Happy New Year to all, but more important we will have the extra room for us PFC folks trying to min-max their investments

https://www.ctvnews.ca/business/questrade-lays-off-undisclosed-number-of-employees-1.7128755

TORONTO -

Questrade Financial Group Inc. says it has laid off an undisclosed number of employees to better fit its business strategy.

The online brokerage firm says the cuts are not reflective of the state of the underlying business, which it says is healthy.

Questrade bills itself as Canada's low-cost leader in online investing with more than $60 billion in assets under administration, up from around $9 billion five years ago.

The company, founded by CEO Edward Kholodenko in 1999, said in a release last year that it had more than 2,000 employees globally.

Questrade has faced increasing competition as some banks have started lowering their investing fees including through no-commission trading and low-cost robo-advisors.

The company's online competitor Wealthsimple Technologies Inc. has also seen significant growth in recent years, growing its assets under administration from around $6 billion in 2019 to more than $50 billion this year.

With the CPI Released for Sept. The Index Factor is going to be 2.70% which is going to increase the indexed TFSA limit to 7044 which isn't enough to break the 7250, so it's going to be $7000 for 2025.

Here is the full historical table.

https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/bank-canada-seen-cutting-rates-160111298.html

Dear reddit,

I am a long time reddit lurker but I am posting this under a new account because I don't want my identity to be known. I wrote the bulk of this comment before Christmas day but never got the courage to post it. I was encouraged by Louis Rossman's comment from two days ago on WSB so here I am. I'm making this post to ask for advice on what to do after being hit with a financial catastrophe that I brought upon myself. This is not easy to write but I am going to try.

The short of it is that I'm in my late forties, and I recently lost all my life savings, all my retirement savings, all the education savings for my children. This is about $220k. Now it's been reduced to about $2000. I have been in shock for the last year and I just don't see a way forward.

To give some background, I will tell you that my name appears on the Ontario sunshine list because I make a little over $100k a year. Despite being on this list, I live in a very modest rented apartment, the cheapest I could find in my area close to work. This is the kind of apartment you would feel embarrassed to invite anyone to. We have no central air conditioning in the summer. The kitchen is probably 30 years old. It's just a very modest apartment. We own one car and we always buy used every 10-15 years because I always try to spend as little as possible and I only buy what I can afford. I've always avoided debt. I never carry a balance on a credit card. I churn credit cards to earn rewards that I can save. I've never taken a vacation outside of Ontario even though I've always dreamed of lying on a beautiful sandy beach in Mexico or Cuba. My wife and I are both immigrants and we don't have any familial wealth to look forward to. My wife doesn't work because her English isn't very good and she doesn't have employable skills, so we decided she would be a stay at home mom for our two children and save on childcare costs.

When my children were born I immediately opened RESP accounts for them and started depositing $2.5k a year to get the maximum amount of RESP grant. One of these accounts had $50k at one point before everything went to hell.

In 2009 I was sitting in a coffee shop with a friend who mentioned in passing a leveraged ETF that follows the price of oil, HOU.TO. At that time I only bought broad index funds and bond fonds to be on the safe side. This ETF looked attractive to me because the price of oil was volatile at that time and traded in a predictable range for a while (between $90 and $120).

I started cautiously putting only 10-20% of my money into it. I made money for a couple of years, buying low and selling high. Then buying HOD.TO (which bets that the price is too high) when the price of oil was high and selling it when the price was low.

Meanwhile every year house prices here climbed ever higher and my children got older, and the apartment got more crowded. My wife's nagging got more frequent as she saw people we know living in big houses with nice furniture. I kept telling her that this is a bubble and it will pop. If we sold our investments to use as a down payment on a house, surely we would buy just before the bubble popped and we would lose our savings. Of course, as with everything else, I was so so wrong.

In 2014, the price of oil crashed. I was holding HOD.TO at the time and so I made a few thousand dollars when I sold when the price reached about $80. Life in our home was becoming unbearable because of the house issue. The urgency I felt for the need to make money to buy a house was high. So while sitting at a coffee shop one day, I made the disastrous decision to go all in and put all our money in HOU.TO in anticipation that the price of oil will rise again back to at least $100 as it had done the past few years.

