Canadian Personal Finance Blog

As predicted a market correction is happening (where predicted means, 8 out of the last 2 market corrections have been correctly predicted), and the world is excited. We have the crazed old sages saying, “See I told you!“, others saying, “Nothing to worry about“, and still others saying “this is why you should have an actively traded portfolio“, naturally my philosophy is, “I am an indexer, I don’t care what the Index did this past week“. I buy my Index Funds, I re-balance every 6 months or so (need to get my robo-balancer up) and that is about it. I lived through the great crashes of ’87, ’93, ’00, ’08 and hopefully I’ll live through this as well.

Ebola is here on the North American continent and it has killed as many people this week, as were murdered in Toronto this week, but luckily it is filling every media outlet, all looking for new angles on how to scare the public more. I believe the odds of you getting hit by a car are a little higher than getting Ebola (currently), but those odds may shorten should Ebola become air-borne (cue dramatic music). Yes, it is an important problem, but right now, there is far too much being said about something that isn’t understood (much like money, these days). You are also more likely to die from the Flu this year (than Ebola), but will hospitals be full to the gunnels with folks with the flu thinking they have Ebola? I think so.

The Loonie is at a 5 year low being about 88 cents to the Mighty American Buck, but that will help Canadian exporters (not folks wanting to buy American deals for Christmas though).

Gas is dropping in price again, which will mean screwed up Inflation numbers next month, where I am sure even though food costs 10% more than last year at this time, we will actually be in a state of DEflation. I love how data can be jumbled around to reflect any message you want.

Good news on the Hockey front, neither the Leafs, Sens or Habs are already eliminated from the playoffs (but it is early yet).

My Writings for Week Ending October 17th

The turkey genocide of 2014 happened, with very little fan fair, but there is talk of more atrocities against our avian friends in the coming months in the name of American Thanksgiving and worse still Christmas! My writings were pretty thin this week, I guess I made a bit too merry for Thanksgiving?

• Happy Thanksgiving was me wishing you and your family a joyous harvest festival (it was for me).
• The job picture in Canada in September was much improved, which makes me happy as well. More young folks with jobs, to ensure they can support the services I have grown accustomed to.
• I am impressed by my son’s ability to be amused by old toys and thus What is Old is New Once More in our house. Maybe I can find an original Nintendo somewhere for him to play with?
• My most popular post continues to be A Script for Customer Retention Deals, may not always work, but it’s a good way to start.

Read More »Crashing Markets, Ebola, Low Loonie, Cheap Gas and #BestThisWeek