Around the Blogosphere

With Christmas around the corner we’d like to send a thank-you to all of our readers for supporting the Boomer & Echo blog this year. It’s been an amazing year, starting with a long overdue re-design of the blog (thanks to Justin Bouchard at Top Shelf Web Solutions), plus a commitment to add more photos and visual elements…

BMO will pay back almost $50 million to clients who were overcharged on their mutual funds and investment accounts. The settlement was worked out by the Ontario Securities Commission, which said BMO “self-reported” the problem and there was no evidence of dishonest conduct by BMO. But something fishy is going on when the OSC has already…

Amazon turned heads this week when it announced a new grocery store shopping experience with no check-outs or line-ups. The online retail giant recently opened an 1,800 square foot retail space in Seattle as a pilot project for its employees, with hopes to open Amazon Go to the public in early 2017. The company explains its vision…

I had the honour and privilege to work with the CBC Marketplace team in Toronto last month to put together a story about Air Miles and its unpopular expiry policy. But then, just a day before the episode was to go live, Air Miles backed down and cancelled its expiry policy effective immediately. The CBC…

One of the biggest post-election stories has been how the proliferation of ‘fake news’, particularly on Facebook, may have influenced voter behaviour. The Washington Post interviewed a fake news writer who actually believed Donald Trump is in the White House because of his online hoaxes. Gullibility of the masses meant this writer was earning upwards…

Trump pulled it off. Unbelievable. I guess the media and pollsters completely underestimated just how pissed-off rural and rust-belt America is with the way the country is moving. Talk about flipping the script. Here’s to four years of uncertainty, not to mention unorthodox politics like we’ve never seen before. It’s human nature to want to act…

“You need to get down here right away! There’s been a plane crash and the pilot had to eject.” I’ll never forget that day – July 23rd, 2010 – when Captain Brian Bews and his CF-18 Hornet crashed during a practice run at the Lethbridge Airport leading up to the Alberta International Air Show. As…

Even though I switched to a simple, passive, two-ETF investment portfolio, I still like to check-in on my returns from time-to-time and compare them to other benchmarks and strategies. Call it my competitive nature, or maybe a nervous tick. Let’s take a look at the Blackrock (iShares) website, as it has the most current year-to-date returns…

Here at Boomer & Echo we’re big fans of the robo-advisor model that gives investors the chance to build a low cost, diversified portfolio of ETFs and not worry about the hassle of buying, selling, and rebalancing on their own. Just set up regular contributions to your account and the robo-advisor allocates your dollars into a portfolio of ETFs…

My wife and I celebrated our 10th anniversary with a trip to Vancouver last week. We found round-trip flights from Calgary for less than $300 and then decided to splurge by staying at a boutique hotel downtown. The location was perfect, as we could walk everywhere from Stanley Park to Granville Island. We took a free shuttle…