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What can we do for you?
- Identify the many Myths in the financial system, including the dream of “beating the market” through individual stock selection.
- Identify the key factors to becoming better do-it-yourself investors AND identify those which are under your control, such as an optimum allocation of your investments across appropriate asset categories.
- Accompany you each step of the way in the saving and investment process- see our User Guide.
- Help self-investors to better control their costs, what Warren Buffett calls the financial system’s friction costs.
- Help you better use your tax-exempt (
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- Show you how to minimize your tax-related investment costs.
- Give you access to information to help you better manage a portfolio intended to constitute an important source of retirement income.
- Identify areas where the financial system does not adequately take into account the interests of independent investors.
- Encourage reforms to the regulatory system.
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WELCOME to our site for the independent investor which was officially launched March 18, 2008. Become a member (it’s free) and enjoy full access to the site + receive on a preferred basis our weekly newsletters. Our site has been described as one of the few educational websites that offer the unbiased, clearly written material that busy investors need (The Globe & Mail 30 05 2008) and as a site dedicated to providing individual investors with independent, objective, free advice and information (The Gazette, Montreal 31 03 2008). See In the Media under the tab Media on our home page. MEMBERS-PLEASE NOTE: Depending on your software and internet provider, it may be necessary for you to add http://independentinvestor.info to your list of safe contacts in your spam filters. Otherwise, you may not receive our newsletters. Our newsletters notify our members in priority of our commentaries on current events and other topics of interest. If you miss a newsletter, it will eventually be filed on the site at a later date under Information on the home page. We are also on Twitter under DIYInvestor.
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Longevity risk: are annuities the solution? |
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Page 3 of 4
These principles are difficult to follow in the annuities market. Annuity brokers may be employees or otherwise affiliated with the issuer of annuities they sell. Do you know an annuities discount broker? We don't. Have you ever found on the Internet a published tariff of commission rates for annuities brokers? We have not. Looking for the bid and ask price for annuities like you find for stocks? Forget it, they are an illiquid investment for which there is no secondary market.
Despite these characteristics we did find a reasonable number of internet sources of information on annuities which you may find of interest. At the end of this commentary we give a list of our main sources (websites or articles). As is our usual practice, we provide in each case a PDF or internet link to allow you to consult them directly yourself. We will regularly refer to these sources and others during this series of reviews. We encourage you to browse through them them before our next commentary in this series.
In Canada, if investors consider buying an annuity at all, it is when they reach the age limit for holding an RRSP. In the next commentary we look more closely at the reasons to buy or not to buy an annuity, at that time or at any other time. By reading the sources we give above and the commentaries in this series, you may decide that saving more pre-retirement so that you do not have to buy an annuity is your best course of action. If this is your conclusion, your reading was worthwhile. Our purpose is not to recommend annuities, but to make you reflect on longevity risk and how to adress it.
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 16 December 2008 )
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