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Lexicon posted:There are two avenues to purchasing e-series: Well this explains it. I guess I have enough money to avoid the fee! Barely, I'm sure.
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Oct 23, 2014 15:53
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Rick Rickshaw posted:Well this explains it. I guess I have enough money to avoid the fee! Barely, I'm sure. Yeah I wouldn't. If the market dips enough to bring your balance below the minimum then you'll have to pay the fee. There's no upside to the Waterhouse account over QT if you use it to buy ETFs and there's no upside over a converted account if you just use it to buy eseries.
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Oct 23, 2014 16:02
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I currently do all my banking with TD (including one visa). Thinking of getting a Scotia Bank Visa because the rewards would get be another $200/year for continuing to use my credit card to buy everything (and paying it back monthly of course). I am also looking to buy a house in the short to mid future (5-10 years) so credit is important. What would I do with my TD Visa? Just leave it open, close it? I've never worried about credit score before so I'm not really sure what to do. I've also had this one visa card for six years (my only credit card ever).
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Oct 23, 2014 16:29
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reflex posted:I currently do all my banking with TD (including one visa). Thinking of getting a Scotia Bank Visa because the rewards would get be another $200/year for continuing to use my credit card to buy everything (and paying it back monthly of course). I am also looking to buy a house in the short to mid future (5-10 years) so credit is important. What would I do with my TD Visa? Just leave it open, close it? I've never worried about credit score before so I'm not really sure what to do. I've also had this one visa card for six years (my only credit card ever). I keep my oldest card (~2000) open, even though I don't use it. I don't know if it actually has a meaningful impact on credit, but people seem to think it might, however marginally, so I keep it around anyway.
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Oct 23, 2014 16:38
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Chiming in on e-series because I just got started a couple weeks ago. I found it very simple to start by calling the easy line, telling them exactly what I wanted to do, and getting them to book me an appointment at the appropriate branch. The guy who opened the account with me was able help me fill out the conversion form right there on the spot, and he sent it on my behalf to the investment department. It was all very painless. I just had to call back a few days later to follow up, as I didn't get any notification that the conversation actually happened. But a couple days after that I was easily able to start buying funds with transfers from my PC bank (tip: bring a voided cheque to your appointment so that it can all be sorted out right away)
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Oct 23, 2014 17:25
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I'm almost at my RRSP limit for this year, and it just occurred to me that I have unused RRSP room from previous years that I may want to begin using. How do I go about figuring out how much room I have from previous years? I definitely don't have all of my Notices of Assessment from previous years.
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Oct 23, 2014 23:43
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edit: i might be totally wrong on this.
ductonius fucked around with this message at 00:46 on Oct 24, 2014 |
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Oct 24, 2014 00:36
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Rick Rickshaw posted:I'm almost at my RRSP limit for this year, and it just occurred to me that I have unused RRSP room from previous years that I may want to begin using. How do I go about figuring out how much room I have from previous years? I definitely don't have all of my Notices of Assessment from previous years. All you need is your last NOA. It will tell you your total contribution room.
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Oct 24, 2014 01:03
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How long does it usually take for a bill payment deposit to land in your Questrade account? I remember my last one appearing within 24 hours and now I'm a little worried.
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Oct 24, 2014 12:48
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Kal Torak posted:All you need is your last NOA. It will tell you your total contribution room. Oh, well I guess I don't have any more room than I thought. I have that value available to me via CRA's "My Account". I thought that was just this year's room, not including past year's unused room. Well, that's disappointing. It makes sense though - my current available room would only apply to every year if I was making 100K+ Looks like I'll be maxing out my TFSA a lot sooner than I planned. Let's hope that extra yearly TFSA room Harper is talking about comes to fruition. tuyop posted:How long does it usually take for a bill payment deposit to land in your Questrade account? I remember my last one appearing within 24 hours and now I'm a little worried. I made a transfer (CIBC) on mid-day Tuesday and it arrived in my account well-after business hours Wednesday. The money took longer to appear in Questrade than the transfer I made to TD - both being made at the same time. Rick Rickshaw fucked around with this message at 13:14 on Oct 24, 2014 |
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Oct 24, 2014 13:11
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tuyop posted:How long does it usually take for a bill payment deposit to land in your Questrade account? I remember my last one appearing within 24 hours and now I'm a little worried. I do mine from PC Financial and it usually takes 3-4 business days, each and every time for it to show up in my Questrade account.
