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tuyop posted:I thought pretty much all pension funds were in passive index funds anyway just because their accounts are so huge that anything else inflates the cost of whatever they buy. Did CPP get sucked into a The CPP is one of the best run funds in the world. They have more than $225B in investment assets so the costs are obviously going to be high. $2B is less than 1% so while it seems awfully high, it probably isn't. Also, the article says costs have gone from 600M in 2006-07 to $2B now, but it neglects to state that assets under management have gone from $98B to $225B in the same time period. Someone can correct me if I am wrong, but I think CPP went from passive (mostly gov't bonds) to active a few years ago. edit: according to wikipedia: quote:In recent years, the CPPIB changed direction in its investment philosophy. It evolved from investing exclusively in non-marketable government bonds to passive index-fund strategies and, in 2006, to active investment strategies.
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Sep 4, 2014 02:47
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Yeah, they went active around 2007. The number of employees has also jumped up to almost 1000 from like ten. e. NP actually just wrote an article about it, see here . It doesn't mention the the value of the fund but it looks like external management fees have shot up about about 3800%, and private equity like real estate is being bought at a time when house prices are on the way down from their peak. Guest2553 fucked around with this message at 05:20 on Sep 4, 2014 |
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Sep 4, 2014 05:14
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Sounds like horseshit to me. "Best managed fund" my rear end.
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Sep 4, 2014 05:36
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They had the highest return of the top 10 managed pension funds in the world for 2013. They also had the 7th most assets under management. http://www.bloomberg.com/visual-data/best-and-worst/worlds-largest-managed-pension-funds This is much ado about nothing.
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Sep 4, 2014 05:51
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slidebite posted:This is a little disheartening.
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Sep 4, 2014 06:32
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tuyop posted:I thought pretty much all pension funds were in passive index funds anyway just because their accounts are so huge that anything else inflates the cost of whatever they buy. Did CPP get sucked into a CPP diversifies its investments across a range of products and managers, including both active and passive strategies as well as public and private equity and debt. At a sufficiently large size you can't actually get away with just 'putting it in index funds' because the actions of the indexation itself have a distorting effect and become a concentration risk. They're actually one of the most sophisticated fund managers in Canada, as they should be. Kal Torak posted:The CPP is one of the best run funds in the world. They have more than $225B in investment assets so the costs are obviously going to be high. $2B is less than 1% so while it seems awfully high, it probably isn't. Also, the article says costs have gone from 600M in 2006-07 to $2B now, but it neglects to state that assets under management have gone from $98B to $225B in the same time period. Kal Torak's answer is more complete on some points, and is correct on the quality of management. Other global funds come to CPP to learn how to do things. Ontario Teachers is also exceptionally well run. Also, the real estate investments they make generally aren't the sort that are exposed to the speculation of poorly informed individual homeowners. Like most large funds, they focus on commercial and multi-unit residential properties. Also, when looking at asset pricing and cycles, keep in mind that they have a much longer horizon than any given individual investor. Over the horizons they're looking at, short-term variations just vanish into the background, and if anything they're slightly better off for having continued to invest through the downturn rather than needing to sit on the sidelines. Kalenn Istarion fucked around with this message at 11:42 on Sep 4, 2014 |
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Sep 4, 2014 11:31
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melon cat posted:This is exactly why you can't plan for retirement with the hopes that CPP will still exist. It's paltry as it is, and what's to stop the government from completely dismantling CPP in the future? Always plan as if CPP won't be there. Paltry? They're the seventh largest managed pension fund in the world. The funds total assets are projected to be at $518 billion by 2030. I agree that you should plan as though CPP will not be there when you retire. However, all this talk about the CPP disappearing is getting to be a tad ridiculous.
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Sep 4, 2014 15:04
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Kal Torak posted:Paltry? They're the seventh largest managed pension fund in the world. The funds total assets are projected to be at $518 billion by 2030. The benefits are paltry. The pension fund is huge, though that's only 16k per person in Canada. It's a good thing we're not all olds.
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Sep 4, 2014 15:18
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tuyop posted:The benefits are paltry. The pension fund is huge, though that's only 16k per person in Canada. It's a good thing we're not all olds. Ah, yes. The benefits are paltry, I agree. They do increase the longer you wait to take them though. Anyone relying on CPP/OAS as their sole retirement income is an idiot.
