Making sense of the markets this week: December 21 + MORE Dec 18th
How to keep your holiday spending in check Nov 29th
How to talk to your parents about crypto Mar 14th
Big banks poised to follow suit as RBC trims 5-year fixed mortgage rate - Global News Jan 16th
A complete guide to TFSA accounts in 2022 Jan 31st
After three months, feds on track to meet $28.5B deficit prediction: report
– canadianbusiness.com
The Finance Department says the government posted a thin budgetary surplus of $83 million between April and June, which means the balance-sheet ink will start to turn red over the coming months.
The monthly fiscal monitor says while the financial results for the first quarter provide limited detail for the whole fiscal year, it insists they are consistent with the deficit prediction in Ottawa’s March budget.
The report says revenues were up $3.5 billion or 4.9 per cent _ including a seven per cent increase in total tax revenues _ compared with the same three-month period last year.
Meanwhile, total expenses compared with 2016 rose $2.4 billion or 3.3 per cent, including a 9.1 per cent increase in transfers to individuals, such as child- and elderly-benefit payments.
The Trudeau government has projected double-digit shortfalls until at least 2021-22 in order to finance initiatives it’s banking on to lift the economy, such as major infrastructure projects and enhanced child benefits…
Using your TFSA as a learning tool
– moneysense.ca
Raj Thirumeni
AGE: 28
PLACE: Vancouver
TFSA TOTAL: $17,000
STRATEGY: Stocks
Me and my TFSA
Raj Thirumeni is 28-years-old and works for the banking operations of a large financial institution. He has several degrees, including a Master of Science in project management, an MBA, as well as a mechanical engineering undergraduate degree from the University of Windsor. After all those years of study, he now has a full-time job but since he isn’t earning enough yet to make contributing to an RRSP feasible, he’s decided to concentrate on beefing up his investing through his TFSA.
Raj opened his TFSA in 2015 with a $5,500 contribution. “I learned about it from my TD Bank branch,” says Raj. “I was applying for a credit card and the teller told me about it and explained the basics to me.”
TFSA contribution room calculator »
Before making his first investment, Raj spent a few months watching the oil and gas markets. As oil prices were falling in 2016 he bought his first stock: TransCanada Pipeline…
Don’t shy away from momentum strategies
– moneysense.ca
For everyday investors, some of the more popular types of stock portfolio strategies focus on either low volatility stocks, dividends, cash flow and value. Since these types of strategies are usually easy to understand, implementable, and can achieve the goals of growing a portfolio and minimizing risk, they are appropriate for many investors.More aggressive-type strategies like momentum are often dismissed due to the risks and caveats associated with them. However, while it is true that momentum-based strategies come with traits such as increased volatility and higher turnover, they may have a place for a wide range of investors.
What are momentum strategies?
Momentum strategies involve investing in stocks that have displayed a recent short term positive trend in a certain quality such as price, earnings, profitability, etc. For the most part, momentum concentrates on price trends and they do not look at the stock’s business, industry or competitiveness. The theory behind momentum investing is to capture a continuing trend that stocks with increasing prices will continue to rise…
Q. I was surprised to find out from a friend that making an in-kind transfer of losing stocks from a non-registered account to a TFSA would not trigger a “deemed disposition” for tax purposes. However, if the stocks had gone up in value, there would be a deemed disposition and you would have to pay the tax on any capital gains. That doesn’t make any sense to me. Can you confirm this policy and provide some explanation? — Rudy B.
A. Your friend is correct, Rudy. If you hold stocks showing a loss in a non-registered account and you transfer them in kind to your TFSA (or your RRSP, for that matter), you cannot claim a capital loss. However, if you transfer stocks with unrealized gains, then Canada Revenue Agency considers this a “deemed disposition,” and you would be responsible for reporting the capital gains and paying tax on them.
This sounds unfair, but it’s really not. To understand why we need to review the CRA’s treatment of capital gains and losses.
Normally, when you sell an investment for less than you paid, you can claim a capital loss, which you can use to offset capital gains you have realized in the current year or up to three years in the past…
America’s own Marie Antoinette? Not so fast
– macleans.ca
Linton and husband Steve Mnuchin, the U.S. treasury secretary, step off the Marine One helicopter, with President Donald Trump, on the deck of the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)Sadly, Louise Linton didn’t post an Instagram photo of a world plunged into darkness as she and her husband, U.S. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, stood atop the nation’s gold at Fort Knox on Monday watching the solar eclipse on the American taxpayer’s dime. Thus we’re forced to visualize that perfect metaphor for the Trump presidency disclosed on Friday—one that captures the wilful blindness of both Trump’s base and Republicans to the self-enrichment rife in the Trump administration against a backdrop of percolating class war.
Donald Trump is a man of many cons. None has been as successful as the way he harnessed his alleged wealth, marked by a third-world dictator’s taste for gold leaf, as a tool to cement loyalty with his economically disenfranchised base…