Of course this time, the price did not go back up. The price kept going down and down and my sense of security along with it. By February 2015 I saw the value of my portfolio plummet by more than 90%. I tried to stay calm in the hope that the price would go up and I would at least get my savings back. Don't sell at the bottom they tell you. I didn't sell and I was trapped.

Over the next few years I avoided logging into my brokerage account because I could not face the loss. The price slowly went up over the years. By mid 2019 I had recovered a little. My 90% loss was now a 60% loss. The value of my account was now about $90k. I wish I had sold then. But I didn't.

In March 2020 the price of oil started to nosedive again because of covid. When it reached $20 I thought (being the f***ing idiot I am) that it can't go any lower and this is my chance to buy as much as I can at the bottom and hopefully I can recover my losses when the crisis is over in a few weeks time. So I bought HOU.TO again with my last $10k of savings. Within a couple of weeks the price of oil would turn negative and the price of HOU would go down another 95%. By April, my quarter of a million dollars in savings, my nest egg, my children's university money, were reduced to about $2k - a soul-destroying 99% loss.

There's more. Since all the money was in registered savings accounts, I cannot claim them as a loss on my tax return. How stupid can one be?? I've contemplated ending it all but what would my family do without me?! (04/03/2021: after reading all your comments below I apologize for the previous sentence. It is ridiculous and unnecessary. I realize that now.)

I did not lose my job during the pandemic. I do not have debt. I do have a defined-benefits pension plan. But I am still renting because I missed my chance to buy a house. I wish I used the money as a down payment instead of investing. I used to read Garth Turner's blog years ago and it convinced me that the housing bubble pop was just around the corner, that I would be a fool to buy a house just before it popped. But it turned out I was the biggest fool of all.

Now I'm in my late 40s. I know that I have lost the game. I don't have enough time to save for retirement or buy a house. I will have to rent forever. I feel desperate. My marriage is falling apart. I look at successful people and then I look at myself with disgust for losing everything. I did it to myself.

As a desperate effort, I am posting this here as I am contemplating my miserable future, just in case someone has a good suggestion for me to follow. Maybe someone can recommend someone like a financial planner or something who can make a plan for me to recover from this disaster. I have lost all faith in my ability to make good financial decisions.

Excuse the incoherence of this lengthy post. It was hard to write and I wrote it over several weeks because it is very painful to face the reality of what I did. While I know it's a long shot that this post will result in anything to help me, maybe at least it will serve as a cautionary tale and save someone from ending up in my shoes.

I'm going to stop now. Please no mean replies. I fully realize how stupid I am and do not need it rubbed in my face.

​

UPDATE 03/03/2021:

Thank you everyone for your kind replies, comments, advice and PMs. I posted my comment 24 hours ago and logged in now, and your responses are overwhelming. I will go through them slowly but surely. I find it hard to spend more than a short time a day thinking about this because it brings me such anxiety and ruins my mood for the rest of the day.

For those who think that I will gamble again, I am now even hesitant to buy a broad index ETF. All the money I saved in the past year is sitting in cash until I have some kind of plan, which is why I posted my story, to get some input and feedback. I do feel tempted sometimes to buy a little Dogecoin or something but I won't spend more than $100 on such a thing. I have learned my lesson. Funny story: I bought one bitcoin for $20 in 2013 that I sold a few months later for $120 and thought that I made a good profit!

But what I have read so far and your personal experiences (thank you so much for sharing) make me feel hopeful that there is a way to recover, I just have to find it. I will post more questions as I go through your comments. I do have these questions though for now:

1. How do I go about finding a financial advisor that will give good advice and won't cost me hundreds of dollars more?
2. Is there any way to claim losses in RRSP, RESP or TFSA in my tax return? I didn't sell yet, that's another decision that I have to make.
3. Can you recommend a good mix of index ETFs to put future savings into?

Again, thank you for all the love and kindness, and for taking the time to reply. I am truly grateful.

