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The Globe and Mail's Smart Money section is dedicated to giving you what you need to manage your personal finances successfully. Smart Money appears every Saturday in The Globe and Mail and on globeinvestor.com.
The key, ROB CARRICK writes, is rising distributions over the long term. Not only are they good for your portfolio, but they will allow the fund to more easily absorb any grief Ottawa brings
Rise up, all you discouraged income trust investors. There's quality in the trust sector and it will transcend whatever change comes from the federal government's review of trusts. To find it, let's get back to basics.
A weekly scorecard of some of the lowest and highest rates and yields across Canada.
MORTGAGESThe lowest rates posted for one, three and five year closed mortgages.1-YEAR CLOSED PACE Savings and Credit Union3.59So-Use Credit Union3.60Ukrainian Credit Union 3.65Ontario Civil Service Credit Un.3.95Comtech Credit Union 3.99Average rate4.67
TONY MARTIN finds a retired couple with a six-figure portfolio who match their expenses to income
What are Myrna Cox and her husband doing homeless and living out of a car when they have a six-figure portfolio?Living, it seems, and living large. At the end of 2003, she and her husband, Doug, both retired, sold everything, put a few personal items into storage, and headed out in their Volvo 960. ''We organized a mailing address, made certain that we could access any business and financial matters on-line, and have been on the road for the most part ever since,'' Ms. Cox says. ''We have no home, home is where we are on any particular day.''
After a week of sleuthing around Silicon Valley, I accepted the invitation of an old Biz School classmate for margaritas at his club. Darren is a retired venture capitalist who had IPOed four startups and now collects old war planes, wine with pedigrees, and girlfriends with degrees. With him was his latest, Noriko, a Stanford PhD who provides psychological counselling to stressed-out tech execs. Also at our table was a visiting Wall Street guy who knew Darren from the IPOs. He was the only one in a suit. We sat on the veranda; a hundred yards away, the head of Snorkel Software was flying a kite. Farther off, shareholders of a search engine were playing tennis. The whoosh of the kite mixed with the tink-tonk of tennis balls and the clink of the glasses. It was very Zen.
I'm looking forward to getting older. Why? Because all of the best one-liners come from people who are over age 70. I recently attended the funeral of an elderly man, and overheard an employee at the funeral home speaking with the widow: ''How old was your husband?'' the employee asked. ''He was 98,'' she replied. ''Two years older than me.'' ''So you're 96,'' the employee commented. She responded, ''Hardly worth going home, is it?''
A weekly examination of the thinking behind a specific trade in the stock, bond or currency markets.There's no trade to pick apart this week; no elaborate options play involving multiple offshore accounts and the Republic of Cameroon's credit rating; nor a currency pair set to take off one way or the other.
A selection of the past week's winners and losers
STARSNatural Gas$13.92, up $1.60 ($U.S./mm BTU)Hiding a large rock in a snowball. Playing ice hockey with much younger children and scoring effortlessly. There are countless ways to celebrate the arrival of winter. Getting evicted after being unable to pay the massive heating bill -- thanks to record high natural gas prices -- is not one of them.
