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.

Mother’s Day and your future role as Mom’s money manager

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Depositphotos_6869353_s-2015By Josh Miszk, Invisor.ca

Special to the Financial Independence Hub

Most of us will care for our aging moms at some point in our lives, but helping our parents maintain their independence as they grow older can be a juggling act, particularly when it comes to their finances.

Before we are thrown into the overwhelming responsibility of managing Mom’s investments, it’s important to do some advance planning. For many, starting the conversation with Mom is the biggest hurdle, and what better time than on Mother’s Day?

Whether it’s day-to-day or long-term investments, here are a few things to consider when helping Mom with her finances:

Get a holistic view

Start by getting a complete picture of Mom’s current and expected cash flow needs. Look at her sources of income (like pension and CPP) and her living expenses to get a better idea of any cash shortfall her investments will need to cover.

Next, get a holistic view of her investment portfolio, including what investments she holds and where. Continue Reading…

You say you want a (Blockchain) Revolution?

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Alex Tapscott at Rotman School Thursday evening

My latest Financial Post article can be found by clicking the highlighted text here: Bitcoin and Blockchain could be the start of a revolution bigger than the Internet itself.

My actual words in the lead to the piece were “as big or bigger” but no matter. That’s the gist of a new book by author and technology guru Don Tapscott, and his investment banker son, Alex.

The duo launched their co-authored new book, Blockchain Revolution, to a standing room only audience at Toronto’s Rotman School of Management on Thursday evening. It was the first stop in a ten-city book tour.

9781101980132_Blockchain_final process.indd Blockchain is the Trust Code

The famous Bitcoin is based on blockchain, which meant that for the first time in history two or more parties don’t need to know or trust each other in order to transact or do business online. They don’t need powerful intermediaries because “Trust is programmed into the essence of the technology so blockchain is the trust code.” The book (shown to the right) says big banks and some governments are implementing blockchains as distributed ledgers to speed transactions, improve security and lower costs. These ledgers reside on millions of computers provided by volunteers, so there is no central database that can be hacked. Using heavy cryptography, transactions are time-stamped and validated by a community of miners who are rewarded with more bitcoins. Every time a new block is added to the chain, it must refer to a previous block to be valid: hence the term blockchain.

Real FinTech is based on Blockchain

Continue Reading…

Some tough questions for the financial advice industry

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JustWealth Andrew Headshot
Andrew Kirkland, JustWealth

By Andrew Kirkland

Special to the Financial Independence Hub

The Canadian financial advice industry is facing some existential challenges. Over the past decade, the investment sector has seen a slow decline in best practices and value-driven client service.

Consumers have taken note of this industry shift and the results are worrisome: investor trust in financial professionals in Canada has taken a sharp turn downwards from 2013 to 2015. Recent surveys further demonstrate this erosion in trust— a 2015 survey by the CFA Institute and Edelman indicates that only 61 per cent of Canadian retail investors and 57 per cent of institutional investors trust the financial services industry to do what’s right. It’s time the investment industry engaged in some much-needed introspection on what its future will look like.

Outdated advisor-client model

The outdated traditional advisor-client model is largely the cause for shortcomings in client satisfaction and trust. Continue Reading…

Keep your Fixed-Income Fire Extinguisher within reach

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fire extinguisher and sign isolated over a white backgroundBy James Redpath, CFA

Special to the Financial Independence Hub

Bonds are boring. They’re supposed to be.

In the relatively dry world of finance, one of the valuable functions that bonds (fixed income) provide is to increase the diversification and resilience of balanced portfolios — by serving as a fire extinguisher when times get tough, rather than an accelerant.

They’re designed to make money, but also to manage any potential sparks or flare-ups lit by their flashier equity counterparts. While no one has pulled the alarm in this new realm of negative interest rate policy imposed by certain central banks, it’s still a good idea for fixed-income investors to be aware of their bond holdings; they should check to ensure that, like a fire extinguisher kept in the kitchen, they’re still appropriate and ready to do the job they’re meant to should the need arise.

What’s happening with negative interest rates?

In 2014, the European Central Bank became the first major central bank to shift interest rates into negative territory. The central banks of Sweden, Denmark, Japan and Switzerland followed suit soon after.

Continue Reading…

Debuting today: my new “Retired Money” blog at MoneySense.ca

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happy businessman with passive incomeToday and every two weeks or so, MoneySense.ca will be running a new online column by me they’re calling “Retired Money.” You can find the first instalment by clicking on this highlighted headline: Ways to Pay Less Tax in Retirement.

This first piece looks at some tax credits that working folk will probably be unfamiliar with: The Age Credit for those who are 65 with relatively low incomes, and the Pension Credit.

So what do we mean by “Retired Money?” What happened to Findependence and Victory Lap? Well, those will remain a focus of this website and my forthcoming book with Mike Drak: Victory Lap Retirement. Here’s how MoneySense bills the new column:

Retired Money …. will explore smart ways to draw down income in retirement and semi-retirement. 

Here at the Hub, we usually house topics like this under the Decumulate & Downsize section. A typical guest blog will be something from Doug Dahmer, such as Debt is a Four-Letter Word during your drawdown years.

MoneySense Portfolio Event this Saturday

Going back to MoneySense, this coming Saturday morning, May 7th, MoneySense is hosting a special event. Continue Reading…