Random Thoughts: A New Year Has Come

The New Year is here (except in China), and with it more fun and excitement on the markets. Will the latest rally fizzle and die or will this be a Bull year? I have no idea, but either way I am sure there will be much to chat about regarding investing.

The Canadian Junior Team made a valiant comeback attempt this week, but came up a little short to a very confident Russian team, who are not the most gracious of winners, but I guess that is their prerogative. Junior hockey is fun to watch, but Canadian expectations foisted on these 17 and 18 year olds is a bit much. I guess that since they can be in the army by this age, and killing in our name, we should put as much pressure on our hockey players.

In Ottawa we had a $50 Million winner, however, that is on hold now while the OLG makes sure it is all legitimate, and given the recent Tom Foolery that the OLG let go in the past, this might be a good thing for everyone. What is more interesting that OLG manages to have a $50 Million draw near Christmas every year? Just saying.

We also had a gentleman who crossed the Canada-U.S. border without his passport, but he did have a scanned copy on his iPad and it worked just fine (in both directions). Who says there is no Christmas spirit at the border?

Speaking of Twitter, it crashed on January 1st due to the sheer volume of Happy New Year messages (over 16,000 a second). No danger that my Twitter feed had anything to do with it, but still interesting to read that such a heavily used system can still run out of resources. I’ll be tweeting about all that later.

Finally it is the anniversary (yesterday) of the Great Ice Storm of 1998 which changed many lives and was quite the Environmental mess in the Ottawa and St. Lawrence Valley. Hard to believe that was 14 years ago, wow!

Weekly Recap

A quieter week for me, with a nasty jab at those folks who are making New Year Resolutions as well (mostly because I can never get them to work):

• Happy New Year and Sunday’s best not only gives you greetings for the new year, it also gave a recap of my twitter feed for the week as well.
• My attack on Resolutions began with Resolutions 2012 outlining my method for resolutions.
• The onslaught continued with financial resolutions and lifespans pointing out how long most of these resolutions last.
• The mainstream media got a kick out of CEOs Salaries, are they worth it? As usual my point of view is if someone is willing to pay it, who are we to argue?
• My frustration levels are higher with TD again in Canada Learning Bond (frustrations) outlining my impatience of waiting for money that I am owed.
• That was the Year that Was (2011) recaps a whole year? Wow.
• Random Thoughts: Two More Sleeps ’til Christmas was a recap from before Christmas.

And thanks to those who added me on Twitter I am now over 970 folks who follow me, wow!. Check out my Facebook page as well.

Links for the Week

A New Year and new ideas? Well some at least, but looking back on 2011 is fun too:

• Red Vines and Red Wines (a new blog I am reading) agrees with me that New Year’s Resolutions are for Schmucks, although I do like the list enclosed too.
• If you want to know what parents of kids with autism have to live with check out this piece from My Family’s Experience with Autism and it’s post a Call to Action, quite disgusting actually.
• Michael James has revamped his site (spiffy new look) and reminds us of The Return of the Wealthy Barber and more useful advice from this Finance Maven.
• Canadian Capitalist gives us an update on another set of investments (which I use) with The 2011 Sleepy Portfolio Report Card an interesting passive investment concept.
• Our happy finance hombreMy Own Advisor lays bare his Dividend Growth Index Q1 Results outlining where he made his money.
• Mike at Money.Smarts give us 2011 Portfolio Investment Performance – Not Too Bad good for him! Remember to buy his RESP book (look for the shameless plug at the end of this post).
• Frugaltrader at Million Dollar Journey gives us Top Stock Picks 2012 and results as well, goodness folks are talking about the market a lot this week.
• Miranda at Planting Money Seeds, wonders Eating Chocolate: The Key to Financial Success?Not sure about that one, but I’ll try it!
• Preet takes off the gloves and goes toe to toe with a Financial Advisor not happy with Him, Demands answers, and as usual the poor advisor bought a knife to a gun fight, and is easily disposed of by the Financial Master of the Double Winds

Remember

Good resolutions are simply checks that men draw on a bank where they have no account.

Author: Oscar Wilde good one Mr. Wilde