Calculators and Tools

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Planet Orange – An Attempt To Teach Young Kids About Money

Without a doubt, pretty much everyone I’ve met thinks that society as a whole needs to do a better job (any job?) teaching our young ones about money in general. Throw in a financial crisis and education on money matters is more top-of-mind than ever.
But where and when do you start? The earlier the better [...]

28Sep2009 | Preet | 6 comments | Continued
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US Debt Clock

The US Debt Clock which was installed on the face of a Manhattan building made headlines months ago because this second generation version of the original US debt clock had run out of capacity: it only had room for 13 digits (not including cents!). Since the US national debt surpassed $10 trillion, there are plans [...]

11Aug2009 | Preet | 12 comments | Continued
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Earl Jones

You may want to share this with friends and family, tweet it, or share it via other social media like StumbleUpon, Digg, Reddit, etc. This is a simple, but very important post.
If you haven’t heard by now, there was a “financial planner” in Montreal who defrauded Canadian (and some US) investors of an estimated $50 [...]

27Jul2009 | Preet | 9 comments | Continued
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Glassdoor.com

My brother sent me a link to an interesting website: Glassdoor.com. This site allows users to anonymously share their salaries and job titles and the site compiles the data for all registered users to see (you have to register and submit your details to see everyone else’s info, but you don’t have to submit your [...]

14Jul2009 | Preet | 1 comment | Continued
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Credit Card Payoff Calculator

Do you carry a balance on your credit cards? This handy calculator will allow you to see just how long it will take you to pay off your balance based on the payments you are making. PLUS it will also calculate what monthly payment is required to pay your balance off in a desired time [...]

24Jun2009 | Preet | 9 comments | Continued
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The Money Belt Website

Ken Kivenko from CanadianFundWatch.com (an incredible resource for Canadian investors) kindly sent me a link to a website that is published by the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada. The Money Belt (www.themoneybelt.gc.ca) is designed to increase financial literacy in Canada (mostly aimed at younger Canadians aged 15-29, but there are some tools that are applicable [...]

20Apr2009 | Preet | 2 comments | Continued
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The Grid

So yesterday I gave a brief description of the “Compensation Grid”. Today, I’m going to give an example of what a real grid might look like. Across the top, we have the gross commission generated by an individual transaction. Down the left hand side, we have the gross annual commissions generated by the broker.
For the [...]

4Mar2009 | Preet | 10 comments | Continued
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Total Returns From 1825 to 2008

This is a graph that shows the distribution of returns from 1825 to 2008 for the US stock market. Note that different indices were used (and index data collection methodologies) depending on the time period. It’s not 100% perfect, but is pretty close for the purposes intended: to show just how much of an outlier [...]

2Mar2009 | Preet | 5 comments | Continued
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Where To Find A Fee-Only Financial Planner

I had a reader send in an email a few weeks ago looking for some specific financial planning advice. We actually chatted on the phone and we decided that perhaps she might want to consider working with a financial planner that works by the hour. As such, here are a few resources that one might [...]

11Feb2009 | Preet | 9 comments | Continued
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How Much Of An RESP Should Be Invested In Fixed Income?

With all the suggestions for topics to write about (as part of last week’s contest), I thought I should start putting a dent into some of them. Invariably, I won’t get to answer all of them in a timely fashion but I’ll do my best.
One question came from DJ, who asked:
Do you have a rule [...]

2Feb2009 | Preet | 11 comments | Continued
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Sample Portfolio of FTSE RAFI Funds versus Cap-Weighted ETFs

I’ve been working on modifying a spreadsheet at work that tries to backtest certain portfolios, namely fundamental indices versus cap-weighted indices versus actively managed mutual funds all in one shot and with different assumptions. Note that backtesting has its limitations though, while the numbers look good in retrospect there is no way to account for [...]

14Jan2009 | Preet | 8 comments | Continued
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Mutual Fund Return Indices For 15 Years

Yesterday’s post looked at some Total Return Indices’ Calendar Year Returns for the past 15 years. Today we are going to look at the same returns for the mutual fund averages as sourced from various sources (but all ultimately coming from Morningstar).
Mutual Fund Index Calendar Year Returns, 1994 – 2008

Morningstar Canadian Equity Mutual [...]

12Jan2009 | Preet | 3 comments | Continued
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Total Return Indices’ Calendar Returns for 15 Years

First, an off-topic note: thanks to everyone for voting in the W Network Expert Search, as I was lucky enough to be picked as one of the finalists. Filming will be for two weeks in late spring and they will produce between 1 and 3 shows to be aired later this year (tentative). From the [...]

11Jan2009 | Preet | 7 comments | Continued
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50% Equals 100% When It Comes To Sell Offs

At the time that I am writing this, global stock markets which are open for trading are markedly higher with gains ranging from 4% to 10% in some cases. However, when a gain follows a long stretch of losses it’s important to put this into context – it’s not as rosy as one would think [...]

13Oct2008 | Preet | 0 comments | Continued
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Some History of Volatility and Market Returns

I received a great e-mail today from Fidelity Canada who just put the finishing touches on an interactive charting tool that helps put volatility and bear markets into great perspective. I highly recommend you check it out. After playing with the various calculators and tools, you will be more able to put the recent market [...]

5Aug2008 | Preet | 0 comments | Continued
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