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Canajun Finances Home » Crashing Markets, Ebola, Low Loonie, Cheap Gas and #BestThisWeek

Crashing Markets, Ebola, Low Loonie, Cheap Gas and #BestThisWeek

As predicted a market correction is happening (where predicted means, 8 out of the last 2 market corrections have been correctly predicted), and the world is excited. We have the crazed old sages saying, “See I told you!“, others saying, “Nothing to worry about“, and still others saying “this is why you should have an actively traded portfolio“, naturally my philosophy is, “I am an indexer, I don’t care what the Index did this past week“. I buy my Index Funds, I re-balance every 6 months or so (need to get my robo-balancer up) and that is about it. I lived through the great crashes of ’87, ’93, ’00, ’08 and hopefully I’ll live through this as well.

FinancialHaiku
Fall Financial Haiku

Ebola is here on the North American continent and it has killed as many people this week, as were murdered in Toronto this week, but luckily it is filling every media outlet, all looking for new angles on how to scare the public more. I believe the odds of you getting hit by a car are a little higher than getting Ebola (currently), but those odds may shorten should Ebola become air-borne (cue dramatic music). Yes, it is an important problem, but right now, there is far too much being said about something that isn’t understood (much like money, these days). You are also more likely to die from the Flu this year (than Ebola), but will hospitals be full to the gunnels with folks with the flu thinking they have Ebola? I think so.

The Loonie is at a 5 year low being about 88 cents to the Mighty American Buck, but that will help Canadian exporters (not folks wanting to buy American deals for Christmas though).

Gas is dropping in price again, which will mean screwed up Inflation numbers next month, where I am sure even though food costs 10% more than last year at this time, we will actually be in a state of DEflation. I love how data can be jumbled around to reflect any message you want.

Good news on the Hockey front, neither the Leafs, Sens or Habs are already eliminated from the playoffs (but it is early yet).

My Writings for Week Ending October 17th

The turkey genocide of 2014 happened, with very little fan fair, but there is talk of more atrocities against our avian friends in the coming months in the name of American Thanksgiving and worse still Christmas! My writings were pretty thin this week, I guess I made a bit too merry for Thanksgiving?

Get $50 in free trades.

This Week’s Finest

With the  markets plummeting, and commodity prices dropping as well, there must be some interesting things that were written this week?

Hamster upside down
A very confused reader
  • Four years ago Dan Bortolotti wrote Tune Out Stock Market Noise, in Money Sense, seems to be topical and correct, even today.
  • For my readers who keep asking, How Do I Fill In a T2201 correctly (for disability tax credits for your child), I found a wonderful resource on line for this, at Autism Funding in BC, go over and read some of the posts there, really good stuff!
  • Speaking of death, Maclean’s on line has a very interesting interview Atul Gawande on life and death in old age, a perspective on our current social views of where folks end up dying. I’d rather die at home, than in a cold, impersonal hospital (possibly locked in a broom closet, because there is no long-term care beds).
  • Given the current fooferra going on in the Stock Market, Barry from Money We Have asks a very good question, Are You a Confident Investor? I am a confident Indexer, does that count?
  • What to do to deal with a down market if you are an Active Investor? Mark from 2nd Careers Search gives us Now that the Market is Down How is the Protective Put Strategy Working?
  • The Financial Highway suggests (strongly) that we Get Our Money Game Right! Time to get in the game, if you want to win!
  • Mark at the Blunt Bean Counter gives us the Emotional Side of Retirement for Entrepreneurs, which is interesting, because most entrepreneurs I have met rarely ever “retire” they just refocus their energies on new projects and ideas (and I am green with envy for their ability to do that).
  • The Physics of Finance goes after the topic of Economic Numerology where folks just make up stuff and then make conclusions from it, sort of like everything in the news these days.
  • Larry MacDonald continues his Globe & Mail articles on regular folks investing with Teacher Learns his investment lessons first hand.
  • I have been getting inundated with book review offers, which I have little time to read, but luckily Michael James does, and gives us a review of a Clash of the Financial Pundits, I like his review, and from the small amount I have read of the book, I assume I may agree with his views.
  • Did you realize there are at least 7 scary things on the Internet of Things? Dark reading points them out, and let me tell you I don’t want to plug things in now!
  • Marie at Boomer and Echo asks Why Are We So Secretive About Our Money? For me, that was the way I was raised, we NEVER talked about how much my parents made or that kind of stuff (whereas Mrs. C8j’s family was very open about money).
  • I realized this past weekend that everyone in my family uses Teksavvy for their Internet except me, and then I also remembered that the Canadian Capitalist wrote a Review of Teksavvy DSL Internet, makes me wonder how much longer I will be helping Rogers pay their high dividends to My Own Advisor ?
  • Mark at My Own Advisor talks about Wealth Simple – New Investing Service Launches Think Robo-Advisor North, which is welcome, given how much silliness is in the Canadian Investment world currently.


Mouldy Burgers

How fast does a fast food burger take to get mouldy? Just watch!

Where You Sit In a Meeting is Important

What? Yes, it is true, and I have seen this in action too


Random Thoughts for 2014

Lots of these kinds of Best of articles in 2014. Here is a list of them.


My Twitter feed is where I re-tweet many great articles by some of my featured writers (and make the occasional odd or off colour commentary on life (in 140 characters or less)).

Feel Free to Comment

    1. I think I am a Hybrid Investor these days in that:

      • I am mainly a Couch Potato index investor
      • However I do hold specific stocks (mostly banks but other Dividend stocks
      • I have pseudo drips set up from TD Waterhouse on most of those stocks

      Maybe that is the way to go? Hybrid investing?

    2. I love dividends for the same reason, plus every increase is like a pay raise 🙂
      Most call those “pseudo-drips” synthetic DRIPs.
      Nothing wrong with being a semi couch potato 🙂

  1. When you say “a market correction is happening” that sounds suspiciously like a prediction that dropping stock prices will continue 🙂 A market correction happened, but I’m sure I don’t know what will happen in the near future. Thanks for the mention.

  2. “I am an indexer, I don’t care what the Index did this past week”.

    The same goes for dividend growth investors . If anything the down markets make great buying opportunities for long term investors. I’m happy so long as my dividend income continues to increase. It’s business as usual.

        1. I have a few “pseudo-drips” set up by TD Waterhouse, but they are in retirement accounts, and I am accumulating stock I want, so I am good with DRiP methodologies.

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