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Oct 24, 2014 13:12
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Spadoink posted:I do mine from PC Financial and it usually takes 3-4 business days, each and every time for it to show up in my Questrade account. Ok, cool. I'll start freaking out next week. At least I got off my rear end and sent some money.  this year has been a disaster that way.
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Oct 24, 2014 13:45
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tuyop posted:Ok, cool. I'll start freaking out next week. Electronic transfers can sometimes take a weirdly long time - I always expect that it should happen near instantaneously, but it never does. And some 'advice' to Newbies to BFC ... When my finances were a lot tighter, I stole a trick from the grocery store I worked at. You know how they sometimes fundraise by asking you to "round up" your grocery bill to contribute - well, I started 'rounding down' on my chequing account, and shaving off small amounts to transfer to my savings. If my balance was $252.72, I'd send $2.72 over to savings. It seems really piddily, but when you can't move a 'substantive' amount of money (whatever 'substantive' means to you), it can really help. Doing that kind of small transfer 3-4 times a week, kind of like buying a starbucks 3-4 times a weeks, really starts to add up - to the tune of a few hundred dollars over the course of a year (or over $600, if you roll $3, 4x a week). When you're really tight with money, a couple of hundred in extra cash can be a lifesaver. Once I build up enough of a cushion in my savings account for emergencies, every few months I'd roll a hundred or two into an RRSP or other investment vehicle.
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Oct 24, 2014 16:12
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Saw this posted in the Canadian Housing Bubble thread as a reason to have reservations about purchasing ETFs: http://www.etf.com/etf-education-center/21004-what-risks-are-there-in-etfs.html Am I missing something, or does this just read like it's written by someone who makes money off of people buying mutual funds? The start of the article starts off by pointing out how ETFs are better than mutual funds, but there are MANY RISKS. In my mind it's implied that these risks are not inherent in mutual funds. Just to call out a few from the article: 1. Market Risk. Argument: Your S&P 500 ETF could go down 50%. Counter: Well, your S&P 500 mutual fund index could also go down 50%? If both are tracking accurately, you'll lose the same either way. If you have a U.S. equity mutual fund and think it will do better, you're assuming that an actively managed fund will beat the market, which it probably won't in the long term (c.f. Four Pillars). 2. "Judge a Book by it's Cover" Risk. Argument: ETF classes vary widely in returns. e.g. between two biotech ETFs there was an 18% difference in returns. Counter: Understand what you're getting, I guess? Every prospectus has Top 10 classes, so it's transparent what aspects of biotech are being invested in. I'm sure not all biotech mutual funds are created equal, and would carry a higher MER to boot. 9. Trading Costs. Argument: Mutual funds you can get with no transaction cost, but usually an ETF has one. Counter: You'd be hard pressed to find a mutual fund with a competitive MER that won't cost you more in the long run than a piddly $15/trade cost of buying and selling an ETF. The rest seems to go along like this. I don't know if there's any more or less risk of a complex ETF getting shut down as an equivalent mutual fund, for example. I understand that there are risks with ETFs, but no more than mutual funds or just buying individual stocks, which is what the article seems to imply.
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Oct 24, 2014 16:44
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Yeah, someone posted that in response to me. It's bullshit – I didn't even bother replying to the guy.
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Oct 24, 2014 16:54
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Lexicon posted:Yeah, someone posted that in response to me. It's bullshit – I didn't even bother replying to the guy. I noticed that. I figured you held off because of the bullshit and it would have been a huge derail of the Housing thread. I thought I'd bring it over here just to highlight how dumb it was.
