Hub Blogs

Hub Blogs contains fresh contributions written by Financial Independence Hub staff or contributors that have not appeared elsewhere first, or have been modified or customized for the Hub by the original blogger. In contrast, Top Blogs shows links to the best external financial blogs around the world.

Millennial Blog Wrap: Budgeting now to be debt-free later

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Business desk concept - BUDGETBy Helen Chevreau, Hub Staff

As a millennial, it’s important that we begin to create good financial habits to govern our lives, starting with budgeting.

From a healthy morning routine, to being grown-up about money, as we get into this new stage in our lives, we need to make sure to put ourselves on the right track, or risk ending up in serious financial trouble.

From the blog Making Sense of Cents comes a new post that touches on some common bad money habits that are extremely easy to fall into. Whether you’re of the “out-of-sight-out-of-mind” or the “it’ll-never-happen-to-me” mindset, or any of the other bad money habits mentioned, this post is here to help you change your ways before it’s too late.

Now, Not Later

Along the same lines, it seems that the bad habit of paying down debts more slowly to reap the rewards of ‘more cash in hand how’ is springing up, and Bridget Eastgaard of ‘Money After Graduation’ is here to tell us why that’s such a terrible idea. Continue Reading…

Six rules for Foolish investing, as Fools visit Canada

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L to R: Motley Fool’s Gardner, Butler, Muckerman and Gillies (Photo J. Chevreau)

Motley Fool co-founder and CEO Tom Gardner and his team of Canadian stock analysts were in Canada for a members-only event in Toronto on Thursday night.

Pictured is Gardner (in blue on the left) asking for stock buy and sell recommendations from a panel of three Fool analysts. From left to right, they are Stock Advisor Canada’s Iain Butler and Taylor Muckerman, and Pro Canada’s Jim Gillies on the extreme right.

The colourful headgear is of course central to the Motley Fool brand. The stock newsletter publishing company is based in Alexandria, VA. It’s also well known for its daily financial podcasts, with most of the panelists regular contributors.

The 6 Rules

Gardner kicked off the evening with his six rules for succeeding as a Motley Fool investor:

Rule #1:  Everyone should have at least 20 to 40 stocks. That’s a minimum but there’s no need to cap it at 40, Gardner said. Continue Reading…

BMO slashes fees on bond ETFs

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BMO’s Kevin Gopaul

BMO Asset Management Inc. says it is slashing fees on its flagship bond ETFs, and that after they are implemented on or about June 22 BMO ETFs will sport some of the lowest-cost fixed-income ETFs in Canada.

Some of the fee cuts on its broad fixed-income products are more than 50%: Given the minuscule interest rates being paid out on bonds these days, that should get investors’ collective attention.

Here’s the new fee structure BMO issued in a press release today:

BMO ETFs

Ticker

Current Maximum Annual Management Fee (%)

New Maximum Annual Management Fee (%)
BMO Aggregate Bond Index ETF

ZAG

0.20

0.09
BMO Discount Bond Index ETF

ZDB

0.20

0.09
BMO S&P 500 Hedged to CAD Index ETF

ZUE

0.10

0.08
BMO S&P 500 Index ETF

ZSP/ZSP.U

0.10

0.08
BMO Short Corporate Bond Index ETF

ZCS

0.12

0.10

Kevin Gopaul, Global Head of ETFs for BMO Asset Management says the move follows earlier fee reductions in 2012, 2013 and 2014. “Clients are recognizing the value and liquidity of using low-cost ETFs for fixed income exposures in their portfolios.”

The 50% cut on the broad-market  ZAG and ZDB makes them the lowest-cost fixed-income ETFs in the country, at nine basis points. As the chart shows, it has also reduced fees on its currency hedged and non-hedged S&P500 ETFs (ZUE and ZSP/ZSP.U respectively) to 8 basis points from the previous 10 basis points.

8 things you need to know about hiring millennials

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Portrait of young workersBy Angela McDonald

Special to the Financial Independence Hub

Thinking about hiring or recruiting millennials? As more baby boomers (born from 1940s to 1960s) are retiring, the global workforce landscape is expected to slowly start changing as the millennials (born from the early 1980s to the early 2000s) start entering into the scene.

It is imperative for employers to know and understand these Generation Y-ers, as millennials are expected to make up the workforce by 46% by 2020. Just recently, the new Pew Research Center analysis in the US said that more than 1 in 3 American workers today are millennials (adults ages 18 to 34 by 2015), and have surpassed baby boomers as the largest member of the American workforce.

Here are eight things backed with statistics that executive search firms or job recruitment agencies need to know about the perceptions and expectations of millennials in the workplace and how they are at work: Continue Reading…

Polling financial literacy: results both encouraging and worrisome

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graham-bodel
Graham Bodel

By Graham Bodel, Chalten Advisors

Special to the Financial Independence Hub

The Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) just released its 2016 CSA Investor Education Study, an assessment of financial literacy across the country.

Some of the findings are encouraging while others are a little bit worrying.

There are clearly still key gaps in investor knowledge and behaviour.  For example, while many investors rely exclusively on advisors for investment information and knowledge very few investors actually check to see that their advisor has the appropriate registrations.  Some other key points:

Risk Tolerance

To begin with, findings show that more and more people seem to be paying attention to their risk tolerance, which is great!  Risk tolerance is what should drive the mix of different investments that you hold, often referred to as asset allocation.  Risk tolerance is driven by your need, ability and willingness to take risk and should be informed by your current financial situation as well as near and longer term financial planning goals.  Risk tolerance can definitely change as your circumstances change or as you enter different stages of life so it is worthwhile checking periodically to ensure your investments are suitable for your risk tolerance.

Investment Knowledge

Survey respondents were asked to answer seven questions to assess general investment knowledge.  6 of 10 people answered 4 or more questions correctly, which is about the same as in previous surveys.  25% of respondents answered 6 of 7 questions correctly indicating a “high” level of investment knowledge.

Continue Reading…