Friday, July 20, 2018

Short Takes: Benjamin Graham, Bankruptcy, and more

I managed only one post in the past two weeks, a book review:

The Best Investment Writing

Here are some short takes and some weekend reading:

Jason Zweig explains how many of Benjamin Graham’s brilliant insights are still very relevant today. This includes one case where birds do better than people in a probability-based test.

Doug Hoyes explains why bankruptcy is a business decision and is not morally wrong.

Canadian Couch Potato interviews Rob Carrick in a wide-ranging interview. One topic they cover is whether we should blame DIY investors for paying trailing commissions on the mutual funds they buy from discount brokers who offer no advice. The two sides of this debate aren’t really disagreeing with each other. Why can’t the DIY investors be wrong for not learning enough, and the discount brokers be wrong for charging for a service they don’t provide? Of course, blame is pointless. I think we’re getting the right outcome with the rule that discount brokers must stop selling funds with embedded trailing commissions. I’d only take issue with someone whose blame of DIY investors for lacking knowledge goes so far that they’re not in favour of this new rule.

Boomer and Echo explain the fine print in the big banks’ seemingly generous offers for switching bank accounts.

Monday, July 16, 2018

The Best Investment Writing

When I saw a book called The Best Investment Writing, edited by Meb Faber, I couldn’t resist reading it. The book contains about 30 well-written articles, mainly on topics related to active investing. As an index investor who has given up trying to beat the market, this book served as a test of whether I might change my mind. I didn’t.

There are too many articles to comment on all of them, so I’ll just pick out a few parts I find interesting or feel the need to comment on.

Jason Zweig discussed how markets have become more efficient: “If you’re applying the tools that worked so well in the inefficient markets of the past to the efficient markets of today, you are wasting your time and energy.” That’s the conclusion I came to several years ago.

Gary Antonacci gets many people looking to tap into his 40 years of investment experience. I found one typical question and answer both wise and funny:

Question: I just looked at my account, and it is down. What should I do?
Response: Stop looking at your account.

Todd Tresidder says that “if you’re 55 and just starting to build for retirement, then beware of investment advice pushing you toward passive investments like paper assets. Your situation may require the leverage only available in business and real estate to allow you to make up for the late start and still achieve your financial goals.” This sounds like terrible advice to me. It’s better to accept a modest future than to swing for the fences and risk ending up with less than nothing.

Aswath Damodaran says that before answering the question of whether stock markets are too high, “you should consider where you would put your money instead.” Just because the expected return on stocks is low due to high valuations doesn’t mean that bonds or other assets have higher expected returns.

Jason Hsu and John West say that “A preference for complexity is almost hardwired into investors, their agents, and managers because the intuition is that a complicated investment landscape requires a complex solution: a complex strategy also supports a higher fee from both agents and managers.” Simplicity is better.

Charlie Bilello argues that nobody is really a passive investor. For you to be a passive investor “requires a lump sum investment into the market portfolio on the day you are born and only sold on the day you die.” I find this about as useful as saying a person isn’t thin because he or she weighs more than zero pounds. Owning a house, rebalancing your portfolio, and investing new savings do not disqualify you from being a passive investor. I see this reasoning frequently from those who make their livings from active investing. Perhaps this black-and-white reasoning is meant to persuade index investors that since they’re already getting their feet wet with active investing, they might as well dive in.

This book is useful for anyone looking for a diverse set of well-written discussions of investing topics. It didn’t change my mind about sticking to index investing, but it’s a good idea to venture outside your circle of like-minded friends.

Friday, July 6, 2018

Short Takes: Asset Location, Vanguard’s new Canadian Mutual Funds, and more

I managed only one post in the past two weeks about a “zero-interest” loan with high “fees”:

0% Interest

Here are some short takes and some weekend reading:

Justin Bender and Jason Heath disagree on whether to hold stocks in your RRSP or taxable account. Properly accounting for taxes, Justin is right; stocks are better in your RRSP.

Boomer and Echo report that Vanguard is entering the Canadian mutual fund market with 4 funds whose MERs are below 0.5% per year. It seems likely that Vanguard will do more to help Canadian investors than the Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA).

Tom Bradley at Steadyhand says the Canadian Securities Administrators’ failure to ban embedded commissions in their recent reforms caused “A bad day for the Canadian investor.”

The Blunt Bean Counter shares his experience and advice on giving money to your adult children or your parents. Don’t miss part 2 where he covers the reasons for money requests: need, seed, and greed.

Big Cajun Man sees a lot of FUD in financial markets.

Tuesday, July 3, 2018

0% Interest

Does a 0% interest loan sound too good to be true? You can get a 12-24 month installment loan from Brim Financial, and they claim to charge 0% interest. Not many borrowers will truly believe the cost is zero, but few will guess how expensive these loans really are.

Brim replaces “interest” with “fees”. There is a one-time installment fee of 7% of the loan amount that you have to pay in the first month. Then there is a 0.475% monthly processing fee. This fee is based on the original loan amount, not the declining balance owed.

Suppose you borrow $1200 for 12 months. The monthly payments before fees are $100. In the first moth, you pay the 7% installment fee ($84 in this example). You also pay a monthly processing fee of $5.70. In total, you pay $189.70 in the first month, and $105.70 for the remaining 11 months. The internal rate of return works out to 2.00% per month, and this compounds to $26.9% per year.

So, these carefully crafted loan terms combine 0% interest with a one-time 7% fee and an ongoing 0.475% fee to create a debt that costs 26.9% a year. That’s impressive ... and nauseating. Even those who read the fine print about fees are likely to think they’re paying a rate below 10%.

If you go for the two-year option, the cost compounds to 19.4% per year. That’s not much better, and you have to suffer through the payments for an extra year.

If this type of loan advertising is legal and remains legal, then it’s open season on borrowers.