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Probably one of the better index fund deals in Canada is the TD eSeries Mutual Fund. The MER of %0.31 for their Canadian Index Fund, along with no minimum investment requirements makes this an ultimate winner for web-savvy newcomers with little to no money to push around. However, the entry barriers to actually purchasing eSeries funds makes it almost an intolerable hassle.

Let’s hop in the Delorean and set the clock to Sept. 8 2007.

I walk into my local TD Branch thinking that it will in a few short hours I will be heading home to put in my buy order for some handsomely low fee index funds. Unfortunately, not only can you not open an eSeries Account in a Branch, there was only one TD worker who even knew that this type of account existed. Which makes it extremely frustrating when trying to explain why you want to open an account (I opened a TD account which my eSeries account piggy-backs on). After getting a Basic Savings account I was sent home to print & fill out forms.

Now this is ridiculous, you think if you already had online banking set up it should be a 3/4 click process to open another online exclusive account, a lá PC Interest Plus Account, but nope, you have to fill out a PDF and then… print it out… and mail it in… lame.

Well a couple weeks pass (TD says it would take 1-2 business days after receiving the form) and sadly no new accounts ever appear in my Online Account Summary. So I call TD Investment Services several times, never getting a reason why it has not been processed except they’re “backed up”. Then I get a letter saying I need to fill out a “Wealth Allocation Model” form , basically just a investment worksheet for dummies. So reluctantly I fill out the form and send it in.

Approximately a week later (~Oct. 10) miraculously a new Investment Account appears in my Online Summary! WOOT! Excellent, I would now be able to invest this money that had been wallowing in my TD trivial savings account. I click on the account and get a….. java.lang.NullPointerExcepetion?! WHAT?! Did I code this thing??? Okay well maybe something isn’t set up yet, I let it sit for a few hours, and low and behold I get an e-Mail congratulating me on Opening an Investment Account. MY BAD! Shoulda had some patience. But to my dismay when I logged in again I still received the dreaded CompSci 111 error of doom. I call TD, as usual they are helpful as junk. They say they WILL FOR SURE CALL ME once it is fixed. Neva Happened.

Anyways 2 days later I checked again and the phantom Pointer had found it’s wayfaring object. And I was finally able to place that order 32 days late, but better than never. Awesome.

The next day I get an e-Mail informing me that my order did no go through because “it may not be suited to your
current investor profile”. Golly, good thing TD is holding my hand, like a baby, without a brain. I couldn’t believe this was serious, so I call up TD get a service agent on the phone and ask him what’s the dilly-o. Turns out because of the points I tallied up on my investments for dummies sheet my purchase was, and would continue to be, rejected. I ask him how this gets resolved, and he immediately plunges into the same questions from the dummy sheet. After asking 2 or 3, I stop the insanity and say, I’ve already filled that out, all I want to do is buy the Index Funds. Turns out to do this I need to answer all the questions like a Vegas Gambler on his Last Chip:

Q: What Level of Risk do you Feel Comfortable with?
A: I would bet the Devil my soul for nickle on a Snake Eyes dice roll.

Q:In ten years what is the worst possible case you would feel comfortable with your capital investment?
A: Pissed away and you also now own my house, my car, my first born, and the nickle I won off the Devil.

Q: When do you plan to start withdrawing money from the investment?
A: 10 minutes ago, to hedge against my VLT term deposits.

What a joke. So I went through the whole form again answering the questions like an irresponsible degenerate. Afterwards the Service agent says “That should do it sir, want me to place that order again for you?” To which I naturally replied “Double me down on Black!” And sure enough the order went through.

Over a month later, with about 4-5 hours invested in phone & form time, plus postage (I still can’t believe they don’t have online form submission) I am the melancholy owner of TD eSeries Funds. I guess it makes sense that TD does NOT want you to purchase their eSeries funds, as it makes their other class of index funds look like straight robbery, so the hoops are the tax. Good Luck & God Speed.

