second_opinion

If you've been wondering whether to get a second opinion on your investments, you should review the questions below. If you are not sure about the answers, we offer a complimentary portfolio review that examines your holdings, breaks down all the costs you are paying, analyzes your performance and offers professional recommendations.

Depending on your investments, you pay various fees for purchasing, maintaining and selling them. On those investments do you know how much any asset must rise in value before you break even? Do you know if your fee set-up is the most advantageous for you and do you know what you get in return for the fees?

You may want to read Kim's columns on Fees.

If you own a variety of mutual funds you will have a difficult time determining the answer because the average fund has such a large number of holdings. If funds have similar investing mandates you are almost certain to have overlap, causing your portfolio to be too highly correlated and limiting potential returns. Can you complete the sentence “My mutual fund asset allocation is……….”?

You may wish to read Kim's column on Mutual Funds.

Smart investors diligently establish their original financial plans according to their goals, time horizon and risk tolerance. Unfortunately many then forget an important piece – monitoring and rebalancing their portfolio. As time passes your needs may change. As investments change in value, they will have different weightings relative to your plan. Either of these can throw your asset allocation out of kilter. Does your portfolio balance still meet your goals?

Do you have too much liquidity because you’ve been putting your money into short-term investments like GICs to meet long-term goals? If so, it’s unlikely you will ever accumulate enough wealth to retire. Do you have too little liquidity? If so, it could mean you are going to lose money when an emergency compels you to get money from your portfolio to your wallet in a hurry.

None of us can predict when or how a disability might take away our ability to earn a living and yet we don’t take appropriate action. We protect our physical assets against loss but we don’t think about our income – even though its loss can bring all of our financial plans to a grinding halt. Do your financial plans have the right disability protections in place?

You may want to read my column on disability insurance.

We all want a long and healthy retirement but there are no guarantees. Therefore our financial plans should reflect potential health care costs for such things as long term care, critical illness or medicines in case we fall ill in retirement. Are you among the ninety-one per cent of working Canadians who have not accounted for health care expenses in their retirement planning?

Thinking about estate planning* is difficult because it involves life’s final chapter, but it shouldn’t be delayed and it is not enough simply to have prepared a will. The planning involves maximization of wealth during your lifetime and reduction of taxes and probate fees when the time comes. Are you comfortable that your family will be looked after in the best way possible?

* Offered through Canaccord Estate Planning Services Ltd

In many large organizations the emphasis is on selling in-house products and the staff are trained to be conduits to those products, rather than acting as consultants for the clients. There may even be bonuses for selling particular products.

Canaccord offers many proprietary products and services but we are not under any pressure to promote them. Instead, we are free to concentrate on our clients’ needs, matching their goals with the best local and international products available in the marketplace. Are you certain that all your purchase recommendations were in the interest of your profits rather than a company’s profits?