vehicle
Have you heard of something called “Segregated funds”? Chances are, like most people, you haven’t. It’s quite unfortunate because, besides the many other well-known investment vehicles such as mutual funds, bonds, stocks, and others, segregated funds offer a lot of unique benefits that can help diversify your portfolio. Today, you’ll be learning about segregated funds, or “seg funds” for short. Seg funds are a special type of investment vehicle specific to Canada. They are un
The cryptocurrency crash, speculative investing, and bubbles
Near the end of 2017, on December 16th, bitcoin topped out at just over $19,000 USD per coin. Just last week, the price per bitcoin was around $7,000 USD. Why did it happen? If you search for an answer online, you’ll get a wide range of explanations. Including “the Lunar New Year is approaching and a lot of people in Asia want to sell,” to “Some of the online exchanges can’t handle trade volumes,” and “This is the end of cryptocurrencies.” The truth is, this is the nature of
Renting vs. Buying, and other things to consider in the rising interest rate environment
Recently, the central bank of Canada (aptly named the “Bank of Canada”) once again increased the prime interest rate. In total, this marks the third increase of interest rates in the last year. “But how does a rising increase rate affect me?” you might ask. It’s quite a complicated question, and to answer it properly, we’ll need to look at the many aspects of your finances. One of the many factors, as you may have guessed, is whether you are renting or buying. However, this i
RRSPs: try some advanced and alternative strategies
Last week, we talked about some facts regarding RRSP. As a gentle, but firm reminder, the deadline for the 2017 RRSP contribution is coming up on March 1st. Now that we are all a bit more familiar with the RRSP (If you’re not, you can check out last week’s article) we can move on to some more advanced, and even alternative strategies. When you commit to setting money aside, we believe that the more information you have on hand, the better. When all the options are laid out in
