Why Young People Trust TikTok for Financial Advice + MORE May 30th

Choppy trading. Prepare to keep seeing these two words in the headlines as the financial markets adapt to ongoing interest rate hikes by the Bank of Canada (BoC) and the Federal Reserve in the U.S. While this is causing volatility as some investors and pundits worry a recession is around the corner, I remain hopeful that the markets will recover and 2022 will end on a positive note. To explain, let’s take a step back and look at where we are and how we got here. 

How much did the Bank of Canada raise interest rates?

On April 13, 2022, the BoC raised the country’s benchmark interest rate by half a percentage point. This was the country’s first interest rate hike to exceed 25 basis points in more than 20 years. Tiff Macklem, the BoC governor, has already stated the rate may go up another 50 basis points in June. The Federal Reserve increased its interest rate by 50 basis points on May 4, 2022. 

Why? Central banks, including the BoC and the Fed, are under pressure to fight inflation, and raising interest rates is the go-to tactic to get soaring prices under control…

The cryptosphere continues to expand, and investors now have several options in addition to holding bitcoin, ethereum and other digital coins directly.

You may be familiar with crypto exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and mutual funds, which have gained a foothold in Canada in recent years. Investors are also looking for opportunities in two growing areas of the cryptocurrency market: non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and decentralized finance (DeFi). They offer very different approaches for what you can do with your crypto—let’s take a closer look at both NFTs and DeFi, and where to buy related crypto coins.

What is an NFT?

Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are unique digital tokens that represent proof of ownership and authenticity for real and digital assets. That can include art, songs, photos, video clips and more—even tweets. Virtually anything with economic value can be turned into a digital asset. NFTs can also be “fractionalized,” allowing multiple people to buy a piece.

“Non-fungible” means the tokens are not interchangeable, unlike fungible assets such as government-issued currencies or bitcoin…

When Courtney Croucher, 23, first stumbled upon “FinTok,” i.e. financial TikTok, she owed $40,000 in student loans and had no idea what her future held. It was May 2020 and she was living at her parents’ house in Cambridge, Ont., after graduating from media studies at Western University earlier that spring. Croucher watched all of her potential employment opportunities in her field dry up thanks to the pandemic.

Late at night, Croucher was scrolling through her TikTok feed when she landed on a video from @nobudgetbabe, an account with more than a million followers run by money coach Nicole Victoria. In the video, Victoria—who says she achieved millionaire status by age 30—described how people who have debt often spend money impulsively instead of successfully managing their finances. Becoming debt-free feels impossible to them, so saving seems futile. “I felt a little called out,” Croucher says. 

At the time, Croucher was wasting money on impulse buys, like clothing she’d only wear once…