Free ‘advice’ is sometimes not worth the price (biased advice from banks) | Page 2 | General financial discussion | Discussion forum

At FundLibrary, I was clicking on various fund categories and looking at 1 year returns to date, Ithink,or perhaps just 2015 calendar yr, as well as shorter, to see if things appear to be on the upswing (not). I didn't check every category, but checked most of the likely suspects. It was a sea of red. I didn't find anything anywhere near 10.54, so wonder what you are looking at and would be interested to know. Most, if not all, were slightly in the red, most in a range up to 5%; some more. If I'm misreading this, I'd like to know how to get a better result, please.

However, based on what I think I'm seeing, so much for the theory of asset allocation with rebalancing annually or semi-annually, just when I had almost become persuaded of it. I believe somebody got a Nobel prize for that theory.
The trouble with economic theories, as I see it, and I am no expert, having just read some books as a layperson in this field, is that they are better at describing the past than understanding the future. New theories are built on the failures of the previous ones, which seems to suggest that the new ones may not, in the end, do the job. I'm not necessarily blaming the theorists, although some seem rather sloppy and overconfident. This kind of thing does happen in most disciplines. But it ought to make us very wary of putting too much faith in them. Everything works well... until the day when it doesn't, and that is the day that really matters.

Thanks, Norman! This is undoubtedly the fund that was being referred to and is probably the one the advisor recommended. It's also the one that Bill likes, as mentioned in another thread.

I was looking at a page with a different format entirely, and I actually couldn't find any Mawer products in it, no matter which category I selected, as I was looking for them. This puzzled me, and I wondered if the fund companies had to subscribe to it.
I didn't keep the reference, so don't know how I got lost, but thanks for your help. It's a bit more encouraging.

Edited to add:
Actually, the more I look at this, the more confused I get.
I see where FundLibrary lists the 10.54, and I see where GlobeInvestor has that as well.
However, on the Globe page, they say two other things that don't seem to me to be consistent with the first. Maybe you can help me understand this.
It says that the fund is down 1.42% year to date (I interpret that as Jan 1 to Mar 16, 2016).
It also says it's down 0.51% "one year". (I interpret this to mean Mar 16/15 to Mar 16/16, or some similar dates, reflecting whenever they last calibrated it.)
What I can't understand is how that can be consistent with 2015 return of 10.54%. If it only went down 1.42 so far this year, how could that account for the difference between 10.54 and -0.51?
I find these charts very difficult to follow at times.

Also, if SavingisGood is correct that I was looking at something called "simple return" earlier, then what is the difference? I would have thought that a one-year return was a one-year return, regardless. If it were more years, then, yes, I would expect the years to be averaged out or compounded, depending on what type of chart it was. How could the same fund be in the red in one place and up over 10 in another in the same year?

Also, if, in the FundLibrary site, you click on the tab "Short Term", you also get the low figure and a much lower figure for 2 years than you get with the other page.

Sorry, but I am still lost.

You refer to one-year (and multi-year) return as of 29 Feb 2016. At the moment, I am only looking at one-year, and I don't know which figure to rely on..

Are you saying there are two different end points at play for one year which are being referred to here? Are you saying that if the end point is Feb 29, that this gives a radically different result from some other one-year end point (such as Dec 31,2015?)

Which do you consider that the 10.54 and -0.51 refer to?
Is there some reason why one of these figures would typically be more rosy than the other?

Thanks.

Thanks, Norman. That really helps.

So, while past years for this fund, based on calendar year, have been very positive, they could also have been lacklustre if the year had ended in, for example, February, instead - at least for this past year.

In addition, by fiddling again with that graph, it looks like the gains in calendar 2015 were really in the first 2 months. Since then, not much happening, but a well-timed spike at the end of December significantly improved the picture for the calendar year.

People have obviously done well with this fund, but of course one never knows what is coming next. It does illustrate that you really have to look at results over longer term.

Note you need at least $50K for an account directly with Mawer. Probably about $5K at the discount broker.

Very interesting. I appreciate what Norman and Bill are saying.

They appear relatively sophisticated (have US investments they want to transfer to a Canadian RRSP) and don't look poor. Plus two banks already told them the manoeuvre won't work so they opinion shop until they get the answer they want. Apparently, even after the previous advice from the other banks, they had no interest in contacting CRA to see if this was ok or to do any research themselves. BMO did err and had to pay once this couple ran to CBC. Typical media spin, 100% focus was on BMO, not a word or question re any responsibility these adults had for their own decisions.