- Our dollar zoomed ahead this week and is currently trading within striking distance of achieving parity with the US dollar. It is easy to forget that it was only five years back that the loonie was derided as a “Northern Peso”. Personally, with a high, unhedged exposure to foreign equities (similar to the 50% weighting of the Sleepy Portfolio), the gains in the stock market this week were offset by the rising Canadian dollar.
- In light of the appreciating loonie, Jon Chevreau offers his thoughts on whether you should still go global in your portfolio.
- Why did the US Federal Reserve have to cut interest rates by a surprising 50 basis points? This article from Wharton explains how we got into the subprime mess.
- Ellen Roseman reviews The Lazy Investor, a new book by Derek Foster focusing on dividend investing using DRIPs and SPPs.
- Money magazine is celebrating its 35th anniversary and Jazon Zweig recalls how much investing has changed over that time period and suggests three rules to follow for tilting the advantage in your favour.
- The system access fee ranging from $6.95 to $8.95 charged by cell phone companies has long been controversial. The Star reports that a class-action lawsuit has been launched in a Saskatchewan court over the fee. If you tend to use less than 100 minutes on average every month, you would save money by opting for a pre-paid plan instead of a monthly plan.
- I am thinking about replacing our trusty American Express Costco card with the one suggested by Million Dollar Journey – the American Express Gold Cash Back card.
- We are suckers for sweepstakes but Larry MacDonalds likes the odds of the BMO Dreamworld contest.
- TD Ameritrade (US discount broker partly owned by TD Bank) reported that hackers have stolen contact information of millions of clients. It is not clear if the breach affects customers of Ameritrade Canada (which was acquired by TD Waterhouse).
- Rob Carrick writes about the support for active investing from an unlikely source: Barclay’s, the purveyors of many fine ETF products.
