How does that feel? Not so bad. Its now pass and done, I had celebrated this past Sunday my 37th birthday. And my ultimate teenage crush also celebrated its birthday on the very same day, Ma$e baby.
It’s quite sad to see what's going on in Texas right now, but I cannot help thinking why all those people haven't been told to evacuate. I was watching TV and we could clearly see the eye of the tornado Harvey and it was monstrous. No one is talking about it, but some people had slept at their duties. And now more than ever, the US will need Canadian wood and certainly more than just wood. Its a sad twist in the NAFTA negotiations, but this is playing in our favor. If Trump refused to be open on negotiation, I would like our leaders to turn our back and not to offer any help to those super fresh arrogant Americans. No matter what, its all about money, and it will always be about money. And I think that no US officials really wanted to evacuate Houston and areas because it would had cost them too much money. They preferred to see their own people suffer. And taking action quickly would had required too much of a good leadership, which Trump obviously don't have.
We all have something to learn from this. Its important to have cash put away in case some tragedy happen. In difficult times like those, people with money in the bank will have it easier than those who have close to nothing at all. Clothes, furniture, jewelry... All the material can go quickly in case of catastrophe, but the money you have in the bank remain there no matter what. It doesn't worth it to spend a fortune on furniture or fancy clothes. The mistake would be to think that a disaster cannot happen here in Montreal, Toronto, Halifax... but it certainly can. And its another reason that play in my favor: because I don't believe in home ownership, especially in urban area. Why spend thousands on a home that you may lose, for whatever reasons? Because anything can happen. And by the way our government had been dealing with Haitians refugees, don’t ever think that Canada could deal with a catastrophic situation much better, actually not under Justin Trudeau government. Trudeau is not half what is father used to be, it’s not because his father was a great man that he is a great leader. He quite sucks. All those immigrated are attracted by Trudeau image. But leadership need to be much more than only base on image. Unfortunately, the mass is not smart enough.
Many people in the US won't have direct access to clean water, but I don't understand why Canadians should worry about US citizens when people of the First Nation are living in extremely poor conditions, with no access to clean water and in very poor housing conditions. We should worry more about our own people before giving any help to the US or to any Haitians coming to Canada simply to get their dirty hands on our jobs and take advantage of Canadians in all possible ways while entering illegally in our country. After all, this is happening because of Donald Trump. I think we have enough on our plate.
During that time, my non-registered portfolio closed today session at $173 583.88. The TSX is a rough place to be right now, but I am confident about the future because in my view, the overall scene is quite optimistic, because of of evolution on our market. Latest news, a stock that I had been holding for some time, Toromont Industries Ltd (TIH) had acquired a Quebec company, and ever since, TIH had been booming. Canadian Imperial Bank Of Commerce (CM) had increased its quarterly dividend of 3 cents. Nothing much, but its an increased. Bank of Nova Scotia (BNS) is following CM by increasing its dividend by... 3 cents per quarter. This is how to benefit from the system: to partly invest in big Canadian banks and just watched them happily increasing their dividend distribution year after year after year.... There's just no end to this. Mortgage is for poor idiot people who got fool by the system. I don't get fool by the system, I suck at it and take get all it can give.
I disagree totally about mortgages. Home ownership is great diversification from the stock market and mortgages cause forced savings and great returns. Mortgages of $200k from 15 years ago in Toronto have now created $1 million in equity through price appreciation and leverage (even after the current 20% correction). All gains are also 100% tax free when you sell your principal residence. I would much prefer to pay for the roof over my head instead of renting to pay for someone else's roof over their head.