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Oct 24, 2014 16:57
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Aagar posted:I noticed that. I figured you held off because of the bullshit and it would have been a huge derail of the Housing thread. I thought I'd bring it over here just to highlight how dumb it was. I mean, the things in there are mostly technically correct to some degree, but it's a very unsophisticated overview, and like you say – it's not like it's ETF specific - it's equity market specific. And its 'advice' all sorts of things like exotic sector ETFs, when really we tend to use ETF in this thread to mean "index-linked ETFs".
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Oct 24, 2014 18:34
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If I'm looking to start investing (from scratch, all I have now are a chequing and savings account), what is the best way to invest for both short and long term goals? I want to start saving for retirement, but I also want to save up for a down payment on a house and maybe a car within say 1-5 years. I have a decent amount of money just sitting in savings that I would like to start investing. I'm also trying to figure out how much I want to have as an emergency fund and where to keep it. This is a great thread by the way, I've already learned a lot.
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Oct 29, 2014 16:35
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Electrical Fire posted:If I'm looking to start investing (from scratch, all I have now are a chequing and savings account), what is the best way to invest for both short and long term goals? I want to start saving for retirement, but I also want to save up for a down payment on a house and maybe a car within say 1-5 years. I have a decent amount of money just sitting in savings that I would like to start investing. I'm also trying to figure out how much I want to have as an emergency fund and where to keep it. Just read this page, someone asked a similar question. I posted an illustrated guide to managing an eseries portfolio a few pages ago. Your two best options are low Management Expense Ratio (MER) eseries mutual funds through TD or free Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) through Questrade. The former is easier, the latter is more financially efficient with a steeper learning curve. Guides to both have been posted many times in this thread. Use the savings account for goals within 5 years, invest for longer goals. Use a canadian couch potato model portfolio for asset allocation. Usually you want to invest in registered accounts, using your TFSA room first, then your RRSP room unless you make enough to make the contribution room worth using (iirc this starts at 85k/year?).
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Oct 29, 2014 20:36
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My mom just came to me seeking financial advice. She works at Superstore (Loblaws) and has been paying into a "Personal Choice Pension Plan" since 1999 through Great-West Life. She doesn't make much money so it's not a substantial amount sadly, but there's some level of employer matching going on, which makes it a good thing to be subscribed to, but I'm questioning whether she should keep her money in the fund any longer than she has to after she contributes and gets the employer matching. I took a look at her statement, and she holds "ClearPath 2020" with Fidelity. All of her money is in this fund. Here's the fund page: http://www.fidelity.ca/cs/Satellite/en/public/products/managed_solutions/clearpath/overview/cp20 With a MER of 2.18%, I need to get her out of this, right? I mean, if it were me who was in this fund, at 26 years of age, I would just take the money out as soon as I can barring employee matching restrictions, send it to an RRSP account with Questrade or TD, and buy funds matching one of the CPP portfolios. But since she's 60 years old, I should do a higher bond allocation, right? I have no idea when she's going to retire. Certainly not before 65. Even then, I couldn't imagine her retiring. For argument sake, let's say retirement at 70. Are there any tax implications of switching from a Pension Plan to an RRSP account? Should I even do it? Help me save my mother from a dreadful retirement, goons.
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Nov 3, 2014 14:50
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Rick Rickshaw posted:My mom just came to me seeking financial advice. She works at Superstore (Loblaws) and has been paying into a "Personal Choice Pension Plan" since 1999 through Great-West Life. She doesn't make much money so it's not a substantial amount sadly, but there's some level of employer matching going on, which makes it a good thing to be subscribed to, but I'm questioning whether she should keep her money in the fund any longer than she has to after she contributes and gets the employer matching. This is a bit more complicated than a normal RRSP with employer matching. Depending on the terms of that pension plan, she may have to put it in a Locked-In Retirement Account which is pretty much the same as an RRSP except you can't contribute to it after the transfer and you can't turn it into an RRIF until a certain age (usually 55, so this may not matter). There's also the problem of whether she's even allowed to access the money while she's still employed with the company. The public service pension plan doesn't allow you access to it unless you leave the public service, but I'm sure at least some others are different. The restriction makes sense because the pension plan only works if everyone has to contribute until retirement or termination. If you can do it, there should be no tax implications because pension contributions are already deducted from RRSP contribution room, as far as I know. The best you can do without more info from the company and provider is to move the money into a cheaper fund to try to fix the damage. As it is, she's got 15 years of losses from that fund so the damage is pretty much already done. 
