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Stop Thief!

January 18th, 2017

In fee-based investment accounts offered by major financial institutions, clients are told they’ll pay a fee based strictly on the size of the account and they are NOT supposed to pay any sales commissions or trailer fees. In reality, it turns out that some clients of major financial institutions were paying both fees and commissions [...]

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Fund Costs and Advisor Compensation

September 18th, 2013

I have spent a lot of time recently trying to find an easy way to determine exactly what a recommended mutual fund is going to cost my clients. The results include bad news and good news.

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Systematic Withdrawal Programmes

September 11th, 2012

A Systematic Withdrawal Programme (SWiP) is an approach to funding retirement by withdrawing the amount needed to support your lifestyle at regular intervals. While this approach is simple and inexpensive (in terms of fees and commissions), it is interesting to analyze systematic withdrawal programmes (SWiP’s) in terms of the risks of retirement.

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Single Premium Immediate Annuities

September 11th, 2012

Single Premium Immediate Annuities (SPIA’s) are products offered by life insurance companies. There are many flavours of annuities but in general, the client gives the insurance company a lump sum of money (i.e. a single premium) and in return the company, depending on the flavour of the annuity chosen, pays the client an income stream [...]

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