ReplyDeleteI own BNS as well and feel really good about the dividend increase. Happy belated birthday. :)
ReplyDeleteHello Sunny,
ReplyDeleteI kind of disagree with your stand regarding owning a home. your $650 of rent since 2010 are $62,400 that money is gone!!! instead if you would have bought a house you would have perhaps $30,000 paid into the mortgage and supposing a mild 3% increase in home value for the last 7 years (10% per year here in Texas!) and assuming a $200,000 dollar home you would have a home worth $245,974.00 so total you would have $75,000. choose between loosing $62,400 or making $75,000 ???
natural disasters? well, did anything happened where you live in the last 7 years? also, you are an investor and I double bet that if you bought a home you would insure it right (mandatory of you had a mortgage BTW)? My insurance goes up every year because the valuation of the house increases sooo, a good blessing would be a total loss in the house. I loose the house which I paid $200,000 the insurance gives me $389,743.00 (7 year at 10% increase) and I keep the land!!!!!
Anyway, look into it. just an idea.
I enjoy reading your Blog BTW
Dear Sunny,
ReplyDeleteHappy belated birthday!
Wishing you all the special things in life
that bring you happiness.
Happy birthday! You have interesting views about home ownership and helping vs not helping others. I own 2 homes because of the incredible leverage that mortgages offer. And I donated to the Red Cross yesterday. It's a drop in the bucket, but every bit helps.
ReplyDeleteTake care and happy investing!
If you hold on the TSX it will eventually go up, yes. However, those of us who invest in the US market have made 25% this year, if we bought-and-hold. (I'm actually up 35% with swing trading) Since the Canadian economy is dependant on the US economy, there is no time when the TSX is performing when the US isn't; they work in locked-step. The TSX is either not trading as high as the US, or trading higher when the US is. So basically being 100% Canadian just means being in lower speed, and getting lower returns all the time. Lower than one would get if you one of those boring balanced mutual funds with the crazy high 2% fees that the bank want to sell us. The TSX just finished the month up for the first time this year - in the biggest bull market in a decade! There is no way it's ever going to catch up in the long term, it isn't mathematically possible.
ReplyDeleteEven on the TSX there is stuff that's being missed. For example, I remember seeing a couple of different commenters write about Shoppify, which I also own. It went from 44$ in January to 110$ today, 9 months later. It's Canadian's way to get into the Amazon rally without actually buying AMZN.
Btw, I didn't quite catch the meaning of the comment on mortgage on the post, but maybe renters don't understand how the math works. A person might think it's throwing 1,000$ out to mortgage a month, but only a portion of that is interest and the rest is you owning more of the house, and price of the property goes up. It's leveraged investing. The longer you hold it, the more of the house you own, and therefore will get back on the sale. In the end you lose what you paid in interest (which is not 1000$ a month), minus the raise in value of the house. For most of us that a small profit and we get to live in the house in the mean time. You can't live in a stock that you bought on a margin. Montreal house prices go up every year faster than a 4% mortage interest - this year it's a record 15%.
As Marlo wrote, property owners are insured. Anyone that buys a house with mortage has to be insured - the bank requires it. If you buy a condo, the condo association insures the whole building and you insure the insides only.
ReplyDeleteIt's something like 80$ a month to insure our half a million dollar town house. If there is a catastrophe? We get the house rebuilt and the insurance covers emergency living expenses.
We can live in fear of everything and never do anything. We could live in fear of TD Waterhouse going bankrupt or getting attacked by hackers. But urban property? That's always a safe investment and that's where potentially millions are made.
In 2010, you would have bought a 500 square feet condo in Montreal for 70,000$ and it would be worth now 160,000$ and up. I know because that's exactly what my wife did. Now she owns several properties that she rents out and they pay for themselves and will sell those at a profit later.
@Marlo you couldn't be more wrong! So many hidden costs in buying: closing costs, mortgage insurance, fire/disaster insurance, repairs... then if interest rates go up and you can't afford payments, you could lose everything! And in this bloated real estate market right now there is a definite risk of loss of value! And the down payment you put on the house could have earned ~6% if invested since 2010, compounding. Nope! Better to rent, especially if you can rent for $650/month!
ReplyDeleteHappy Birthday.
ReplyDeleteAll the best and thanks for the investing views.
Cheers.