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Nov 3, 2014 15:57
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tuyop posted:This is a bit more complicated than a normal RRSP with employer matching. Depending on the terms of that pension plan, she may have to put it in a Locked-In Retirement Account which is pretty much the same as an RRSP except you can't contribute to it after the transfer and you can't turn it into an RRIF until a certain age (usually 55, so this may not matter). Sounds like you're right. I just called GWL and since she's still employed with the company, the money is locked in. I could maybe pick a fund with a lower MER, as there's a list of funds she could switch to instead of the ClearPath 2020 2.18% bullshit. If only I could have come out of the womb spouting the financial knowledge I have now, things could have been different. "Don't get divorced, don't let other people invest your money". Rick Rickshaw fucked around with this message at 16:38 on Nov 3, 2014 |
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Nov 3, 2014 16:33
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I've never heard of any pension employer matching plan that allowed you to take out money before leaving the company. Not saying they don't exist, but I've never heard of such a thing.
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Nov 3, 2014 16:48
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If they have a surplus they might do a payout but yeah that's pretty much it.
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Nov 3, 2014 23:00
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How long does a TD e-series transfer take? I bought a big lump sum over some funds but it has yet to update. It says on the site the next morning but that hasn't been the case.
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Nov 4, 2014 20:02
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It's been a good week to have zero exposure to Canadian equities and be holding USD-denominated funds. 
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Nov 4, 2014 20:30
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Franks Happy Place posted:It's been a good week to have zero exposure to Canadian equities and be holding USD-denominated funds. Indeed. I've long been a fan of holding a large portion of my portfolio denominated in USD purely for the currency diversification. I don't quite go so far as zero exposure to domestic equities, but in general, if you live and work here, it's stupid to have outsized domestic exposure in your portfolio. This is oddly common for some reason - I'm not sure if it's just a Canadian thing, or a home-country bias that exists in most advanced economies. That Michael James dude had an interesting post about his asset allocation recently: http://www.michaeljamesonmoney.com/2014/10/my-asset-allocation.html
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Nov 4, 2014 20:52
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Lexicon posted:Indeed. I've long been a fan of holding a large portion of my portfolio denominated in USD purely for the currency diversification. I don't quite go so far as zero exposure to domestic equities, but in general, if you live and work here, it's stupid to have outsized domestic exposure in your portfolio. This is oddly common for some reason - I'm not sure if it's just a Canadian thing, or a home-country bias that exists in most advanced economies. If I told a Canadian they should put 75% of their investment funds into (say) Australian or Mexican or South Korean equities, they'd think I was insane, but somehow as long as you live in a tiny country with a two-bit economy it's OK to go hog wild. 
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Nov 4, 2014 21:14
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Franks Happy Place posted:If I told a Canadian they should put 75% of their investment funds into (say) Australian or Mexican or South Korean equities, they'd think I was insane, but somehow as long as you live in a tiny country with a two-bit economy it's OK to go hog wild. It's crazy. For extra  , here's a recent Globe article actually discussing the merits of an all-[Canadian]-bank portfolio (!)http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/investor-education/should-i-bank-on-an-all-bank-portfolio/article21295299/ THE BEAR STEARNS INVESTORS THOUGHT THEY WERE SMART TOO YOU IDIOT!
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Nov 4, 2014 21:25
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I hold XUS in my TFSA (large percentage of my portfolio in my TFSA) and it's gone up 5.52% since I bought it a couple of weeks ago. Is that USD based? I'm guessing no? What's an example of something USD based? I agree though - hometown bias is bad.