Initially when Google Finance Canada first launched, I was excited. In retrospect I’m not at all sure why, but I was. Anyways it seems to have been a little bit of a let down, basically just because of some poor integration/execution issues

One Box Results -  When I type a ticker symbol into Google.ca’s Search box, if I happen to type in a Canadian Stock Symbol and there is an American stock symbol that matches it, the Finance Chart & Info displayed will always be for the American Company.

Getting to finance.google.ca is a pain -  The dropdown for finance in the top frame of gmail always takes me to finance.google.com. There is no Finance link anywhere on the google.ca page not even in”more” page. There appears to be no way to set which is your “default” version of finance. And so I’m left to type in finance.google.ca in the address bar, and once there it seems to have forgotten if I have already logged into my google account.

Getting out of finance.google.ca is NOT a pain - Should you happen to click in any discussion items you will find yourself back in finance.google.com. I suppose this is to keep group discussions consistent between the two domains, there is a .ca version of google groups so I’m unsure why this is an issue, but it certainly can make things confusing.

Incomplete Historical Data - For some reason the data for one of my iShares ETF’s (XIN)  seems to be stuck at reporting a 1 week rolling window. On top of that the volume chart is way out to lunch only rendering volumes of lower volume stocks, with the lowest measure being thousands per minute, resulting in some pretty hard to read and ultimately useless charts.

Speculation, is not something to get into.

BUT if you happen to purchase your investments through bmoinvestorline.com notice that the commision fees for purchasing US Equities is in US FUNDS. ($25US instead of $25CDN) So you will be saving fees along with getting more for your dollar. This would be a really good time to cash in on the Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF which had a MER last year of %0.07, which puts iShares to shame! And if you don’t want your win on the exchange rate to be muted by a slowing US economy, buy up Vanguard’s World, Pacific, or European ETF’s all which offer MERs of half or less that of comparable iShares ETFs.

So doing the quick math (Less Commision + Less Managment Fees) * Greater Buying Power = A good idea?

John Bogle The Little Book of Common Sense Investing 5/10

Ever want to feel like scum, sleaze, or perhaps just a good old fashioned greed head. If so pick up a book about investing. It’s not so much that investment books are bad. But thinking about yourself reading one is bad, each turn of the page brings on another shank of self-loathing to the guts.

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Wow. Taking a page from the Book of Simon, a snippit from the Canadian Capitalist, and my own touch of desire for the exotic I hit up iShares.

For too long I have sat on the side lines of the Index Funds game. Calculating which one would receive the gift of my one G. But the Templar Knight’s warning from Indiana’s Last Crusade was always lurking in the back of my mind. I was mortified of choosing unwisely, lest I turn into a shouting skeleton and then dust.

Honestly I’m terrified to part with that much money to one place. Sounds stupid? Well maybe, especially considering I can’t wait to throw scads of money out of my account when I finally go to buy a laptop. Eitherway, I’ll go ahead and say that the $1000 minimum buy-in to mutual funds is persecution against the novice business-boy. A scare tactic to keep out the riff-raff. And it works.

Enter iShares. Nice website & logo, piss poor name, respectable parent company. And what a selection of ETFs. For those who do not know an ETF is an Exchange Traded Fund. These things are the Maynard’s Juicy Squirts Berry of the investment world. Basically you get all the goods from index funds, plus a bit more granularity, WITHOUT the $1000 to get your foot in the door. Sort of like the poor man’s lazy strategy.

But the beauty of iShares is the diversity of ETFs that they offer. Rather than just Tracking an Index (S&P500, TSE etc) they index sectors, commodities & styles Tech/Gold/Dividend/International/Market Cap you name it. This allows me to make an international index investment, without losing sleep of putting all my eggs in the High-Risk basket. So I can take my 1000 Dollars divide it to get some more diversity, on top of the diversity already afforded by index funds.

To get more on Canadian ETFs go to http://ca.finance.yahoo.com/etf . Thumbs Up.

Rad.

Farmer’s Markets are seen by most as fulcrums for hippie power leverage. But there is more to be gained than helping your community, eating healthier, and an aire of superiority. And that is premium foods at reasonable prices!

