Posts Tagged ‘MER’

There is one investment strategy that is so simple, it could be the recommended strategy for a book called The Idiot’s Rules for Investing. Many readers will be wishing their advisors had delivered results that were this good. In a nutshell, the...

Every investor needs to understand how easy it is to ensure that his or her portfolio performs at least as well as the 
market does. Here is the reason why. Over the next decade, many experts would agree that a balanced portfolio could be expected...

Whenever the notion of a volatile sideways market bubbles up among portfolio managers, they claim indexing will fail in comparison to active stock selection.  In other words, portfolio managers argue that trendless volatility is ripe for active...

Every time markets bleed red, mutual fund investors and the media become much more price-sensitive. So it’s no surprise that print media have featured a barrage of anti-fee articles.  (See the National Post on December 6 and the Globe &...

The mutual fund industry seems to be under the microscope on a regular basis.  That’s partly a function of its size.  But, to be fair, it’s also because the industry has earned criticism for its commission structures, high fees and...

Late last week, the media was buzzing about indexing giant Vanguard’s entry into the Canadian investment fund market.  (See today’s Globe & Mail and National Post for related stories.)  Today, Vanguard officially announced...

A few weeks ago, I resurfaced my arguments against concluding that Canadian mutual fund costs exceed those of all other developed countries.  This is turning into one of those perpetual debates.  And while the industry – i.e. IFIC –...

I was quoted in today’s National Post regarding the launch of the Horizons AlphaPro Balanced ETF (HAA/TSX).  As is common practice in the ETF world, the firm only quotes the management fee on its website.  This fund, like most other AlphaPro...

I have been a happy ING DIRECT banking and insurance client for more than a dozen years.  A little more than two years ago, they sent me (and presumably all of their clients) a brochure on their then-new Streetwise Funds® which extolled the...