The Empowered Investor

Inspired by a recent white paper on the next-generation advisor, today we’re exploring the evolution of investment advice in Canada.  For me, the expansion beyond stock picking and into a deeper advisory role goes back over 20 years. The evolution of exchange-traded funds has helped us build wonderful portfolios with passive investment vehicles, giving us the time to deliver a better client e...

In the first two parts of our wealth and real estate series, we looked at residential real estate, specifically the suburbs. Within those episodes, we explored the key things you need to know both from an upsizing and a downsizing perspective. For part three, we’re going in a new direction and talking about urban and city living. Canada has some phenomenal cities and city living is a lifestyle cho...

In part one of our wealth and real estate series, we explored how hard it is for first-time buyers and people looking to upsize to find a home in the current market. For part two, we’re looking at the other side of the equation; people who are ready to downsize. After years of accumulating wealth in their primary residences, downsizers usually fall into two categories: empty nesters and seniors. B...

If you've been listening to the show for a while, you know that we take a very holistic approach to money management. Whether we’re talking about primary residences or properties that generate income, real estate is a huge part of people’s portfolios. What do you need to know before buying your first home? What should you do to put yourself in a good position as a seller? Do you need to work with...

Today we’re talking about one of the most common examples of an investment scam, the “pump and dump”, and comparing it with others you may be familiar with, like the Ponzi scheme and corporate fraud. Investing scams are nothing new. They’ve been around for years and are unlikely to go away anytime soon. While stories of massive schemes seem to make fantastic movies, the reality is that with the un...

In Québec, approximately 40% of couples are not married - the highest percentage across Canada. At the same time, the legal protection offered by the family patrimony and matrimonial regimes only apply to married couples. What happens when unmarried couples separate? How can you protect yourself, your family, and your assets? Patricia Fourcand is back for our final episode on family law in Québec...

Under the Civil Code of Québec, there are a number of laws that impact couples and their assets in the event of separation or divorce. In part two of this series, we’re exploring matrimonial regimes and how they affect the division and separation of assets. Unlike family patrimony, which applies to all marriages and civil unions, couples can choose different matrimonial regimes based on their marr...

Family law is an essential aspect of wealth management that is unfortunately often overlooked. It’s a very complex topic and there’s so much an empowered investor should know about that we decided to do a series where we will discuss the division and the separation of assets in various contexts. Whether you are entering into a serious relationship, have children that are soon to be married or are...

With public policy and multiple forced lockdowns in 2020, we knew we’d see a major impact on the economy unlike the recessions and bad economic periods we’ve seen in the past. Today, we’re focusing on recovery. Recovery has two main parts, economic and the stock market. Where the economic recovery reflects what’s happening on Main Street, the stock market recovery looks to the future. For this epi...

Tax season can be quite a stressful time for many investors. On top of that, with the changes that 2020 brought for a lot of us from working from home, to real estate purchases, and government programs, things may look a little different than usual. We wanted to dedicate this episode to helping you think about the ins and outs of having your income taxes prepared for you. We are joined by our own...

“What’s going on with GameStop?” From our mothers to our kids, that’s the question that seems to be on everyone’s mind. Meanwhile, as the numerous players try to figure out how to handle that tricky situation, TV, radio, and newspapers are mentioning bubbles more than ever. So how do you know if we're in a financial bubble? What triggers them and then causes a bubble to burst? More importantly, ho...

In 2020, the pandemic hit retirement communities and nursing homes especially hard, causing many retirees to reconsider their futures. In our client base, we’ve seen an increase in people wanting to age in place, in their own homes, which comes with new considerations for their personal lives and finances and often those of their loved ones. In these cases, assessing your portfolio to ensure you c...

With the global pandemic taking us from the status quo into lockdown over a few days back in March 2020, the world and the markets ended up looking a lot different than anyone anticipated at the start of the year. As we head into 2021, we wanted to spend this episode sharing our top surprises and takeaways from 2020. From record low interest rate levels to the success of speculators, we’re going t...

As we continue to walk through the story of the empowered investor, we’re excited to share the insights from our today’s guest, financial expert and exchange-traded fund (ETF) pioneer, Gerry Rocchi. In the last few shows, we’ve taken a deep dive into why we’re such big fans of ETFs and we’ve spoken a lot about ETFs as accessible investment vehicles that give investors access to a diversified pool...

Over the last couple of episodes, we’ve explored different aspects of index-based investing from the principles of evidence-based investing and how you can apply those principles to your portfolio, to the history of the indexing revolution. Today, we’re taking a deep dive into the numbers by looking at the annual SPIVA reports which compare the performance of actively managed strategies versus ind...

Since March 2020, we’ve had to find ways to adapt to life with lockdown, quarantine, working from home and social distancing. As we changed the way we work, play and socialize, our buying and investment patterns have shifted as well. Now, with the announcement of three new vaccines, there’s been a collective shift as we begin to see a flicker of light at the end of the tunnel. It could be a game-c...

In our last three shows, we covered three principles of evidence-based investing, culminating in using index-based or passively managed investment strategies to act as an engine within your diversified portfolio. But when we talk about index-based investing, we’re often met with, “I’ve never heard of it before. Is it a new thing?” Although you may not have heard of it, indexing isn’t a short-term...

Starting with an evidence-based investing approach creates a strong foundation for the empowered investor. To help you build that foundation for your portfolio, we’re taking a deep dive into the principles of evidence-based investing. After spending the last two episodes discussing why it’s important not only to invest in asset classes but also to diversify your asset classes, on this episode we’r...

The principles of evidence-based investing provide you with a framework to empower you as an investor to be able to move confidently forward towards financial security. Last week we covered why it’s important to invest in asset classes, rather than relying on market predictions and picking stocks. Today, we’re focusing on the second principle, diversifying your asset classes. Research suggests tha...

One of the challenges Canadian investors face is choosing between the sheer number of choices of types, styles, and strategies for investing that are available. To help you to cut through the noise and overwhelm, we’re starting this series on the best investment philosophy for investors, evidence-based investing. An evidence-based strategy is a scientific approach to investing where investment dec...

For the past eleven episodes, I was joined by my co-host, Marcelo Taboada, and we covered the groundwork for becoming an empowered investor and what you need to put in place to have a successful long-term financial outcome. For the next part of the story of the empowered investor, I’ll be joined by my new co-host, Ruben Antoine, Portfolio Manager and Lead Client Advisor at Tulett, Matthews & A...

For the past ten episodes, we’ve highlighted the key factors you need to understand to be able to achieve financial security. Today, we’re moving in a new direction and talking about current market conditions. The goal of today's episode is to shed some light on how you can move forward as an empowered investor. As the end of summer approaches, we’re almost 6 months into the COVID-19 pandemic. Mar...

One of the most common criticisms we hear about the investment industry is that a lot of investors say things don't feel transparent. To remedy that problem, investment policy statements are becoming more common in the private client world and we believe they're a must-use as they create clarity, transparency, and empowerment. Just as we use maps when we travel to give us a sense of where we're go...

In the last two episodes of our miniseries on planning, we’ve taken a closer look at the importance of the financial plan for achieving your ultimate goal of financial security. We’ve covered the key areas of focus and potential pitfalls from age 25 up to pre-retirement and today we’re turning our attention to retirees. Around 65, most of us enter a transition zone where we go from our maximum ear...

Financial planning is critical in creating a foundation for anyone wishing to become an empowered investor. Each stage of life has a specific set of issues that must be addressed to remain on track with your financial plans and today we’re zooming in on the 35 to 60-year-old age group. During this period, most of us find ourselves extremely busy as we focus on trying to get ahead in our careers wh...