View Single Post
  #6  
Old 02-21-2021, 12:13 PM
Arty Arty is offline
 
Join Date: Jul 2012
Location: one Fort or another
Posts: 768
Default

We are now in a very screwy global financial situation, which is unlike anything most have seen in this lifetime. So the rules of 'investing' have sort of disappeared and it's turned into a free-for-all. It's a bad situation for subjecting your savings/profits to risk.

The worst is the huge amounts of debt and 'money printing' that has occurred in the last 10 years, as well as artificially low interest rates that mask the real cost of money and associated risks. The dynamics have all changed, capital ownership has become hugely more concentrated, poverty widespread, and government involvement in everything more extensive.

There is still the tax-postponement or tax-avoidance nature of RSPs, but once the money is in there, it should not be subjected to much investment risk. TSFAs could be used if there is some kind of lower risk investment where you want to protect profits from tax, but you'd lose much faster from capital loss than any tax on potential profits.

Problem is, cash is losing to the 'inflation-tax' too. The government(s) stealth tax called inflation is set up to maintain social programs without huge tax increases, and to pay for last years debt and deficit with next years cheaper, inflated, worthless money.

A lot of things like the stock market, bond prices, some commodities, and consumer basics continue to shoot the moon despite bad global economies everywhere, small business collapses, and pandemic unemployment. That's solid evidence of inflation, despite government-reported inflation statistics.

Probably the best strategy in the foreseeable future is to stay conservative, diversified, and use bull call spreads on liquid titles that seem to be going up in 'rising tide lifts all boats' mode. XOM, F, and CPG.TO have recovered a bit in the last couple of months. Maybe in a pullback a b.c.s. on those could be good. If you were a HODLER of ether or bitcoin, and did your own mining, then it would be good to continue in it. But dumping after-tax fiat savings into crypto-currency speculation at this point is just plain wrong. And difficult, because there's significant account restrictions and tax implications now on flipping back and forth between fiat and crypto-currencies.
Reply With Quote