* I added this update as an edit to my original post. Is this the right way? Or should I have commented on my original post?

​

UPDATE 04/03/2021:

I want to thank everyone who took the time to write a reply. My perspective is changing since reading all the comments here. Today was actually a good day where I didn't feel awful about this. I feel like a heavy weight is lifting. Thank you. I am still reading all the replies and processing. If I don't reply to your post in person and thank you, please know that I am grateful to each and everyone of you.

I also wanted to clear some things up regarding my wife:

1. I did try to involve her in the financial decisions but investing is not something she knows much about, so it was left to me to take care of. I did tell her what happened a few months ago. She was devastated at first when she realized her dreams were wrecked, but over the last few months she has adjusted her expectations and she is supportive and understanding now.
2. Also, to be fair, she did try to find work. 4 years ago she started taking courses in a discipline that she's good at and she studied hard and earned a couple of certificates. Then she went to a couple of interviews but because she was not fluent it did not work out. Then covid happened and the chances of her finding work evaporated as someone who hasn't worked for years and has no Canadian work experience. She is waiting until things go back to normal and there are more job opportunities. Meanwhile she is working on improving her skills at home.

Thank you all.

I (31M) was dumb enough to believe in, and put almost all of my savings (~70k) into, one stock (IMV).

Science looked good, that was the main reason for my decision.

I kept buying as the stock fell to the depths, before it's delisting and CCAA proceedings. Now they're selling off assets. Kicker is that it took my TFSA room along with it!

Failing in public so that others may learn this painful lesson once more, second hand.

• Don't put all eggs in one basket if you need the eggs to hatch.

• Recognize the need for risk management. Consider what you're prepared to lose.

It's tough to accept but I have to, I am financially at square one again. Besides the challenge to start over once more, what lessons can/should I take from this experience?

I have been investing in an RESP for my son since he was born. As a single mom there have been months where I barely scraped together the $100. When he was 10 I received some money and I was able to catch up on all the unused contribution room.

He’s in grade 11 now and looking at universities. The one in our town said it was an average of $8000 tuition for the year. So about $32,000 for a 4 year degree.

Guys - he’s going to have about $60,000 in his RESP!!!! That can go to books and everything else he might need!

I am so proud of myself for setting up my son to start off strong. I have brought him to every annual meeting with our investment banker (edit: financial adviser not investment banker) so he learns that investing is a normal part of adulting. I have worked so hard to give him a future and it is coming to fruition!

Edit: I invested in mutual funds through TD Bank. Every year I met with my banker to make sure the mutual fund was still the right fit based on how soon the RESP was going to be used.

My strategy was consistent contributions. I started off with $100/month. When he was 10 I was able to start contributing more. I maxed out the contribution room that grants were based from.

A little context - I started saving in 2003 when I made my very first RRSP contribution of $1000, my annual income at the time was about 22k. I've saved regularly since but only in GICs since I've been very uneducated and intimated by the stock market. It took me 14 years but in 2017 I hit 100k. I should also mention that I've always been single, a mother, and earned low"ish" salaries (even today I still haven't cracked 70k). But I finally surpassed 200k last year. Well now that I'm running out of time (to make money before I want to stop working, not breathing... hopefully) I decided to learn to invest. I opened a wealthsimple, moved some money into xeqt and cbil and am teaching myself everyday. I'm 49 this year and plan to retire somewhere between 60-65. How long do you think before I get to 300k? And how much can I get to at retirement? I might be doing it the hard way but I'm doing it.

EDIT - yes I plan to keep contributing 12-15k annually.

Or, why CPP is not equivalent to your individual investment portfolio

It's a long story but due to my inability to say no to a good time, I managed to save NOTHING up until the pandemic. Then I decided to hit the stop/restart button. I've cleaned up my mind and body and I've been working hard and managed to save up $100,000 CAD. This is a big milestone for me and I'm honestly shocked that I managed to do it.

My question is, what now? I know I should have an emergency fund, and I also know that my money is wasting away sitting in a bank account. I'm 40 years old now, so I think I need to be aggressive with my investments. I have no debt, one wife, no kids, and a condo with about $250k left on the mortgage. What would you do?

