a sucker's rally?

an interesting quote from Business Week today (which speaks by itself!):

Stocks: Beware the Sucker's Rally

Have equities finally hit bottom, or is the market's recent rebound a trap for overeager investors?

Jim Leech "I think fear has just moved so far" (Globe and Mail -Derek DeCloet)

Derek DeCloet from the Globe and Mail interviews Jim Leech ("To the public, he may be best known as the private equity deal maker who snagged BCE last year, or perhaps as the new head of the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan") who is saying that people might be overeacting to the current economical bad news.

I would tend to agree with him except for one thing: the current extent of the credit mess is not fully known yet and many more surprises might lurk ahead. It might be prudent to use these opinions as a starting point for resuming investing in the market (which a lot of people I know have stopped doing "until things get better") but buying by small chunks over a period of time. If the markets go up, then you will still profit and if they go down, then you have money left to buy stocks on sales ...

renewing my mortgage: shopping for the best rate

I've been lucky to get a 4.49% 5 years fixed mortgage rate about 5 years ago. As I'm due to renew in August, I'm starting to follow the rates closely since I should be able to lock one in soon (in April). The last time I talked to my mortgage broker, before the recent 0.5% drop in rates, the best I could get was 5.7%. I also checked with my current lender, MCAP, and they would offer 5.8%. I'm pretty sure they will match the rate if my broker asks them. I'll have to check again to see if these rates have dropped. I'm not a big fan of variable rates especially since I've seen how some were stung by those over the last 5 years.

This post should also serve as a reminder not to renew automatically with your current institution but shop around to get the best mortgage rate ...

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Who is your mortgage provider? Are you satisfied with them? Have you shopped for rates recently?

no TFSA?

Larry McDonald tells us why we might never see TFSA in action ... I like his idea of reduced income tax insteas. The only thing I like about TFSA is that it rewards investors instead of spenders...

too much snow in Canada: no more shovels!

I know a few people who tried to buy a shovel recently only to find that all stores seem to be sold out. I had the same experience when trying to buy a snow roof rake. So I went browsing on the good old Internet and found the Sno-Knife. I've ordered it and I will try it on my roof where snow has accumulated to 4 feet high in one area! I'll let you know if it works well or not.

gas prices keep going up!

Gas prices are going up again... Although I don't regret buying my all wheel drive car (very useful and safe this past winter!), I wish the automakers would speed up the switch to more fuel efficiency and make all cars hybrid for example. That would probably bring prices down because of economy of scale. Then fuel efficiency would be less of a choice between safety and economy.

how to lose an advertiser in 30 days

Redflagdeals will not be a sponsor anymore ... I think their cost per click was too high with this site. Which makes me realize that a lot of the advertisers on Google Adwords must not be getting their money's worth either ...

Thanks to Redflagdeals for the opportunity trying out this new ad concept ... back to just Google ads.

ps: don't be sorry for me, I am really not doing this for money :-))

RESP bill: the conservatives don't want it!

the conservatives are trying their best to kill the bill ... after playing nice with the Senate, they are now making it an election matter

I try to avoid political statements, but let's just say they won't get more sympathy from me after that ...

[update] RESPs on steroids!

A pretty amazing private bill was voted today in Parliement by all parties (except the Conservatives in power!). It basically gives a tax break for RESP contributions up to 5000$ a year. I've had a quick look in the Canadian PF blogosphere and didn't see that fact reported much. It's amazing because:

1. It's another good news after the recent big TFSA announcement.
2. It's a bill promoted by a backbencher MP
3. It was approved by the opposition without the ruling party's consent
4. It will help promote more investment in education
5. It's another tax break we are getting (the GST cut being another example)
   

update (March 7): Tories want the senate to stop the bill!

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follow-up on contractors in Ottawa: Tony's snowblowing finally charged for fraud

A quick update on Tony's snowblowing on CFRA. I had talked about that company in this earlier post. The police has charged them with 34 counts of fraud. It's comforting to see that the bad guys do get caught sometimes.

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