Finance news

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A U.S. high school student-led protest is prompting discussions over reforms in the US$3-trillion exchange-traded fund business, on the back of recent moves that have already created opportunities for investors to buy gun-free index-linked products. A bigger question is whether there is a push to rethink the components of the bigger indexes themselves, which are a core holding of millions of institutional and ordinary investors alike.
Gun reform activist David Hogg has decided to take on

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A U.S. high school student-led protest is prompting changes in the exchange-traded fund business, creating new opportunities for investors to buy gun-free index-linked products. A bigger question is whether there is a push to rethink the bigger index components themselves.
Gun reform activist David Hogg has decided to take on Wall Street and heavyweight investment managers by calling for the boycott of Vanguard and BlackRock, two of the world’s biggest investors and owners of public

iStockWhat are we looking for?
Value-focused stocks within the U.S. large-cap universe.
The screen
Value investing is a popular investment style used to get exposure to stocks that appear to be worth less currently than they are expected to be worth in the future. While simple in theory, in reality, it can be difficult to correctly predict what stocks will rise once deemed undervalued instead of continuing to fall.
Today I’ve created a strategy that focuses on large cap U.S. companies that

iStockWhat are we looking for?
Value-focused stocks within the U.S. large-cap universe.
The screen
Value investing is a popular investment style used to get exposure to stocks that appear to be worth less currently than they are expected to be worth in the future. While simple in theory, in reality, it can be difficult to correctly predict what stocks will rise once deemed undervalued instead of continuing to fall.
Today I’ve created a strategy that focuses on large cap U.S. companies that

Q. My wife will be 56 years old this year and has about $150,000 invested with a financial planner who wants to move it all into segregated funds. She expects to work for another six to 10 years. I looked at the performance and the costs (in terms of fees and penalties) of the seg funds she wants to recommend and unless the market has a major crash I don’t see the value in making the move. I have read some rumblings about a major downturn that could happen sometime in the next f

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There’s a commonly held view – one I’ve strongly and vocally agreed with – that conflicts of interest are an issue in our industry and have contributed to the high cost of advice.
However, an academic paper from late 2016 quite persuasively upends this long-held assumption.
The three U.S.-based academics who wrote “The Misguided Beliefs of Financial Advisors” (Kelley School of Business Research Paper No. 18-9 ) reviewed 14 years of trading and portfolio

Q. How do corporate class mutual funds work and how can I benefit?
Thanks, Janis
A. Janis, the accounting details of a mutual fund corporation are long and dull. But in simple terms, a number of funds are pooled together within a corporation.  This allows the taxable events of each fund to be traded off against one another before distributions are paid out to the investor.
There are two main benefits to this structure:The first benefit is potentially lower taxable distributions resulting i

Buy stocks low in a private placement and you could be lucky enough to face a problem if they have grown into something much bigger by the time you move them into an investment account. iStock
Q. I bought stocks through a private placement last year and was given a stock certificate which I have to hold for five months. At the end of April, I will be able to credit my TFSA with these shares. However, these shares have gone up in value. If I provide enough proof of purchase, would the broker cred