Research proves that money can buy happiness …
but only if you’re spending it on someone else.
Archive forMarch, 2008
Not quite what I was planning…
What is your six-word memoir?
Can your values, goals, vision and mission be clarified into just six words?
100 billion solid arguments for couch potato investing
“INVESTORS collectively spend around $100 billion a year trying to beat the stock market. That’s the finding of a rigorous effort to measure the total costs of Americans’ efforts to surpass the returns they would have received by simply holding a stock index fund. The huge price tag helps explain why beating a buy-and-hold strategy is so difficult.”
Mark Hulbert writes about the research of Eugene Fama, and the high costs of investment complexity. (Note that Canadian fees are significantly higher than those in the U.S., so this research would probably be even more compelling if conducted here.)
Why Rob Carrick hates principle protected notes
Another example of complexity gone wrong!
Rob mentions it only briefly here, but a simple way to get the benefits of principle protected notes without the high fees and small print is to invest the bulk of your principle in a GIC (guaranteed investment certificate) for five years and a comfortable percentage (five to 25 per cent, depending on your risk tolerance) in equity ETFs. See the previous post to this one for details on ETF portfolios.