Personal Finance Canada

The past few weeks have been wild for Wall Street. So wild, in fact, that we decided to devote this entire issue of TLDR to unpacking what happened, and where it leaves us. Because there are lots of questions about the latter right now. We’ve got a pre-election issue in the works for next week, then we’ll return to our regular programming. —The Editors

From my reading so far I'm looking at ETFs with WS, and that I should start with the TFSA. Am I on the right track and what do you recommend?

😬 Stocks always go up…right?

THE WEEK IN MARKETS Everything But America The markets were mostly flat last week, but the storyline of 2025 has come into clear focus: the resurgence of EBA — Everything But America. Since January 1, U.S. stocks are down 5%, Canadian stocks are up a smidge, and global stocks outside the U.S. are up 9%. During the tech-driven rally of the past few years, investors were so smitten with U.S. tech companies, and so cool on everyone else, that TINA — “there is no alternative” to U.S. tech — became something of a mantra. Now market analysts are hyping up new global tech super-groups with names like the Terrific Ten that stand to rival the Not-So-Magnificent Seven.

What changed? For one, Trump 2.0 mayhem — his tariff barrage, his plans to gut civil services, his shift away from NATO — alongside cresting fears that U.S. tech stocks have become overvalued. Or, maybe this whole EBA storyline will end up being wrong. We’re only three months into the year, after all, and this is far from the first time global observers have clucked about the end of U.S. dominance.

THE WEEK IN ONE NUMBER $25 If every household spent this much on Canadian, rather than American, goods every week, our economy would grow by 0.7% and support 60,000 new jobs.

I've just heard of someone doing that and it ended badly, but that was because the person over contributed. I wonder if it would be legal/smart for me to do that? I don't make enough to max out my TFSA and don't take risks investing (only invest in global ETFs and bonds).

IN THIS ISSUE 8 min read 🏦 Bank bluster 😮‍💨 E-cig empire 😟 Tariff talk

One bad week is a blip. Two in a row could be just a minor reversal. But three straight is hard to sugarcoat. Last week the TSX and S&P were both down 3%, the NASDAQ dropped 4%, and the formerly high-flying Magnificent 7 sank more than 5%. Trump has backed off on some tariffs (for now, anyway), but investors are clearly spooked. So is it time to join the sell-off party? We can’t answer that for you! But, as we unpack below, you can always find a reason to sell, and it’s worth noting that stocks have slumped this much 30 times since March 2009. In every case the end felt nigh, and in every case you were better off buying the dip.

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Disclaimer: The newsletters are put out by an investment management company. I'm sharing as the content may be helpful, but note the potential bias. More links:

• Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealthsimple
• Newsletter homepage: https://www.wealthsimple.com/en-ca/learn/tldr-newsletter-signup

I always liked these threads on the reddit community, so wonder if we should try them out here

I don’t know if we have critical mass here for weekly threads, but maybe it could help keep this community bubbling up and gaining members.

Disclaimer: The newsletters are put out by an investment management company. I'm sharing as the content may be helpful, but note the potential bias. More links:

• Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealthsimple
• Newsletter homepage: https://www.wealthsimple.com/en-ca/learn/tldr-newsletter-signup

Disclaimer: The newsletters are put out by an investment management company. While the content may be helpful in some ways, there is a potential bias:

• Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealthsimple
• Newsletter homepage: https://www.wealthsimple.com/en-ca/learn/tldr-newsletter-signup

I wont ever advise for timing the market, yet the current imminent US-Canada trade war and political storm inspired me to reassess my investing strategy.

Context : Mid 30, kids, mortgage, stable job but no retirement plan with the job.

I favour a diversified mix of low cost index fund but being a nerd i enjoy the Rational Reminder podcast and understanding the smallest details. An evidence based approach to risk and expected returns will guide my choices.

I started with 20 % bond and 80 % stock. The problem with bond : can exhibit volatility if interest rate change especially over longer time horizon, will limit growth if too high %, uncorrelated to stock but sometimes move in the same direction than stocks in recent downturn… I can put some extra payments on my mortgage and consider this a bond for a few years.

