Making sense of the markets this week: November 28 + MORE Nov 26th

For many Canadians, managing debt is a year-round challenge. Common tips tend to be simplistic or downright insulting (we’re looking at you, “skip your daily coffee”). Staying on top of your finances gets even more difficult during the holidays, when everywhere we look there are messages urging us to spend. If you really want to avoid more debt this coming season, you’ll need to pay attention to three major areas: saving, shopping and credit card use. It is possible to participate in the most wonderful time of the year without adding financial stress.

Saving to avoid holiday debt

Now is as good a time as any to create a savings habit, where you put a percentage of your earnings away each month. Your first priority is to build an emergency fund, which should be big enough to cover all of your expenses for three to six months. You can use the same strategy to save up funds for your holiday spending. If you’re just starting now, all is not lost—you’ve still got some time to set aside money from each paycheque before your January and February credit card bills…

Each week, Cut the Crap Investing founder Dale Roberts shares financial headlines and offers context for Canadian investors. 

The greenification commodities supercycle 

While there may be a broader commodities supercycle underway, what appears to be more of a sure thing is the green commodities supercycle. To reach our global net-zero CO2 targets by 2050, and the interim targets for 2030, nations around the world will have to produce a spectacular number of electric vehicles and produce clean energy at a prodigious rate. 

It will take an incredible amount of materials (commodities) to build those vehicles and batteries, and to create the amount of clean energy required to meet those goals. 

Setting the table for the greenification of the commodities supercycle is this article in the Financial Post. by David Rosenberg, who created an index to track these commodities: 

“On the metals/mining front, the World Bank estimates more than 3 billion tons of metals and minerals will be needed for renewable energy infrastructure by 2050 in order to achieve the goals from the Paris Agreement…