Two New Mid-Cap U.S. Equity ETFs

IShares Launches Two New ETFs

First Published Date: September 6, 2015

IShares Canada recently launched two new equity ETFs for Canadian. These ETFs will provide exposure to the mid-cap sector of the U.S. market.

XMC – iShares S&P U.S. Mid-Cap Index ETF MER 0.15% – XMC tracks the S&P MidCap 400® Index, which represents the mid-cap sector of the U.S. equity market made of diversified range of industries. XMC provides exposure to U.S. $, as this is unhedged. The index is made of 400 stocks and has greater exposure in the Financials, Information Technology, Industrial, and Consumer Discretionary sectors.

XMH – iShares S&P U.S. Mid-Cap Index ETF MER 0.15% – Same as XMC, but hedges currency exposure back to Canadian dollars.

More ETFs bring more choices and more exposure to diversified sectors. Always do your research and seek the assistance of qualified financial professionals before investing into ETFs or any investment products.

How Not to Hold: Using Apps That Let Customer Service Reps Call You Back

Make Customer Service Reps Hold for You

First Published Date : September 8, 2015

We all have those frustrating moments of calling customer service; they put us on hold for hours and to make matters worse we don’t know how long we will have to hold. In the past, I always thought there was no solution to this infinite hold, but I guess I was wrong.

What technology makes possible today was unthinkable just years ago and yes, I am talking about the end of the vicious cycle of being forwarded from one number to another at customer service and the endless hold times. There are apps now for your smartphone that can do all that, as they will make customer service call you back. You don’t have to be transferred from one number to another because these apps will tell you what numbers to press at each prompt to get you to the right department.

FastCustomer: When you call your desired company using the FastCustomer app on your phone, FastCustomer calls the number, navigates through the menus, listens to the music, and once it gets a live rep, it will call you back. So you don’t have to hold and wait for someone; the app will call you back and you can spend time doing something else.

GetHuman: GetHuman gives you more options, as it shows how long the wait time is for the number you are trying to reach and what options to press at prompt to get through. Or if you prefer to have a call back, GetHuman will call you back once a live rep is available, just like FastCustomer.

Keep in mind that not all companies are on these apps’ database yet and there might be problems with calls occasionally, as these apps are still developing. I tried both apps from Canada to call WestJet, American Express, and VISA and they worked. I had a call back from these companies and everything went smooth. What I noticed is that if one company is not on one app’s database, probably it will be on the other one’s. So it’s a good idea to use more than one app to get your customer service. And there are other similar apps available like these two, but I find these two work the best and the most user friendly.

Real Estate in Turkey

Buying Property In Turkey

First Published Date: Feb 16, 2010

Ownership of the real estate in Turkey, comes under the reciprocity principle for a foreign individual. Those countries which allow the Turkish citizens or legal entities to own property in their country, only their citizens are allowed to purchase real estate in Turkey. Those countries are the United States, Canada, Latin America, Africa and most of countries in Europe.

The price for the real estate has increased after the relaxation in the ownership restrictions for the foreigners under the Law No. 5444. a foreigner can purchase a maximum of 30 hectares (74 acres) of real estate in Turkey. More than 73,000 foreigners have bought real estate in Turkey. Buyers who are mostly from England, Germany and Greece have poured US$10.4 billion into the real estate market over five years (2002-2007). The foreign buyer has no restrictions to buy 10% of property and land in officially zoned areas like cities, resorts and towns etc. Ownership of real estate in Turkey, is prohibited for foreigner in the rural areas and also the immediate vicinity of a military zone.

There are many rules and regulations to be followed by the foreigner investor and the process become little tricky to handle. A lot of real estate agents, brokers and also property advisors are available to guide their customers. A real estate agent normally charges 3% from the buyer and 3% from the seller so the total of that becomes 6% of the whole amount. The registration process takes around nine days to finish. The “title deed of transfer” is released in about three to nine months, after the application is processed to the court. The registration and notary fees, title deed charges, and including the agent’s commission is paid by the buyer and the seller is suppose to pay the stamp duty fee along with the commission of the agent. The roundtrip transaction cost around 9.85% = 10.75 % and it also include the fees of the lawyer, notary public, registration, taxes and agents’ fees. The real estate in Turkey is subject to a change of price after one year, five years and ten years according to the latest available data or house price index, inflation is not adjusted here. As for the annual percentage, change in the house price or index from (2005-2006) or the latest data available on the price index upon yearly basis. After five years the annual percentage change in house price index and house prize is from 2001-2006 and then the price change after every ten year is from the index 1996. A landlord can expect gross annual rental income which is expressed as a percentage of price of purchase of the property.

It is highly recommended to have a solicitor to do the conveyancing, though legally there is no such requirement. For buyers of the real estate in Turkey, the government authorises an interpreter for the notarization of the property. The buyer and the seller’s presence is mandatory at the entry of the title. The economic recession has hit hard the Turkey’s exports manufacturing sectors and the logistic market is badly affected. This has resulted into the real estate in Turkey slowed down in the line with the rest of world. The consumer confidence is again picking up and retail turn over is growing although the growth rate is slower than the last year. Most of the buyers or occupiers of Turkish real estate are re-locating themselves mostly on the less expensive locations like Asian side of Istanbul.

To streamline and minimize blog maintenance, I will be discontinuing maintaining the realestateexpedition.com website (however, I will still hold the domain). I will gradually move all articles from this site to A Dawn Journal. This article originally published on the above website on Feb 13, 2010.

