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The Globe and Mail's Globe Investor section (which replaced Net Worth) is dedicated to giving you what you need to manage your personal finances successfully. Globe Investor appears every Saturday in The Globe and Mail and on globeinvestor.com. View our archive of past Globe Investor issues.
TOP STORY
Bonds: A Safe Harbour
Bonds often don't get much attention - until stock markets turn nasty, and investors turn to capital preservation. These days, ANDREW BELL writes, bonds have appeal for lots of reasons, including safety and the hope of lower rates
By ANDREW BELL
Remember bonds?With equity markets reeling -- as of this week, the Toronto Stock Exchange 300 index had dropped 16 per cent since early September -- investors are once again beginning to look around for a sure thing.
How to pick funds for the long run
It sounds simple, but it's not: Fund managers die, move on, are fired or lose their edge. Funds get absorbed, dissolved, taken over or refocused. The trick, according to one expert, is to locate the persistent plodders.
By ANDREW ALLENTUCK
It's tough to pick survivors in the mutual fund business. Funds with excellent records can turn into duds when their stock-picking methods cease to be profitable, or when their managers hit losing streaks.
Student stock picker arms herself with information
TONY MARTIN profiles a born entrepreneur who likes cheap stocks with a history of growth
By TONY MARTIN
At age 12, Rachel Kagan was already exploiting her entrepreneurial leanings, buying and selling baseball cards. She gave it up at 15, ''because the baseball strike teed me off.''
NET WORTH - BEST BUYS
A weekly scorecard of some of the lowest and highest rates and yields across Canada. The survey of mortgage, GIC and car loans - taken from a sample of companies by Cannex Financial Exchanges - covers posted rates only so consumers may be able to haggle for a better deal at some financial institutions.
Advisers who sell no-load funds are still all too rare
By ROB CARRICK
A financial adviser, whom we'll call Frank, has come up with a better way for his profession to serve clients who buy mutual funds.Frank sells funds without purchase commissions or redemption fees. Buy most any fund from Frank and you get it on a no-load basis.
Setting up a family trust can offset taxes at death
By TIM CESTNICK
Dick Shields made the Pittsburgh newspapers on his 75th birthday on Jan. 11, 1997, for his remarkable recuperative powers. What type of medical traumas has he recovered from?He was in a coma, near death, for a week after a burst appendix; three times he's had a broken neck (once while falling out of bed during recuperation from a previous broken neck); a broken back; triple-bypass heart surgery; a grapefruit-sized blockage of a blood vessel; a fungus that ate the skin off his feet; and service during World War II that included the hand-marking of active mines. Said Mr. Shields, apparently without irony: ''I'd have to say I've been truly blessed.'' Attitude makes the person.
There is precious little likelihood of a stronger dollar
By JEFFREY RUBIN
Its timing may be a little premature, but make no mistake about it, the market's instincts on the Canadian dollar are essentially correct.It's been more than two years since the loonie last traded at 70 cents (U.S.). Even more ominous than the dollar's performance, is the context for that performance. Not only has the currency failed to rally back to even the bottom of its historic trading range, but also its failure to do so has occurred against a backdrop of stellar fundamentals.
A look at what the hot fund managers are buying
By ANDREW ALLENTUCK
In a tough equity market, the Empire Dividend Growth Fund gained 11.7 per cent for the three months ended Sept. 30, about double the 6.6-per-cent average return of Canadian dividend funds in the period. That made it the top performer for the quarter in a field of 75 dividend funds. It's come a long way since it finished 1998 in the third quartile and 1999 in the fourth quartile of Canadian dividend funds.
Fat wallets should keep those boomer funds rocking
By GORDON POWERS
Smarting from the TSE 300's sharp decline, investors are reluctantly rubbing their eyes and heading for the shower. Is the dream finally over then? Not according to some.In fact, the bull market remains as sustainable as the baby-boom generation driving it, says author Harry S. Dent Jr., a consultant and New Economy pied piper whose analysis of an aging, more affluent North America still sees the stock market quadrupling in value over the next decade.
ASKED & ANSWERED
By ANGELA BARNES
Question: What are the main reasons behind a trading halt in any particular stock? Is there a rule of thumb for how the stock will react once the halt is lifted? Answer: A trading halt can be requested by a company prior to the making of a major announcement such as a merger, an acquisition or a management change -- a so-called material change. Sometimes, the announcement may be in regard to upcoming results. But a halt can also be imposed by an exchange if something in a stock's trading pattern suggests to exchange officials that investors need an explanation. The exchange can stop trading and request a statement from the company's management. Sometimes, the company will simply say it doesn't know the reason.
STARS & DOGS
A selection of this week's winners and losers compiled by ANDREW BELL DOGS
By ANDREW BELL
Psion Canada $9, unchanged (PON-TSE) Oh, that wicked British sense of humour! Hand-held computer maker Psion bought Teklogix, a Canadian maker of wireless gadgets, for cash and a pile of these shiny ''exchangeable'' beads. And then came the farcical punchline: Profits at Psion itself have fallen off a cliff. Investors, pants around their ankles as the naughty vicar bursts through the door in a dress, are crying with laughter. *** *** Premdor
WHO'S HOT
Sanford Riley Sandy's top dog at Investors Group, the world's dullest mutual fund company. His stock's normally one of the walking dead, stumbling along at less than its price in 1998. But something seems to be stirring in the dark -- Investors shares have lurched up 25 per cent since October on rumours of a takeover. Or maybe Sandy and his bosses at Power Corp. plan to buy something. And wrap it up in grey flannel.
