- If you shop at Winners or HomeSense stores, you should be aware that hackers may have stolen your credit or debit card information. The parent company TJX Companies Inc. said in a press release that the full extent of the theft and affected customers is not yet known.
- Another serious security breach involves CIBC (TSX: CM), whose Talvest Mutual Funds subsidiary announced today that a computer hard drive that may have contained important client information (such as names, addresses, dates of birth, SIN numbers etc.) has gone missing.
- According to an Australian Bank’s iPod index, which compares the price of a 2GB Nano in local currency, Canada is the cheapest place to buy the MP3 player. They might well be right because an iPod Nano costs $159.95 at Future Shop and seems to suggest that the US dollar could depreciate further against the loonie.
- Is a price war brewing between the various discount brokers in Canada? Rob Carrick writes in The Globe and Mail that CIBC Investors Edge is offering a trading package, in which investors can make 50 equity and option transactions online for a flat rate of $395.
- The Bank of Canada decided this week to keep interest rates steady at 4.25%, which means that the prime rate charged by the banks stays at 6.0%. The news release that accompanies the interest rate announcement suggests that the Bank is likely to keep rates at the current level in their next meeting in March.
- Tom Bradley writes in his SteadyHand blog on how to succeed in our New Year financial resolutions.
- Columnist Jennifer Wells writes in The Toronto Star on a Statistics Canada study of workers in manufacturing and services who were downsized between 1988 and 1997. The study found that five years after they were downsized, such workers were earning 18% to 28% less than they were prior to their job loss.
- Paul Farrell, columnist for MarketWatch.com reports on the performance of five “lazy” portfolios that he tracks and finds that simple portfolios made up of index funds still outperformed the S&P 500 by significant margins over the past five years.