MoneySense Publishes Its Flawed 2015 Canada's Best Credit Cards Rankings

How Accurate Are MoneySense’s Credit Card Rankings?

First Published Date: September 13, 2015

Canada’s popular personal finance magazine MoneySense recently releases its annual credit card rankings for 2015. The five best credit cards were chosen for these six categories: cash-back cards, low-rate cards, retail rewards cards, travel rewards cards, student cards, and business cards.

However, the factors that MoneySense used to determine the best cards for Canadians are inaccurate and out of touch from reality. I will discuss only a few important points to show you why these rankings are flawed and also will give you links to some other rankings that I believe did a better job ranking Canada’s best credit cards.

Why These Rankings Are Flawed

– The biggest problem is that the assumption was made that you will be spending $2000 per month on credit cards. To spend $24,000 on credit cards annually, you will need to have at least $100,000 annual income, but even it’s hard on a 100K salary to spend that much. So it is safe to say that an average $150,000 salary is required to make sense of these rankings and if MoneySense thinks that is what most Canadians make they are out of touch.

– Even if we say everyone is Canada is spending $2,000 monthly on credit cards, the MoneySense ratings are wrong in terms of getting the best value back on your rewards. If you use this credit card tool to plug in $2,000 monthly spending, you will get very different results.

– The wrong information was provided for some credit cards. For example, if you look at insurance benefits for cards like WestJet RBC World Elite MasterCard or American Express Gold Rewards Cards, according to MoneySense these cards have trip cancellation, but in reality these cards do not have trip cancellation; they have trip interruption insurance, which is a totally different thing.

– The 1st and 2nd cards in the travel category are the WestJet RBC World Elite MasterCard and the American Express Gold Rewards Card. Neither of these cards should be first and second, as they are missing major elements that you need to have in a travel card, such as trip cancellation insurance and concierge services. Also, the big problem with the WestJet RBC World Elite MasterCard is that you are limited to fly only WestJet on limited destinations that WestJet covers.

– The worst picks are in the retail rewards category. Here you will find credit cards that are not even considered to compete by other best credit cards ratings sites. For example, if you use the credit card tools I mentioned in the article below, you will see that these top credit cards stay on the bottom of the list. So that makes you wonder why Rogers credit card is # 1 in this category. Rogers credit card is #1 retail rewards card is Canada – really?

How to Pick Your Best Credit Cards

Research and gather information from various sources, including the credit card providers’ own sites and make decisions based on your own circumstances. There are tools, calculators, and articles you can use to help you and I mentioned some of these in the Credit Cards/Rewards Cards Section on A Dawn Journal to help you with your research.

Also, you can check other sites’ best credit cards ratings. For example, the Greedy Rates ratings below is a good one and more aligned to reality.

Do Canadians Pay More?

Canadians Still Paying More . But Not Much More

First Published Date: Aug 2, 2009

Canadian shoppers are used to something of a price difference between shopping domestically and journeying south of the border to pick up some purchases. For various reasons, the dollar goes further in the States even when taking into account the exchange rate, and this has been known to drive some Canadians to visit family in the States, just happening to do a lot of high-value shopping while there. But just recently this price gap has leveled considerably, according to a study carried out recently. It has not closed entirely by any means, but to see it narrowing is positive both for shoppers and for stores.

Of course, as with any financial story it isn’t just a matter of saying “things have improved to some extent” and leaving the statement there. There is considerably more to it, not least the fact that the findings of the study are contentious, having been opposed by the Consumers Association of Canada. The report itself was unveiled by Doug Porter, Deputy Chief Economist at BMO Capital Markets. In their study last year, BMO found an average price difference between selected products that stood in favor of the US shopper to the tune of eighteen per cent. This year, with the American economy having suffered severe blows, that gap has receded to 6.8 per cent.

Porter puts a lot of this narrowing down to the strengthening in the loonie, which has comparatively thrived while the US dollar has struggled. As the value of the loonie rises against its Southern counterpart, Canadians have comparably more buying power, and it is normal for prices to fall so that business does not go South.

Nonetheless it still depends very much on what your planned purchases are. For example, if you want to drop into Starbucks and enjoy a latte (tall, nonfat) then for the first time it is cheaper to do so on this side of the border. If you are buying a camera, expect to pay slightly more than your Southern neighbor, but only to the tune of about 2%, which is considerably less than once it was. However if you have your heart set on a chainsaw, you might be well advised to check import costs, as they are still 25% more expensive in Canada. Going to the US and bringing it back across the border might have its own problems, too.

Porter insists that this is a sign that Canada’s stronger anti-recession policies have made things better for the Canadian consumer. The Canadian consumer, represented by the Consumers Association of Canada for the purposes of this article, disagrees. Its president Bruce Cran states that there are huge disparities on a number of other products, not least magazines, which differ in price by a massive 28 per cent – double what the report says. The Association argues that as things stand, Canadian retailers are failing to pass on savings they have made importing US-made products to their customers. Nonetheless, the BMO posits that this will always be the case due to institutional differences, but that the gap is narrowing.

To streamline and minimize blog maintenance, I will be discontinuing maintaining the Canadapersonalfinancewebsite.com website (however, I will still hold the domain). I will gradually move all articles from this site to A Dawn Journal. This article originally published on the above website on Aug 2, 2009.