Investment returns: A great decade, after all + MORE Jan 21st

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NFL players find second careers as entrepreneurs
NEW YORK (AP) — Many pro football players would like to start their own businesses after they leave the field, and now they can seek help from programs specifically designed to help retired athletes navigate the obstacles of entrepreneurship.
For some, building a business is a lifestyle choice. They want to keep working.
Others need to earn a living. Although the minimum NFL salary this year is $420,000, many players don’t make the big money for very long.
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European Central Bank stimulus faces hurdles compared to Fed
Markets are waiting to see just how much financial firepower the European Central Bank will unleash Thursday, when it is expected to announce large-scale purchases of government bonds with newly printed money to stimulate a sluggish economy.
The decision to use bond purchases, or so-called quantitative easing, follows in the footsteps of the U.S. Federal Reserve — as well as the Bank of England and the Bank of Japan…

FRANKFURT – Big bang or disappointment? Markets are waiting to see just how much financial firepower the European Central Bank will unleash Thursday, when it is expected to announce large-scale purchases of government bonds with newly printed money to stimulate a sluggish economy.
The decision to use bond purchases, or so-called quantitative easing, follows in the footsteps of the U.S. Federal Reserve — as well as the Bank of England and the Bank of Japan. The Fed bought bonds from 2008 to 2014 — and got credit for helping jump-start an increasingly robust U.S. recovery.
Europe could definitely use a push. Growth is weak, unemployment is 11.5 per cent and inflation is minus 0.2 per cent annually, which has raised fears the region could face chronic deflation. Bond purchases would fight that by pumping new money into the economy, raising inflation and making credit cheaper and easier to get. The euro would fall, boosting exports.
Yet the Fed and the ECB inhabit different economic landscapes…

Disillusioned. Frustrated. Irate. Those few words likely describe how many investors felt in 2009 when they looked at the long-term performance of their investments. At that time a typical balanced portfolio of $50,000 would have grown to just $64,100—a 2.5% average annual return—after 10 years of being fully invested. Those were the dismal results we found the last time we crunched these numbers. We aptly called it the “lost decade,” since that return more or less matched the rate of inflation over that period.
To be fair, the decade leading up to 2009 was an unusually bad period for markets, as it included both the dot-com crash of 2000–02 and the financial crisis of 2008–09, which nearly spun the global economy into a depression. Either of those events would have been enough to shake investor confidence. Being hit by both of them was just cruel.
The last decade has been much kinder. While the scars of the financial crisis remain, its overall impact is muted. A balanced portfolio that started at $50,000 in 2006 (20% Canadian equities, 20% U…

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