I want home country bias : no withholding taxes on dividend and at the opposite i get a tax credit for taxes already paid in Canada. In a conflict i can’t ever be expropriated from my own country stocks and use the Canadian currency for my spending. Let’s make Canada 25%.

Next is the US allocation. It’s two thirds of the investable world by market weight (see the VT etf if you want references) it’s had incredible returns in the last decade with p/e multitude going higher. Currency and country are uncompensated risk (random) and i won’t put myself in a place where 2/3 of my retirement is subject to random results. I choose 35 %.

That leaves 20 % for International developped market. I would like this to be higher than US but i will wait for the actual market weight to tell me that International merits a higher than US %. I leave developing market alone : i want an efficient market with free flow of information snd rules of law properly enforced.

Total 100% (20-25-35-20) close to VGRO.to No single stock, no gold, no crypto. What are your asset allocation plans and most importantly why?

If there is enough engagement here, i will make a future post about asset location, favourite etf to achieve my goal, small cap value and insured US allocation with deep itm options on SPY.

This is my scenario:

TFSA is maxed and has the emergency fund in CBIL. I have roughly equal money in RRSP (maxed) and my non-registered account.

I like to keep my overall portfolio at 50% stock ETFs (primarily VFV) and 50% low duration bond ETFs (primarily CBIL). I understand that this is a sub-optimal allocation, and I'm okay with that. This is thanks to childhood trauma from growing up too broke, and I'll make up for the lower returns by spending less and investing more.

So far, I've kept VFV in my RRSP and CBIL in the non-registered account.

However, I've been wondering if it'd be better to switch the two around: Buy CBIL in the RRSP account and buy VFV in the non-registered account.

PROs:

• CBIL-RRSP will grow less than VFV-RRSP -> lower "income" in retirement -> lower tax consequence.
• VFV-non-reg profits will be taxed at the 50% (maybe higher in the future) inclusion rate.

CONs:

• Can't think of any at the moment. Help?

I'm also considering switching the TFSA to hold stocks instead of bonds, and have the emergency fund in the non-reg account. This makes sense too, right?

I have 3 credit cards...

1. Oldest, good for groceries, but that's it. It represents about 45% of my total credit card limit.
2. Crappy card, used to have good rewards but now sucks. This is about 40% of my total credit card limit. A few years old. I use it once every few months to keep it active.
3. My current "best" card that I use for most things. Only had it about a year. Represents around 15% of my total credit limit, but I'd like it to be more as it has the best rewards.

I pay off all my cards twice a month and have a great credit score.

I'm wondering if there's any drawbacks to cancelling my crappy card and either applying for a limit increase on my good one or just applying for a new/better card.

Hi all, I'm new to investing (just turned 18 this year).

I work a full time job and want to start saving and growing my money.

My current portfolio consists of a variety of sources, including GICs, managed ETFs, and cryptocurrency. For ETFs and crypto, I deposit a portion of my paycheque into the respective exchanges as part of a dollar cost averaging strategy. But for GICs, I'm a little confused.

I have one GIC already for a 13 month term, but I'm not sure of the optimal contribution strategy. Should I be buying a new GIC each month with a portion of my paycheque, or maybe accumulate funds annually and then put them into new GICs?

his July, the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) expanded its SimpleFile services (phone, digital, and paper) to invite more than 500,000 eligible lower-income individuals to file their return and potentially gain access to important benefit and credit payments.

This automatic tax filing national pilot targets individuals who have never filed a tax return or who have a gap in their filing history, and builds upon the success of small-scale SimpleFile pilots previously undertaken by the CRA.

In early 2024, the CRA invited more than 1.5 million individuals with a lower income or a fixed income and who are in a simple tax situation that remains unchanged from year to year to use SimpleFile by Phone, double the number from the previous year. To date, more than 90% of the invitees have filed their tax return using a variety of filing methods the CRA offers.

SimpleFile is a key Budget 2024 commitment and the CRA is on track to further increase the number of invitations to two million for tax season 2025.