Zoocasa to stop publishing home sale data + MORE Feb 27th

U.S. stocks closed lower on Friday following news that U.S. economic growth slowed more sharply than previously estimated in the final three months of 2014. The major stock indexes still notched gains for the month, recovering after a sluggish start to the year.
On Friday:
The Dow Jones industrial average fell 81.72 points, or 0.5 per cent, to 18,132.70.
The Standard & Poor’s 500 index slid 6.24 points, or 0.3 per cent, to 2,104.50.
The Nasdaq composite lost 24.36 points, or 0.5 per cent, to 4,963.53.
For the week:
The Dow is down 7.74 points, or 0.04 per cent.
The S&P 500 index is down 5.80 points, or 0.3 per cent.
The Nasdaq has gained 7.56 points, or 0.2 per cent.
For the year:
The Dow is up 309.63 points, or 1.7 per cent.
The S&P 500 index is up 45.60 points, or 2.2 per cent.
The Nasdaq is up 227.47 points, or 4.8 per cent.
The post How the Dow Jones industrial average and other major indexes fared on Friday appeared first on Canadian Business.

Every handyman knows you can’t tighten a nut without using a wrench. It takes a little leverage to get the job done. Leverage can work for you when you’re investing as well. It can magnify your returns in much the same way a wrench magnifies the force you apply to a nut. But watch out: if you apply too much pressure, you’ll snap the bolt. Using leverage to invest can be risky too. Here’s how to make sure that you do it right.
Borrowing for your RRSP
All too often, Canadians file their taxes with loads of unused room in their RRSPs. If that’s you, then it might be time to apply some leverage to your RRSP account. Let’s say you’re eligible to contribute $18,000, but you only have $5,000 saved up. In order to max out your RRSP contribution, you borrow the difference—in this case $13,000. If you’re in the top tax bracket, you’ll get a $6,000 tax refund, which you can immediately use to pay down the loan. That leaves you with just $7,000 to pay off. “In general, leverage should not be part of a retirement strategy,” says Rona Birenbaum, a certified financial planner with Caring for Clients in Toronto…

Move by web-based real estate brokerage follows Toronto Real Estate Board warning

Photograph by Andrew Tolson
TORONTO – Former media baron Conrad Black has been permanently banned from acting as a corporate director or officer of a public or private company in Ontario.
In a long-awaited decision Friday, the Ontario Securities Commission ruled that it’s in the public’s interest to prohibit Black and his ex-colleague, former Hollinger International Inc. chief financial officer John Boultbee, from roles that would enable the pair to direct or influence the management of a company’s business.
The ban would “properly limit their ability to undertake conduct in the future that would be detrimental to the integrity of Ontario’s capital markets,” according to the 45-page ruling.
“We have also concluded that, in the circumstances described in these reasons, such prohibitions should be permanent as there is no basis in these specific circumstances in our view for considering that the risk of future misconduct is somehow circumscribed by the passage of time…

This GIC rate is offered by DUCA Financial Services and was updated on 0000-00-00. Click on the link above to get more details or apply online.