Invest
Yield To Maturity Might Be Indicating a Bottom in the Bond Market
- Full Circle - September 11, 2023
- Yield To Maturity Might Be Indicating a Bottom in the Bond Market - August 21, 2023
- Reader Case: Nomadic Superfans! - August 7, 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
- Full Circle - September 11, 2023
- Yield To Maturity Might Be Indicating a Bottom in the Bond Market - August 21, 2023
- Reader Case: Nomadic Superfans! - August 7, 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?
- Full Circle - September 11, 2023
- Yield To Maturity Might Be Indicating a Bottom in the Bond Market - August 21, 2023
- Reader Case: Nomadic Superfans! - August 7, 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)
- Full Circle - September 11, 2023
- Yield To Maturity Might Be Indicating a Bottom in the Bond Market - August 21, 2023
- Reader Case: Nomadic Superfans! - August 7, 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 […]
Dude, Where’s My Yield?
- Full Circle - September 11, 2023
- Yield To Maturity Might Be Indicating a Bottom in the Bond Market - August 21, 2023
- Reader Case: Nomadic Superfans! - August 7, 2023
A few weeks ago, I received an interesting email. Hello FireCracker & Wanderer, I’m an investment workshop alumni and longtime blog follower, but I’m struggling to understand yield – specifically, the unpredictability and inconsistency of my actual portfolio yield. As I review your posts at the beginning of each year, inevitably your projected yield from the previous year comes very close to matching your actual yield realized. Clearly, that is reassuring since this is your expense covering income source. I began trying to simulate the same projection process to track my own portfolio yields against expectations. Granted, I am still in the accumulating phase, so I’m still adding new […]