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Nov 4, 2014 21:49
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Rick Rickshaw posted:I hold XUS in my TFSA (large percentage of my portfolio in my TFSA) and it's gone up 5.52% since I bought it a couple of weeks ago. Is that USD based? I'm guessing no? What's an example of something USD based? That's a CAD-based fund that holds American stocks in the S&P 500. The USD-based equivalent would be something like VOO: https://personal.vanguard.com/us/funds/snapshot?FundId=0968&FundIntExt=INT You're getting 99% of the currency benefits I'm talking about anyway... if the US stock market stays the same, but USDCAD rises 1% – you'll see a commensurate rise in the value of your XUS holdings. Hence currency diversification. I just like going the extra 1% and holding the USD-denominated funds directly. I hold the US portion of my portfolio in VTI, which is a very broad ETF.
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Nov 4, 2014 21:57
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If I'm unhappy with the choices I've made for my ETFs and index funds, when would be the right time to sell and swap them for new ETFs and funds? When I rebalance my portfolio? Before tax time?
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Nov 5, 2014 08:23
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Olive Branch posted:If I'm unhappy with the choices I've made for my ETFs and index funds, when would be the right time to sell and swap them for new ETFs and funds? When I rebalance my portfolio? Before tax time? Why are you unhappy with them exactly? And what kind of account are they in (registered vs. non)? I'll admit - I got overzealous and at first used my TFSA savings account to buy index funds before realizing that the MERs were still poo poo compared to ETFs. So I sold all the ones that were net positive, and am holding the others until they at least break even before selling (I guess the nice part is there is no fee for buying/selling as long as you hold them for 30 days). I don't foresee this taking longer than a year. Without knowing any details I don't know what the best idea is. If it's a registered account, and if you are (as you should be) just buying and holding, adding more money to the account over time and putting it into the ETFs you want will make the relative % value of the ones you are holding less and theoretically bring them into line with your goal (assuming, for example, you think they are worth holding as 5% or 10% of your total holdings). Otherwise do what I did and just hold on until you can at least break even - there's no point buying high and selling low in an effort to chase some perfect portfolio. That's just my five cents, anyway.
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Nov 5, 2014 14:29
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Isn't holding onto something that is actively costing you more money than an alternative (due to higher MER) just because you're waiting for the value of it to go back up an implementation of the Sunk Cost Fallacy? As far as I can tell, there's no point in waiting until you can break even. Don't let the sunk cost fallacy prevent you from selling now, and buying the cheaper alternative.
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Nov 5, 2014 15:23
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If you wouldn't buy that same fund today with the amount of cash that it's currently worth, why would you stay in it? Sell and move on.
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Nov 5, 2014 16:03
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I know it's irrational, but I must admit - I have a real tough time crystallizing losses in registered accounts (because room is lost forever). Even acknowledging this, I would probably just wait it out myself if I were in the position and the holding cost difference wasn't too egregious.
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Nov 5, 2014 16:07
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Lexicon posted:I know it's irrational, but I must admit - I have a real tough time crystallizing losses in registered accounts (because room is lost forever). Even acknowledging this, I would probably just wait it out myself if I were in the position and the holding cost difference wasn't too egregious. Well at least you acknowledge it's irrational. Because that's exactly what it is. A loss is a loss whether it is realized or not.
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Nov 5, 2014 16:50
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Just saw this on MorningStar.ca: http://cawidgets.morningstar.ca/ArticleTemplate/ArticleGL.aspx?culture=en-CA&id=671649 I liked it, because I feel a lot of people use the 4% withdrawal as a can't-lose strategy, when in fact it's much more complex.
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Nov 5, 2014 18:06
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Aagar posted:Just saw this on MorningStar.ca: By the time most readers of this thread are approaching retirement, the debate will unrecognizable in present terms anyway (What's a safe depletion rate of your quantum credits in order to avoid a premature reaping? Click here to find out)
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Nov 5, 2014 18:20
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Lexicon posted:By the time most readers of this thread are approaching retirement, the debate will unrecognizable in present terms anyway (What's a safe depletion rate of your quantum credits in order to avoid a premature reaping? Click here to find out) My money is on (in?) gold-pressed latinum.
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Nov 5, 2014 19:08
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