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Sep 4, 2014 15:49
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melon cat fucked around with this message at 04:11 on Mar 16, 2019 |
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Sep 4, 2014 17:17
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Any recommendations for a travel insurance provider? My girlfriend just finished her degree and so I can no longer ride on the coattails of her student coverage. I'm self-employed and don't have any benefits, so I need to buy coverage for my various jaunts overseas and to the US, etc. CAA seems notionally decent, but I thought I'd ask here also. Cheers
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Sep 4, 2014 23:47
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Get a good credit card, Desjardins' Visa Odyssey has pretty drat good coverage for like $140 a year. Also 1% sort of cash back.
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Sep 5, 2014 01:59
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TD travel infinite has travel medical/interruption/cancellation insurance included and a bunch of other things. It costs 120/year but is waived if you have the full service TD account with at least 5K in it.
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Sep 5, 2014 04:52
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Lexicon posted:Any recommendations for a travel insurance provider? My girlfriend just finished her degree and so I can no longer ride on the coattails of her student coverage. I'm self-employed and don't have any benefits, so I need to buy coverage for my various jaunts overseas and to the US, etc. CAA seems notionally decent, but I thought I'd ask here also. Cheers FrozenVent posted:Get a good credit card, Desjardins' Visa Odyssey has pretty drat good coverage for like $140 a year. Guest2553 posted:TD travel infinite has travel medical/interruption/cancellation insurance included and a bunch of other things. It costs 120/year but is waived if you have the full service TD account with at least 5K in it. Seconding this - I have the visa infinite. It has the additional benefit of giving you 4.5% back on any travel you book with it in travel dollars, which is excellent if you do regular travel.
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Sep 5, 2014 16:47
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Thanks all - can't believe I didn't think of that initially. Ended up going with the BMO World Elite - applied online and I was approved instantly. $150 a year, but travel coverage would cost at least that anyway, and it seems like a more than decent card generally anyway, plus the first year is free and has a $300 travel bonus.
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Sep 5, 2014 16:55
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Lexicon posted:Cool, good to know. The other great thing to have in your Canadian scholar of finance arsenal is the amazon.ca credit card. It's the only Canadian card that charges the spot rate for foreign transactions, unlike all the rest which help themselves to a 2.5% margin. I kept a mental note of this when I read your post, and since I'm travelling to the US in a couple of weeks, I applied for the card. Of course I was instantly approved for like $6k, which is on top of my already $75k~ of available credit across multiple accounts (thank you debt  society). Hopefully the card comes before I head south of the border.I noticed that not only do I get a $20 Amazon gift card for signing up, but there are multiple other cards available that have varying signing bonuses too. I applied for two of the Scotiabank cards that have no annual fee. I would have done the CIBC card, but I already have one of those - it's my no-fee backup card. So far I'll have accrued $80 in Amazon gift cards just for signing up. I'm also tempted to sign up for the Scotiabank NHL VISA Card and just cancelling it after a few months. Is there any reason I shouldn't be doing this? Aside from the hard checks on my credit, which really don't bother me since my credit rating is very high and I won't be renewing my mortgage for 4 more years. Before anyone asks, I don't have a credit addiction. All of my balances are zero. I'm just trying to rake in the signing-bonuses. Rick Rickshaw fucked around with this message at 17:56 on Sep 5, 2014 |
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Sep 5, 2014 17:53
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Lexicon posted:Thanks all - can't believe I didn't think of that initially. Ended up going with the BMO World Elite - applied online and I was approved instantly. $150 a year, but travel coverage would cost at least that anyway, and it seems like a more than decent card generally anyway, plus the first year is free and has a $300 travel bonus. I also have the word elite. It gets a better rate on general purchases (2%) but doesn't get any bonus on travel expenditures. Probably works out to the same average rate over a year.
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Sep 5, 2014 18:13
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The Sears Financial Mastercard does't charge foreign transaction fees either. http://www.searsfinancial.ca/CreditCards/Benefits.aspx Although it doesn't look like it's better in any way than the Amazon one, unless you do tons of shopping at Sears.
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Sep 5, 2014 18:13
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toe knee hand posted:unless you do tons of shopping at Sears. 
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Sep 5, 2014 18:16
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So my company offers 10% match but forces their contribution to be to Manulife funds shown here: http://groupsavings.manulife.com/groupretirement/CPOv2.nsf/Public/kpmg_funds Anyone in a similar fix with Manulife or have recommendations for which fund to throw the match into?
