By now you’ve probably heard about this new currency called “bitcoin”. At the end of last year, one bitcoin was valued at US $29,111.52 (all bitcoin prices provided by coindesk.com). It more than doubled, peaking at an intra-day high of $61,556.59 in March of this year and at the time of writing is priced around the US $56,500 mark. Since its … [Read more...] about Bitcoin: digital currency
Finances
Musical shares: The long and short of short selling
For a month or so now, the news has highlighted something called short selling. This has been due to actions from a Reddit group who chose to manipulate the share price of a number of companies (GameStop among them) to hurt a number of hedge funds. To be very blunt about it, short selling is NOT a form of investing. It is a form of gambling, no different than a card game or … [Read more...] about Musical shares: The long and short of short selling
Crazy little thing called love: one Christian’s response to Covid
The great Warren Buffet is known to say that one of the magic secrets to his investing success is living a long time; a tangential way of crediting the wonder of compounding. So, one way that we can become wealthier is to simply live longer. Living longer is harder to achieve today than it was even just a year ago. At the time of writing the Health Canada website is … [Read more...] about Crazy little thing called love: one Christian’s response to Covid
Ch, Ch, Ch, Changes – the shift from a sales culture to an advice culture
Last year (2020) I celebrated 25 years in the business, and I found myself thinking about how things have changed and how they’ve stayed the same. Back in 1995… The shift from a sales culture to an advice culture. More than the specifics though, I found myself thinking about the change in the Zeitgeist between now and then. Specifically, the change in the investment … [Read more...] about Ch, Ch, Ch, Changes – the shift from a sales culture to an advice culture
Time for some last-minute tax planning
The Duke of Westminster principle remains alive and well here in Canada: taxpayers still have the right to manage their affairs in order to minimize taxes payable. For some, those affairs may include RRSP contributions which have a deadline 60 days after the end of the year, but for most tools the deadline is December 31. Tax planning shouldn’t be left until the end of the … [Read more...] about Time for some last-minute tax planning