Guarding Wealth: Keeping your financial portfolio stable

Guarding Wealth: Keeping your financial portfolio stable

How much risk do you want in your portfolio, and will risk bring you higher returns?

Choosing stocks and bonds is in some ways like picking the petals off a daisy. The choice: will it be regular income or capital gains (hopefully)? Some investment assets pay regular income. In this category are conventional bonds that promise annual or semi-annual interest payments and dividend-paying stocks that make no firm promises but that […] Read more

Guarding Wealth: Long-term investing is a sure thing

There are short-term risks, but inflation and survivor bias make long-term bets winners

Let’s have a heart to heart talk about the fundamentals of investing on the farm and off the farm and, for that matter, investing in education for a career or a used car. Every investment has character, whether it’s a tech stock and you have to bet on a new trend or product on the […] Read more


Bubble in the finance world

Guarding Wealth: When will the stock market bubble pop?

Stock markets are soaring in spite of increasing risks. If this is a bubble, will it last?

When is a bubble a bubble? The Oxford English Dictionary defines a bubble as “a significant, usually rapid, increase in asset prices that is soon followed by a collapse in prices… typically arises from speculation or enthusiasm rather than intrinsic increases in value.” The question is vital right now, for one of the best guides […] Read more



Four common foreign exchange myths

Four common foreign exchange myths

Gwen Paddock, senior director, agriculture at RBC is a specialist in agribusiness. Since earning her B.Sc. with a major in agriculture economics she has been working with agriculture clients. A farmer at heart, Paddock was raised on a beef cow-calf farm outside Guelph, Ont.

Guarding Wealth: Changes ahead for 2017

Guarding Wealth: Changes ahead for 2017

Rising interest rates and the Trump Effect 
bring uncertainties in the New Year

If investing were easy, we’d all be rich. Today, capital markets have many new uncertainties. Top of the list: the Trump Effect. That is, what the new President may do after his inauguration on January 20. Also worrisome is where Europe is going if other members of the EU follow the United Kingdom out of […] Read more


Successful woman handing out Canadian dollars. Female entrepreneur doing business in Canada. Giving or donating money. Female success in a multicultural society

Ready to share your wealth with employees?

An Employee Share Ownership Plan may be a good option for your farm

If you’ve had a tough year with poor crops and low prices and are feeling financially short, regardless of how it turned out, you’ll likely always need labour support to get the job done. One of the biggest fears of founders that I coach is the fact that they may lose loyal, hard-working employees after […] Read more

Magnifying glass on newspaper

Guarding Wealth: Canadian interest rates to rise

But don’t hold your breath — any big rate moves are at least 18 months ahead

To quote the most recent winner of the Nobel Prize for literature, Bob Dylan, “the times, they are a-changin’.” In capital markets, the U.S. Federal Reserve Board is likely to raise the interest rate it charges banks to borrow money overnight to maintain reserves — a key indicator for all other interest rates in the economy. This increase […] Read more


Woulda, shoulda, coulda

Market risk strategies can lower the risk of pre-pricing grain early in the year

You can’t evaluate your grain marketing decisions until much later in the year, when you can look back to see what happened in the markets. What can you do to make it easier to make these decisions? First, knowing your costs of production is likely the most important aspect to helping you make good marketing […] Read more

Solving problems with life insurance

Solving problems with life insurance

Life insurance, combined with fixed value corporate shares can solve succession problems

This month, I asked the experts a very direct question: “Can my incorporated farm business pay my personal life insurance premiums?” The answer was reasonably clear: Certainly, your farm corporation can pay your personal insurance premiums, but in general you will pay personal income tax on the premium amounts because they are a personal benefit to you. […] Read more