Tomorrow I meet with my financial advisor to look over my portfolio. It hasn’t done well in over a year (mostly mutual funds), mostly Canadian funds with, I believe, weighed heavily in Canadian and US markets and the financial sector. Its my retirement fund, and I’m fifty so I need to be careful. I don’t have much faith in the stock market.
Ideas?
I’d say gold. Although tbh that band wagon was good to been jumped on 7 years ago when the Bank of England emptied it’s gold stocks and crashed prices for a short time. Since then they’ve basically tripled. Then again, most of the price rise is really only the dollar that has fallen in value. I’d say get your money out of anything traded in dollars (American I mean), if you’re looking at long term, because that currency WILL die, probably to be replaced by the Amero.
Then again, I have absolutely no experience in this so I’d say think twenty times before taking any advice from me.
Also, avoid any government owned retirement funds, once you fully realise what sort of a 54 trillion hole the government is in, you’ll also realise there’s no way they’ll be paying out their retirement and medicare bills for long.
Silver, copper, and oil. Those should all be safe long-term investments, demand for which should continue to grow due to their industrial applications. Also, this might be of some use to you: http://www.bradspangler.com/blog/archives/419
I have gotten my best returns from the following: a natural gas company, a precious metals fund and an unmanaged stock index fund.
Also the investment funds targeted for the production end of the mentioned items-- PMs and oil.
What is the most stable, reliable currency?
the $US… and gold of course…
Gold and other commodities.
I have done extremely well in the commodity market.
Nice thing about commodities is you can buy them as coins and enjoy actually having the beautiful coins as well as the investment potential.
I would have said gold several months ago, but not now, wait until after February, and then maybe… MAYBE.
My advisor told me if I’d bought gold back in the 80s when it peeked at around $600, that was actually more like $2600 in today’s dollars, so buying and hold it I would have lost $1700 if sold today. She gave me the “hold tight” argument in regard to my portfolio. I have to buy something, its in an RRSP, be it stocks, bonds, money market, term deposit or cash.
Of course, that is the thing with gold. You DON’T hold on to it in good times. In good times you play the market. It is the bad times, like we are in right now, that you turn to gold. 
My best advise is too invest in gold…directly. I found a very interesting site. You can buy gold at the price of the market. Check at www.bullionvault.com. Oh, BTW, I don’t work for them![:)]
Do your own choice!
Not allowed in an RRSP apparantly.
Yes, it is allowed in an RRSP, but only in ‘certificate’ form with a discount broker. So you would have to get a full service broker if you want to hold bullion.
what about property?
My advice: first thing first, get rid of that advisor
I’m only half joking. The inflation-adjusted return for broad stock market indices will be negative in the next 8 years, just like it has been in the last 8 years. We are in the middle of a 17-yr secular bear market. The advisor is obviously too young to remember that the $850 high achieved in 1980 was after a bull run in gold from as low as $35/oz. Sure, it dropped to $260/oz in the next 21 years . . . however, the $260/oz price itself was a record high that was only reached in May 1979, or roughly 8 months before the $850 peak. Sure, when we see gold, or any other class of asset, appreciate 250% in 8 months, it’s time to re-allocate, but until then, ride with the winners, not the losers. The stock market has been losing for nearly 8 years! My guess is that the advisor never witnessed the 1966-1982 stock market bear market. Her career probably didn’t start until the late 80’s, if not the 90’s . . . just like all those realtors minted in the late90’s and early 00’s . . . to them, the market only went up She’s definitely not worth 1% a year . . . which would have accummulated 20% of your networth when you die at 70, assuming you get to keep anything under her advisement.
I suspect that all the advisors around here will suggest the same thing she does. What should I do with my mutual funds in the mean time? She insists that holding gold in the RRSP can’t be done. Precious Metals funds? Natural Resources Funds? Right now, I’m heavily into Canadian bank funds, some emerging markets funds, and a far bit of bond (mostly gov’t, provincial and federal).
Natural resource company stocks and funds can be put in retirement accounts, so can ETF’s such as GLD and SLV. I have a sneak suspicion that, before this commodity boom is over (in perhaps another 5-7 years), we will have ETF’s for corn and beef The Wall Street and its shysters have to live off something; there’s a lot of packaging material left over from the stock bubble and mortgage bubble party looking for things to repackage.
You like ETFs?
They are not ideal, but better than a lot of other sorts of paper instruments out there. Eventually, this form of investment vehicle will be exploited to death too by the hucksters, but we are not at that point yet.