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Sep 6, 2014 03:49
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Wilhelm posted:So my company offers 10% match but forces their contribution to be to Manulife funds shown here: http://groupsavings.manulife.com/groupretirement/CPOv2.nsf/Public/kpmg_funds This is pretty standard. My company uses Standard Life, whose Canadian operations were just bought by Manulife. For me, I put 10% into a bond fund and then split the other 90% between global, US and Canada - about 30% each. But that's not a recommendation, that's just what I am comfortable with. I would read the prospectus/summary of each fund before making a decision.
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Sep 6, 2014 05:58
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Wilhelm posted:So my company offers 10% match but forces their contribution to be to Manulife funds shown here: http://groupsavings.manulife.com/groupretirement/CPOv2.nsf/Public/kpmg_funds Take the free money, but plan to migrate it out of their shitass funds as soon as you can.
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Sep 6, 2014 05:58
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Wilhelm posted:So my company offers 10% match but forces their contribution to be to Manulife funds shown here: http://groupsavings.manulife.com/groupretirement/CPOv2.nsf/Public/kpmg_funds Yeah read into the limitations of the match, like if you need to hold it in manulife funds for 3 months, just dump it in their lowest risk, lowest MER fund for three months then pull it out.
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Sep 6, 2014 15:26
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tuyop posted:Yeah read into the limitations of the match, like if you need to hold it in manulife funds for 3 months, just dump it in their lowest risk, lowest MER fund for three months then pull it out. This would be their RPP so he's going to have to keep it in Manulife until he leaves the firm.
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Sep 6, 2014 16:51
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Kal Torak posted:This would be their RPP so he's going to have to keep it in Manulife until he leaves the firm. How exactly did this all-too-common, unholy alliance between ripoff artist mutual fund peddlers and employers occur? Why do employers insist that it stay within the 'company plan', and moreover, why is the company plan always so poo poo? If I were an employer, I'd want my staff's RRSP money to be as beneficial to them as possible, and actually, ideally as flexible as possible.
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Sep 6, 2014 18:28
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Sassafras fucked around with this message at 09:44 on Sep 13, 2014 |
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Sep 6, 2014 19:43
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Sassafras posted:Kickbacks! Jesus, of course. This is why we can't have nice things.
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Sep 6, 2014 19:46
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In some cases, the employer does actually buy down the mgmt fees to offset the fact that there's a restricted provider. You'd need to look at the details of the plan to find this out though.
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Sep 6, 2014 20:28
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Old info removed.
melon cat fucked around with this message at 22:13 on Feb 4, 2024 |
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Sep 6, 2014 22:53
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That reminds me, I have a significant sum of money in a pension fund of a previous employer (well it's managed by the union, but I'm not in that union anymore). It's getting a pretty good rate of return, but what do I do with it?
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Sep 6, 2014 23:04
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FrozenVent posted:That reminds me, I have a significant sum of money in a pension fund of a previous employer (well it's managed by the union, but I'm not in that union anymore). You MIGHT be able to transfer it in-kind (as in, your chosen investment won't be cashed out or switched in any way), but it depends on what you're currently invested in.
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Sep 6, 2014 23:13
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I'm mostly concerned about the tax implications. Haven't seen a fee on the reports they've sent me so far. My RRSP are currently maxed out, is there some other way to pull it out? LIRA I guess? How does that work?
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Sep 6, 2014 23:16
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You should be able to transfer it to a LIRA. There's not much to it other than bringing the account info to your broker/bank and have them initiate the transfer. Fees may be charged by the existing fund managing company but you'll have to check their terms. You can as for it in kind, where the holdings get transfered. This only works if your new account brokerage is able to hold those fund or investments. If it's some proprietary fund that your brokerage can't hold, you'll have to get it transferred in cash, so your holdings are liquidated and the cash amount is sent over for you to buy your own investments. Either way, the funds are tax deferred until your retirement. You just won't have the same options to access them prior to retirement as you would from an RRSP.
