It’s been a busy week in the financial markets: mid-term elections in the US, the widely anticipated Fed meeting and the Federal Government disallowing the takeover of Potash corporation. Before we dive into this week’s collection of articles, a quick reminder: you can read my posts in your favourite reader or delivered by e-mail.
In this week’s video, Dan Solin, author of The Smartest Investment Book You’ll Ever Read tells Google employees exactly how to invest. Warning: this is a long 1 hour video.
- The U.S. Federal Reserve announced this week that it will buy $600 billion worth of Treasury securities to combat a persistently high unemployment rate. The strategy is called “quantitative easing”. In a column in The Washington Post, Fed chief Ben Bernanke explains what actions the Fed took this week and why.
- Some columnists such as the Financial Post’s Terence Corcoran panned the Federal Government’s decision to block a sale of Potash Corporation to BHP Billiton as banananomics. Tom Bradley of Steadyhand says it’s about time we kept our corporate champions in Canada.
- Many battle-scarred investors remain on the sidelines due to unsettled economic conditions. Rob Carrick encourages such investors to gradually deploy their savings in equities.
- Canadian Money Forum members discuss how new rules that come into full effect in 2016 will affect Canada Pension Plan benefits.
- Larry MacDonald found an ingenious solution to the problem of losing socks in the laundry and matching up pairs after laundry.
- Despite a staggering average annual return of 17.5% (in US dollars), Michael James says he is not interested in gold as an investment.
- Squawk Fox explains how to start an emergency fund on any budget. I’ve seen the error of my ways and don’t believe access to a Line of Credit is a substitute for a good-old emergency fund anymore.
- Million Dollar Journey featured a guest post that explained how preferred shares are different from bonds.
- Now that CREA has agreed to allow real estate agents to offer a variety of service options, Money Smarts Blog takes a look at what it means for home buyers and sellers.
- Preet explains when a fundamental index will outperform a market capitalization weighted index. To me fundamental indexing sounds nothing more than a new fangled way of providing a value tilt to a portfolio.
- In the US, discount brokers are beating each other up by offering free trading on ETFs. Intelligent Speculator takes a look at what this means for the brokerage industry.
- Financial Highway says that asset allocation is critical when investing for the long term.
That’s it for this week. Have a great weekend!
