(May 2008) I recently had the opportunity to travel and meet with colleagues in Fidelity’s Asia-Pacific offices. A week-and-a-half spent in Tokyo, Hong Kong, Bangalore and Sydney certainly opened my eyes to the similarities and differences in how these countries and cultures view retirement. While there are many marked differences in how retirement is changing, […]
(March 2008) By now, every advisor will have determined which parts of the federal government budget apply to their practice. The majority of the headlines have focused on the 2009 introduction of the tax-free savings account, enhancements to registered education savings plans and proposals to increase flexibility in freeing up locked-in federally legislated pension funds, […]
(February 2008) RRSPs are a long-term issue, yet the savings season, with its often frenetic pace and abrupt deadline, can feel very much about the here and now. So how do we keep our clients focused on the long-term goal of retirement when they are being bombarded with headlines about poor near-term economic performance? It’s […]
(January 2008) There’s no denying that saving for retirement is key, but it’s also important, maybe even more so, to talk about retirement income planning with your clients. A primary element of retirement income planning is the sources of retirement income, a major one of which is government benefits such as Canada or Quebec Pension […]
(November 2007) In my last column, I went outside of my economist background and training into some new areas for me, including extolling the virtues of creating a vision for retirement. While I firmly believe in creating a vision and having dreams for retirement, the economist in me always wants to put a number on […]
(September 2007) At the beginning of the summer of 2007, a new language seemed to emerge. The media, pundits, advisors, doomsayers were all talking in what I called the “alphabet acronyms” — i.e., CDOs, ABSs, ABCP and so on. I would wager few financial advisors gave much thought to these products before they became the […]
(August 2007) One of the oldest sayings around is that there are only two constants in life: death and taxes. Given the results from the latest StatsCan Census data, I would like to offer up a third guarantee: retirement planning. Now I know that “death, taxes and retirement planning” doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, […]
(July 2007) Interest rates have been a big news story in recent weeks. The financial press writes massive amounts of copy on potential changes to short-term interest rates by central banks. For the most part, their analysis is short term. However, those of us involved in retirement planning need to take a longer-term perspective. We […]
(June 2007) The Canadian dollar has been in the news a lot recently, and for good reason — it reached its highest value against the U.S. dollar in 30 years. Every day, we are inundated with media coverage on what the experts are saying. The variety and number of forecasts make the confusion worse than […]