We understand the appeal of passive investing. It offers lower fees and simplicity and many investors are skeptical about the ability of active managers to consistently beat a benchmark...yet there’s also a lot of evidence supporting the benefits of an active approach. Today, we see many risks that are hard to avoid by hugging a benchmark—and opportunities that simply cannot be captured by going passive. While not every point is relevant to every investor, in every market, we can think of ten good reasons to stay active in equities today.

The current credit-bubble boom in stocks and bonds is getting long in tooth after 34 years of relentless expansion, and the rise of securities to 400% of GDP is reaching extremes that are increasingly difficult to support, much less push higher. As such, a reversion to generational lows is inevitable, and a valuation level around 50% of GDP for stocks is a fair target. This implies a 75% decline in both stocks and bonds within the next decade, if not sooner.

The real estate sector in Canada is in a bubble that could burst at any time according to the IMF, Deutsch Bank, the Bank of Canada and The Economist.

As with most financial habits, knowing what you need to do is the easy part. Following through with it is where most people run into trouble. To help you in that regard HERE are the 4 most important factors that help determine whether or not you’ll have a large enough nest egg to cover your living expenses during retirement.

Where does the Dow go from here? Maybe up a little higher but, more likely, it's all downhill from here though perhaps that statement is misleading. More like, down a cliff.

There is literally nowhere for the bond market to go except down and, when this bull market turns into a bear, it will create chaos and financial devastation all over the planet.

Equity markets in the U.S. have bounced back over the past couple of weeks and have shown strong momentum to the upside. We are now well into the fourth year of a rising equity market and we might now reasonably ask the obvious question, "When might this end?"

Financial Repression is a form of wealth confiscation and redistribution that is in some ways as effective as taxation - but the government never directly calls it that. It never appears in the budget (directly), and while it is dependent on a comprehensive network of laws and regulations - none of those go through the legislature with a stated intention of creating Financial Repression. So while the economic net effects are similar to a huge and comprehensive set of investor taxes being used to pay down the national debt, the "taxes" are never a campaign issue because voters and investors don't understand what is happening - they only feel the results. [In this article I lay out for you what is slowly developing and expected to escalate dramatically in the next few years.] Words: 5800

A large number of investment professionals confuse risk and volatility to the point where the terms are treated as being virtually synonymous. This has resulted in the flawed investment principle that reducing volatility will (and must) reduce risk. Such thinking is deeply misguided, and following it has dire consequences for investors. Let me explain more about what risk and volatility are and are not.

Asset allocation is one of the most crucial aspects of building a diversified and sustainable portfolio that not only preserves and grows wealth, but also weathers the twists and turns that ever-changing market conditions can throw at it. However, while the average [financial] advisor or investor spends a great deal of time carefully analyzing and picking the right stocks or sectors, the basic and primary task of asset allocation is often overlooked. [According to research by both Wainwright Economics and Ibbotson Associates and the current Dow:gold ratio, allocating a portion of one's portfolio to gold and/or silver and/or platinum is imperative to protect and grow one's financial assets. Let me explain.] Words:1060