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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.
Past few years show you will need to be patient to get decent results, ROB CARRICK writes
Newcomers to investing in China have learned the hard way that a country doesn't automatically generate big investment returns just because it's an economic juggernaut.The Chinese economy has expanded at an annual rate of about 9 per cent in 2005, which is spectacular by any standard and consistent with the growth pattern of the past few years. Yet recent returns from many China-focused mutual funds, exchange-traded funds and closed-end funds have been mediocre at best and quite often disappointing.
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 Union3.84So-Use Credit Union3.85Ontario Civil Service Credit Un.3.95Comtech Credit Union 3.99Panama Lithuanian Credit Union 4.25Average rate4.91
Using their RRSP contribution room is key
In Montreal, two university professors we'll call Ivan, 38, and Penelope, 40, are plotting their financial future with the care they usually put into their research projects. They have combined annual gross incomes that total $140,000 and their jobs are secure until they retire.
When I ran brokerage research departments on Bay Street, once a quarter each of my analysts had to write about his or her greatest mistake -- and its main causes.My reasoning was twofold: First, if analysts came clean in public about their errors, they'd never make the same ones again. Second and more important, money managers are accountable for results. If analysts were too, in the long run they'd be better analysts.
A selection of the past week's winners and losers
STARSHudson's Bay$15.35, up $2.34 (HBC-TSX) The last time we were at The Bay -- we were picking up some bell-bottoms in 1971 -- the place looked dead. Things haven't improved much. But Jerry Zucker, the U.S. investor offering $14.75 a share for Canada's oldest company, thinks he can make this dinosaur sit up and beg.