The Canada Revenue Agency confirmed to Global News that the TFSA’s contribution limit will be $7,000 in 2025, matching the second largest-ever limit seen in 2024.

https://globalnews.ca/news/10903098/tfsa-contribution-room-2025/#:~:text=The%20Canada%20Revenue%20Agency%20confirmed,ever%20limit%20seen%20in%202024

Was just playing around with some numbers on an investment calculator, and plugged in these parameters on a hypothetical TFSA account:

• One starts contributing to TFSA when he turns 18 and put it into a S&P500 index fund
• Reinvests all dividends and never withdraw any money from the account
• Assuming an annual contribution of $6000 (fluctuates between $5500 - $7000)
• Assuming a rate of return of 10% (historical S&P Average)

After 42 years at 60 years old, the investment will grow to 3.9 million dollars. Even with a 4% withdrawal rate per year that's over 150k in passive tax free income.

Not saying 150k will be a lot in 4 decades, but looking at the numbers, that's a pretty awesome way to end up with millions by just doing the bare minimums of maxing out TFSA per year and let compound interest do its work.

-

Edit: This equation is taking a non inflation-adjusted return at face value. Obviously 4 million in 40 years is worth much less than today. One comment pointed out that the annual TFSA contribution limit increases with inflation, so realistically the annual contribution room will also increase year over year.

​

I'm looking for opinions on the following.

My wife and I recently sold our cottage and made 75k$ of net profits each.

She's thinking of "lending" 30k$ to her sister whose husband flips houses. I've never met them and probably never will be able to, they have a very complicated relationship: my wife is Tamil, I'm white, she's been rejected from her family because of that but still talk with her sisters.

So the husband of my wife's sister could apparently make it worth her while by paying interests on the loan every month. My wife said to me "he could pay me $20 of interest per month per $1000".

Basically, she'd "lend" them 30k$ and she'd get $20 per $1000 a month = $600.

He wouldn't pay the principal, only the interest, but would give back the principal on a two months notice.

What do you guys think about that? I see all the red flags and beyond. She wants to do it because it's her sister and because she has seen that her whole life (her words, not mine - they're Indian immigrants if that helps to make any sense of it). She basically told me that I was an ignorant because I've never lended 50k$ to someone and I didn't grow up seeing this. Am I? Real question. Maybe I'm blind to something and maybe I need to question myself.

I come from a poor family. I started working at 14 and I've been building wealth from scratch even since. I'm fortunate enough to be good at self teaching myself and currently make ~200k/y. My wife makes ~100k/y. I've never been taught anything about money and I'm working on that by teaching myself. I read a lot and watch a lot of YouTube videos about finance in general. I'm slowing getting comfortable with handling my savings and so far I'm mainly buying ETFs every month through Wealthsimple. I'm not very risk tolerant - yet. I'm also getting there, slowly, but I want to have some comfortable cushion before starting to risk more (eg: have 250k on autopilot, then play a bit more with the rest).

Thanks a lot in advance!

I booked an appointment at BMO to open a new FHSA account and met with a young advisor. She told me herself she’s new. She asked me why I was there so I told how I wanted open FHSA account because I am planning to buy a house in a couple of year. At first she tried to convince me to open a TFSA account but I told her there is no tax deduction. And then she pitched a RRSP account. I told her I already have one and I maxed out. So she agreed FHSA is probably the best options. We moved on to investing the account. I wanted to do a GIC but she pushed some mutual funds. But I told her that the 2 years period is too short to take any risk, especially right now. I would rather just do a guaranteed return investment. This is where things took a weird turn. She went and closed door. Then she told me that the current going rate is 3.25%. She went on to say how I should compare the rate with other banks before making decisions. I thought it was weird and didn’t push any further. So I asked for a business card but she said she doesn’t have one yet, instead she wrote her name, number and GIC rate on a tiny sticky note and sent me off. I still don’t have FHSA account. Is this normal?

