Before reading Barry Ritholtz’s book How Not to Invest , I wondered if the “Not” in the title was a sign it would be filled with gimmicky ways of giving investment advice.  It isn’t.  Investing well is simple enough, but the world tries to push us towards many types of poor choices that lose us money.  The best advice is a list of the many things to avoid when investing.  This book gives readers the benefit of Ritholtz’s extensive experience with staying on the simple path to investing success. The book is organized into four parts: Bad Ideas, Bad Numbers, Bad Behavior, and Good Advice. Bad Ideas Part of what makes it so easy to push investors toward bad ideas is that we believe secret ways to create wealth exist when, in fact, they don’t exist.  “We don’t like to admit it, but nobody knows anything about the future—not just you and me, but the so-called experts too.”   I’ve had the experience of getting people to agree that the future is unknown, and ...

There is no shortage of studies showing that average investors underperform the market averages, often by 2-3% per year.  However, Barry Ritholtz’s excellent book How Not to Invest says that average investors underperformed by 5% per year one decade and only 2% per year the following decade.  How could this be?  It doesn’t appear to make sense.  So, I started digging. The Data Here are simplified version of the chart I saw on page 382: So, average investors trailed a basic 60/40 portfolio by 2.4 percentage points per year.  This is plausible.  Investors pay expenses, and some of them do some market timing.  Here is what I saw on the next page: This time the behaviour gap is 3.8 percentage points per year for 20 years.  Ritholtz makes the point that “The longer the holding period, the greater the impact of errors that disrupt compounding.”  This is true as it applies to the final dollar value of your holdings.  After all, 20 years of mis...

I was a guest on a TD Direct Investing webinar to discuss the case for delaying the start of CPP and OAS payments with Robert Moysey.  He did a great job asking good questions and keeping me on track.  See the link to the video below.  

In a weak moment, I agreed to appear on a podcast.  I like podcasts, but I’m not trying to build my brand or anything like that, so my sole motivation is to help others.  This can be a weak motivator in the face of doing actual work. But Robert Moysey asked me many good questions about CPP and OAS, and I’ll be appearing on his investing webinar series on Thursday, May 29th at 2:00 pm. For those with average health and who have enough money to live on through their 60s, it makes sense to consider waiting until age 70 to start collecting CPP and possibly OAS too. Here are the particulars for those interested in watching: DATE : Thursday, May 29, 2025 @ 2 PM ET TITLE : Is it a mistake to take CPP and OAS early? DESCRIPTION : Some retirees like to take Canada Pension Plan (CPP) and Old Age Security (OAS) payments as soon as they're eligible for them in hopes of maximizing the value they draw from those programs. Are they making a massive mistake that could cost them dearly in reti...

Having listened to a few episodes of Ramit Sethi’s podcast where he helps couples face and conquer their money issues, I looked forward to reading his book Money for Couples.  In it, Sethi distills his experience helping hundreds of couples into strategies that cover a wide range of problems.  It’s clear that Sethi has the skills and experience necessary to help couples with their financial problems.  However, creating a book to help people solve these difficult issues on their own is a different challenge.  I’m optimistic that this book will be helpful for some couples with big money problems. For many couples, talking about money is painful and ends in a fight.  A common theme throughout this book is that couples need to find a way to have money discussions that feel good.  To this end, Sethi provides many strategies as well as actual scripts of what to say.  These strategies go a long way to help draw in a spouse who avoids all talk about money. Mon...

As investors age, two things become increasingly apparent: they need more help with their finances and investments, and they’re more vulnerable to financial exploitation.  Depending on who you listen to, financial advisors are either the solution to these problems, or they are part of the problem. On one hand, financial advisors and their firms like to sow self-doubt in the minds of do-it-yourself investors.  “Will you know when you’re no longer competent to manage your investments?  What will happen to your less financially savvy spouse if you pass away first?  You’d better hire a financial advisor while you’re still able to make good decisions.”  This paints a picture of competent and honest financial advisors stepping in to save their clients from themselves as they age. On the other hand, we have Ken Kivenko’s Financial Self-Defense Guide for Seniors .  Ken is a tireless advocate for Canadian Investors, and his guide is largely designed to help seniors ...