Invest

A Flattening Yield Curve: What Does It Mean?
- Does Gen Z Have it Harder Than Millennials? - November 20, 2023
- When To Pay Off Your Low-Interest Mortgage - November 6, 2023
- Reader Case: Can’t Work Because of Health Issues and Worried - October 23, 2023
You know, prior to having a kid, I never understood parents’ burning desire to get out of the house and have adult conversations. But now that I have one, I totally get it. Your entire day just ends up revolving around the baby. What does it eat? Why is it crying? What consistency is its poop? Ugh. So thank God we have this blog and I get to write about topics that are the exact opposite of poopy diapers: bond yield curves. So buckle up everyone, it’s ADULT CONVERSATION TIME! WOOO! What have Bond Yields Been Up To? While pretty […]

Yield To Maturity Might Be Indicating a Bottom in the Bond Market
- Does Gen Z Have it Harder Than Millennials? - November 20, 2023
- When To Pay Off Your Low-Interest Mortgage - November 6, 2023
- Reader Case: Can’t Work Because of Health Issues and Worried - October 23, 2023
At the beginning of 2023, I moved the fixed income portion (25%) of our portfolio to a Preferred Share Index tracked by the BMO Laddered Preferred Share Index ETF (ZPR.TO), and this might have seemed like a puzzling move at the time given that ZPR’s been all over the place this year. All that criticism is valid, and for the record, I am not officially recommending everyone follow along with us. Remember, there are 2 phases of the FIRE journey: Accumulation (building your FIRE portfolio) and Withdrawal (living off your FIRE portfolio). We are in the 2nd category and care […]

Canada’s Inflation Hits Target, US Close Behind
- Does Gen Z Have it Harder Than Millennials? - November 20, 2023
- When To Pay Off Your Low-Interest Mortgage - November 6, 2023
- Reader Case: Can’t Work Because of Health Issues and Worried - October 23, 2023
As the summer months bring temperatures soaring, one thing that’s been moving in the opposite direction has been inflation. After massive government spending to fight COVID all around the world spiked inflation to double digits, central banks have been desperately spiking interest rates to bring inflation back down. The theory was that by increasing the cost of money, the amount of spending in the economy would go down, resulting in less demand and therefore lower prices. In practice, this meant repeatedly taking a baseball bat to anyone holding a variable (or in Canada’s case, even fixed-rate) mortgage, spiking their monthly […]

Is the US Bull Market Real or a Fake-out?
- Does Gen Z Have it Harder Than Millennials? - November 20, 2023
- When To Pay Off Your Low-Interest Mortgage - November 6, 2023
- Reader Case: Can’t Work Because of Health Issues and Worried - October 23, 2023
The news this week has been absolutely dominated by coverage of Donald Trump being officially charged by the Department of Justice over that whole classified documents thing, but while that whole media circus was happening, it buried a far more interesting (to me, at least) story in the back pages. Namely… Wall Street is feeling bullish again. The S&P 500 rallied Thursday to end the day in a bull market, marking a 20% surge since its most recent low, reached on October 12, 2022. That brings to end the bear market that began in January 2022. It’s official. We’re in […]

The FIRE Guide to the Tax-Free First Home Savings Account (FHSA)
- Does Gen Z Have it Harder Than Millennials? - November 20, 2023
- When To Pay Off Your Low-Interest Mortgage - November 6, 2023
- Reader Case: Can’t Work Because of Health Issues and Worried - October 23, 2023
In 2022, Canada’s federal government introduced a new tax-free savings vehicle known as the Tax-Free First Home Savings Account, or FHSA, and as of this month, it’s actually here! Well, technically April 1st is when the law creating the FHSA comes into effect. Most of the big banks aren’t ready to start opening accounts yet, but at least one that I’m aware of has their act together (which we’ll reveal at the end), so it’s now possibly to actually start using this thing as of today. But what is it? How does it work? And does it only help people […]