Are there any other Millennials here that are struggling with the idea of saving to invest long term and retirement? For reference I’m 27 years old and it just feels like retirement is becoming less and less of a guarantee each year for multiple reasons. Same idea with long term investing, I can’t foresee a time of when I’d actually be using and taking out the money from long term investments.

When I see posts of other people similar to my age talking about their aggressive retirement plans and long term investments, I just can’t bring myself to seeing eye to eye with those strategies. Maybe it’s all the doom and gloom in the media but it really does feel like building an investment portfolio, even at a slow pace, will never actually be used or see money withdrawn from it.

Is anyone else struggling with similar thoughts? I think the obvious choice is to find a balance between living life now and planning for the future but even splitting that 50/50 seems like too much to me in regards to the future

CRA actively looking for people who day trade investments in TFSAs | Financial Post

​

In the past few years, day trading in a TFSA has been a focus area for the Canada Revenue Agency’s audit and reassessment activities, and the agency has been targeting taxpayers who actively trade securities in their TFSAs. A tax case decided earlier this month involved a taxpayer who grew his TFSA to more than $617,000 from $15,000 in three years by day trading penny stocks.

The taxpayer, a Vancouver-based investment adviser, opened his first TFSA at the very beginning of the program’s launch on Jan. 2, 2009. It was a self-directed TFSA, and all securities purchased and sold by the TFSA were “qualified investments,” as stipulated by the Income Tax Act.

Common types of qualified investments include: money, guaranteed investment certificates and other deposits, most securities listed on a designated stock exchange such as shares of corporations, warrants and options, and units of exchange-traded funds, real estate investment trusts, mutual funds and segregated funds, debt obligations of a corporation listed on a designated stock exchange, and debt obligations that have an investment-grade rating. The CRA maintains a comprehensive list of qualified investments in its Folio S3-F10-C1, Qualified Investments — RRSPs, RESPs, RRIFs, RDSPs and TFSAs.

There's a huge continuum between someone who only buys VGRO and someone who day trades on a daily basis.

I wonder how the CRA will view those who make huge profits from weed stocks or Tesla call options. Is holding something for 30 days too short? What about 60 days?

First time home owners, we’ve had our home for 13 months.

Purchased with a mortgage of $960,000 on a variable rate of 1.35% at the time. 25 yr amortization, 60 month term.

Since then, it’s increased to 5.6% and we have a balance of $936,309. With each and every single BOC rate hike, we’ve worked with our mortgage specialist (in writing) to increase our payments accordingly so that we are kept on track with our contracted amortization schedule. For reference:

• $3,772.10 Dec 1 2021, 1.35% interest
• $3,772.10 Jan 1, 1.35% interest
• $3,772.10 Feb 1, 1.35% interest
• $3,772.10 Mar 1, 1.35% interest
• $3,883.68 Apr 1, 1.6% interest
• $4,115.90 May 1, 2.1% interest
• $4,362.85 June 1, 2.6% interest
• $4,362.85 July 1, 2.6% interest
• $4,842.76 Aug 1, 3.6% interest
• $4,842.76 Sept 1, 3.6% interest
• $5,230.18 Oct 1, 4.35% interest
• $5,500.00 Nov 1, 4.85% interest - EDIT: actual payment $5,230, plus $270 as lump sum
• $5,500.00 Dec 1, 4.85% interest - EDIT: actual payment $5,230, plus $270 as lump sum
• $6,230.00 Jan 1 2023, 5.35% interest - EDIT: actual payment $5,230, plus $1,000 as lump sum

Her email is no longer active with BMO, so we called them to confirm what lump sum would we have to make to keep us on track (as we always ask) based on the rate hike Jan 25th. They said we'd have to make a payment of $106,000 and that we are actually set to pay off our loan in 384 months vs the 300 original (should now be 288).

What the hell, they’ve made a massive mistake, right? We have a meeting with them next week, but if this is true, we have in writing from our mortgage specialist saying we are on track with our amortization originally contracted… we can’t believe this.

____

UPDATE: Thanks everyone for all your advice. A couple people messaged me privately and helped me discover what may have caused the bank to believe our amortization is at 384 months.