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Sep 6, 2014 23:31
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Edit!
melon cat fucked around with this message at 04:10 on Mar 16, 2019 |
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Sep 6, 2014 23:34
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I've got a huge chunk of money sitting in a manulife mutual fund managed by a dude who offers drinks and snacks when you meet with him in his nice office and he really really cares about you and your family. It did just over 10% this year which is very nice, but it could be much much nicer without his and the fund's massive management fees. Also when I told him I'm very worried about Canadian banks and economy he assured me not to worry because "a crash in Canada would probably send stocks up, which is what happened in the US so don't worry the fund managers are well aware" Every few months I check the thread out thinking "that's it, I'm going to go self directed" then I read the thread and think "holy poo poo nope I'm in way over my head I guess this is why I need to pay a guy a fortune to do it for me". I wish there was a middle ground, where I could have some advisor or helper or what ever that actually knows about all this poo poo and can help me set up accounts and deal with the kafka-esq paperwork but not take a massive ridiculous fee and lock me into a few (apparently) lovely mutual fund products. There's also the feeling that if my current investments get hosed I can be mad at my "financial planner" and manulife, but if I went self directly I'd only have my self to blame. That and I have no idea what I'm doing and would simply ask the thread what to invest in. Then if I got more than 1 answer, panic. Is it possible to basically have what I have now, a few fairly conservative funds that I don't need to do anything with, but without the ridiculous fees? I know you guys have tried to explain to me before how to do this but it always gets to a point where I get conflicting info and I become paralyzed.
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Sep 8, 2014 23:23
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^ I dunno man, if you're not persuaded by this point in the thread to go self-directed, maybe the Manulife guy is worth his fee to you.
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Sep 8, 2014 23:31
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If you're worried, you don't have to go all in with self directed. Take out some money and play with it to build up knowledge and confidence.
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Sep 8, 2014 23:50
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Is there like a website or guide for how to do it? Like simple step by step? My problem is that there seem to be a million ways to go self directed. We used to have our mutual funds via our credit union and it was the exact same deal. Don't all financial institutions want you to use their over priced mutual fund dudes? Or is there a specific bank I can walk into and say "I want to do self-directed investing, how do we set this up?" and they'll take care of me? And yeah I'd love to take out 50k or so and see how self-directed stacks up against manulife. Of course it's not a sprint it's a marathon, the question is which will be ahead in 20 years not 20 months. This thread is great for people already investing but really confusing if you're trying to come in from the outside. Like I wish there was a 101 self-directed-investing guide in the OP for instance. I still don't even know what self directed is exactly. I'm buying and selling a bunch of stocks and bonds my self like a floor trader and combining them in some way that's like a mutual fund I'm making my self? I'm buying mutual funds my self and skipping the financial adviser guy?
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Sep 9, 2014 00:05
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Baronjutter posted:Is there like a website or guide for how to do it? Like simple step by step? My problem is that there seem to be a million ways to go self directed. We used to have our mutual funds via our credit union and it was the exact same deal. Don't all financial institutions want you to use their over priced mutual fund dudes? Or is there a specific bank I can walk into and say "I want to do self-directed investing, how do we set this up?" and they'll take care of me? I sympathize that there's a lot of bullshit and misinformation in all this stuff, but at a high level, there's really not much to it: 1) Open trading accounts (TFSA and/or RRSP and/or non-registered as suitable to your situation) at a brokerage. I use BMO Investorline myself; others prefer Questrade or RBC DI. 2) Move your capital in there. 3) Decide on an allocation (25/25/25/25 US equity/CA equity/International equity/CA bonds) is well suited to a young person with a longish horizon, but you can do some research here. 4) Buy units of ETFs that correspond to your allocation: XIC is a good choice for Canadian equity, for example. 5) Rebalance yearly – as you do RRSP contributions for example. You can optimize at every step of the way, but even just doing this and learning the rationale behind things will put you ahead of 95% of Canadians.
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Sep 9, 2014 00:11
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Here is a quick youtube video on how to buy and sell using questrade. It's what I used to figure it out, and I'm sure you can find similar products for other trading platforms. If it's what comes before that's bugging you, the steps are literally 1) open account, 2) fund account, 3) trade securities. If step 1 is causing you stress, the difference between most brokerages are less than the opportunity cost of paying fees for most buy-and-hold strategies. I'm opening/funding a TFSA for my wife and it will be with Questrade. Allocation will be 25% each of XIC (Cdn Equity), VUN (US), XEF (Int'l) and VAB (Cdn Bond Aggregate). Rebalancing will be primarily through annual contributions unless one sector is heavily out of proportion compared to the others. I wouldn't recommend anything I wouldn't use myself, and I use this myself (well, allocations are plus or minus 5% but the reasoning still stands). I'm still away from home on a business trip but once I get back I'm definitely gonna give the ol' college try to making some sort of canadian finances 101 type website to fill this exact type of knowledge gap. Guest2553 fucked around with this message at 00:18 on Sep 9, 2014 |
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Sep 9, 2014 00:14
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