Peep game, 35.75$ brought home:
2lbs Wild Blueberries(10)
600mL Cherry Granola (3 - That’s right Granola)
2FT of garlic chili farmer Sausage(4)
1/2 lbs. Smoked Pike (7)
1 Jar Ginger Marmalade (3.75)
1 Jar Butter Chicken Sauce (6.50)
1 Puffed Wheat Cake Square(1.50 - snacks!)

While I admit the Blueberries were a bit pricey, all these things would definitely be more at your grocery store ( yes, even SuperStore) plus they aren’t even from the forest. I know I have shelled out over 5$ for Robertson’s Ginger Marmalade, AND SMOKED FISH! That’s the apertif du jour. The butter chicken sauce might end up being a bit of a gouge, we’ll see.

Want to front like you slaved over some home-style baking? Go to the Farmer’s Market. Need Moccasins? Try the Farmer’s Market. Safeway got you bleeding out the pockets for fresh herbs? Farmer’s Market has your back.

Rare and precious meats like bison, pickeral, and goat(???) can also be got en mass.

And the best part by far is you pay whatever the sign says. If it says 4$ you slap down a couple toonies and that is all. It’s like shopping at the Convenience store for Nerds , and GoldMine BubbleGum before tax was a big deal.

It was the best of times. But University tax credit pool ends this year. What remains of my cumulated T2202/A credits from years of school will draw to an end this year. With it I plan to pay down debt and get a jump start into some serious investing for next year MacBook.  But in all seriousness I’ve pretty much squandered my past returns, and now intend to use this final one as a sort of parting gift from the workless gaiety of yesteryears.

To file my return this year I will be using QuickTaxWeb . There are a several advantages I find to going the online application  route:

1) Cheaper than the “boxes”.

2) Infinitely simpler to use than going through the much dreaded “workbook”. And NETFILE is the quickness.

3) Access it anywhere. This comes in especially handy when contacting Revenue Canada and you need information regarding a previous year’s return.

4)  It keeps track of all carry-overs etc.

Also, globeinvestor says I should be more concerned with securing myself a Wii, and that 28 is the key year to start “serious” RRSPing….duly noted.

Every few years an event happens that allows the business boy to reap profits like a day trading coke dealer. This event is the release of the next-generation video game consoles. The hype around console releases can never be understated. And while Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo are all willing to sell these systems at a (substantial) net loss, there is no reason why you shouldn’t even out the curve for them.

Before the jump, it may be prudent to heed a tale of unconventional investing gone awry: When I was a just a spry young chap I had a dream that by this time in my life, my comic book collection would have appreciated in value to the point that I would be able to retire. I mean I had Batman Spawn Team-Up, Wizard 1/2 issues, and the incomparable Brigade #1 Gold Cover (An Aside, The Brigade #1 Gold Cover saw a drop in value of about 87% in the spring of ‘96) But the best laid plans…

Anyways, now that no one cares about the “value” of comics, one has to look to other means to easy street. And while the “market” may be ripe for the picking there are other outlets available, like blackjack, or if you don’t like counting cards the Playstation3….
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I cashed out ~ 3 large in mutual funds, and transferred it to my new online brokerage account. I then took that cash and spread it out into 4 piles. (more…)

Sick of your fund manager/financial planner getting paid the fat sack while your overall returns suffer after you were convinced to invest in that Siberian icecube plant?! I HAVE! (more…)

In 12 months I want to be kickin’ it in my own house. In the meantime I am hoping to be able to save up a reasonable down-payment. My strategy is far from mind blowing, but it goes like this: (more…)

Cars are a scam. New cars are even worse. (more…)

OK.

So my girlfriend and I have decided that in a years time we would like to be moving into a house. In what will be the first of a (hopefully) series, I will divulge any tips / tricks and steps I learn along the way. (more…)

I have been on a quest as of late to master my finances, as such I have run across quite a few good sites. Here are some in no particular order: (more…)

This morning I finally paid off my credit card. I am now trying to decide whether to:
A) Save 30% of my monthly income for a house
B) Increase my student loan payments
C) A combination of both.
Keeping in mind that I want to buy a house in a year…. (more…)