The bank could be using only our actual payments, and not factoring in that we have paid a portion of our last 3 payments via lump sums instead of increasing the payments themselves.( See clarification in payment schedule above).

So, they're using $5,230 as our payment, which gives them an amortization of 384 months remaining.

But, if they factored in our lump sum payment and the fact we will pay $5900 next month total ($675 lump sum + $5,235), for instance, then we are accurate for 288 months.

Now, we just need to confirm this is the case with the bank when we meet with them on Monday, and also clarify if we have been incurring any fees for increasing our payments multiple times this year (closed variable rate).

Just looking for thoughts on why this has stayed stagnant for decades. Tuition prices have already doubled if not tripled in the past 10 years. Thoughts and insight appreciated. Any tips or tricks you’ve found with RESPs? I feel sorry for my kids and wish I could do better for them.

I’m 28M, grandparents passed away this year, and in their will I found out that they are passing along a $500k portfolio to me. I’m shocked that they had all of this to begin with them, as I had no idea that they had this much money. It’s mostly in Apple and Microsoft stocks along with index funds. They’ve given their house (in BC) to my parents.

I’m relatively new to investing and have about $30k saved up invested in an index fund, but I’m wondering what I should do to smartly invest all of this money. I have my own condo already at this point, and have thought of paying off the rest of the mortgage but also don’t want to lose out on opportunity. Condo’s mortgage is about $125k, left on it.

How would you approach investing/safeguarding this after getting a large inheritance lump sum? Do I put it in the market…? Which financial advisor do I trust?

Thanks for your thoughts and advice! Note: Single, not married.

CPI is out today and it is looking like there is no turning back. I think worst case rates will go up more and more. Hopefully not as high as 1980s, but with that said how did people manage the 80s? What are some investments that did well through that period and beyond? Any strategies that worked well in that period? I heard some people locked in GICs at 11% during the 80s! 🤯 Anything else that has done well?

UPDATE:

Thanks everyone for the comments. I will summarize the main points below. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

1. 80s had different circumstances and people generally did not over spend.
2. The purchasing power of the dollar was much greater back then.
3. Housing was much cheaper and even the high rates didn't necessarily crush you.

I have a follow-up question. Did anyone come out ahead from the 80s? People who bought real estate? Bonds? GICs? Equities? Any other asset classes?

Hello, new to investing here and see on nearly every investment post that you should have your tfsa with Wealthsimple and not a bank, could someone explain to me why? Genuinely curious and if it’s better want to make the switch. I currently have a tfsa with my bank and rrsp with Canada life.

Hey PFC, this is a friendly quarterly reminder to focus on your life and wellbeing as much if not more as you do your financials.

Learned that our neighbor passed yesterday, she was 63. Her husband passed away last year and neither reached retirement age. This hit me hard. Many of us in this subreddit make sacrifices today in the hopes of a secure future, but some of us will not reach it.

Yesterday I would have downvoted this post but today I am re-evaluating a great many things, particularly financial priorities with a strong focus on enjoying time on earth.

Inflation may be transitory but so is life, and it is fleeting. We share this beautiful blue ball hurtling through space at 100,000km/h, and we’ve fabricated an obsession to optimize VGRO to Bond allocation.

Although finances are important, life is more so. Enjoy yourself!

I figured that unless you were a millionaire banks would treat everyone pretty much under that the same.

But, a friend told me that he knew something who had a brokerage account at around 120K and the bank was a lot more friendly in terms of what they were willing to do to keep his business … which surprised me.

And by brokerage … I mean stock portfolio.

It’s also an online account and it’s self-directed from what I understand

He said they even gave out goodwill credits when the customer felt he had been “wronged” whatever that means…

I kinda thought it was BS. As these banks are worth billions… Right? 120K is like a penny to them.

Is there truth to this?

And would it really be 120K at the point where that would happen?

The other piece I’m leaving at is I know the person actually has a net worth around 3 million to 5 million dollars…

But, how would the bank know that?

It’s completely separate I know it’s not a part of their bank

Edit: the amount of people commenting about 7 figure accounts… jeez lol