Continue reading »]]> Can This Really Be Happening in Canada?

Many ScotiaBank clients walk into their banks every day, looking for investment options.  The bank’s friendly staff sell ScotiaBank’s brand of actively managed mutual funds.  The advisors doing so are like salespeople flogging milk chocolate, potato chips and ice cream, while hugging the unsuspecting customers at a health food store. 

Sadly, the average person walking into ScotiaBank isn’t aware that your local branch has more in common with the WalMart junk food aisle than it does with the Dairy and Produce section.

The bank makes more money selling candy than they make selling fruits and vegetables.  So what do you think they sell?

Of course, you can always find some 90 year old geriatric who credits his longevity with an hourly cigarette, four beers a day, and an aversion to exercise.  But can you really be that guy?

Let’s just use the actively managed Canadian mutual funds offered by ScotiaBank as an example.

These funds invest in Canadian stocks.  They have really smart fund managers at the helm who buy and sell Canadian companies…trying to gain an edge for their investors.

If the markets get too expensive, sometimes they sell some of their stocks.  If there’s dire economic news on the horizon, sometimes they do the same.  Their job, as the sales pitch goes, is to maximize your wealth potential, while minimizing risks.

Here’s what the bank wants its customers to assume:

The past ten years have seen ample opportunities for such fund managers to take advantage of stock swings.  During the financial crisis of 2008/2009, these experts sold stocks before the markets fell.  After all, with their pulses on the economy, they have the skill to do so.

And if they see some new, potentially incredible stocks that the average person hasn’t identified yet, they can scoop some of those stocks for their fund.

It all makes sense, in theory.  But your odds of living to 100 on two packs of cigarettes a day are about as good as their forecasting and trading ability.

Unfortunately, Scotiabank’s fund managers have no such skills.  And the bank charges its unsuspecting clients hidden fees that erode their clients’ potential returns, while making bank shareholders rich.

Ten years ago, let’s imagine that you decided to open your own mutual fund.  You collected money from friends and family members, and because you knew nothing about stocks, you just decided to buy every stock on the Toronto Stock Exchange.

You weren’t skilled enough to pick stock winners.  Nor were you skilled enough to know where the markets were going to go over the next year, five years or ten years.  You weren’t skilled enough to know that the markets were going to get hammered in 2008/2009 and you weren’t adroit enough to avoid stocks that had ominous looking futures.  You just bought every stock on the Toronto Stock Market.

However, you would have had a huge advantage:  a collection of fruits and vegetables, with no sugar, fat or arsenic added.  Sure, some of those veggies may have rotted.  But with no additional preservatives, you would have beaten ScotiaBank’s fund managers so badly that they’d hide their heads in perpetual shame if the truth were ever nationally broadcasted.

How did the high paid folks at ScotiaBank’s Canadian stock mutual funds do over the past decade?

According to the data at www.Globefund.com, every single one of ScotiaBank’s funds lost to the Canadian stock market index over the past decade.

All of them?  Yep!  Every single one.

The bank disappointed its mutual fund investors, as has TD Bank, CIBC, The Royal Bank of Canada and the Bank of Montreal.

Each of these banks share the same conflicts of interest.  And it hurts the investment returns of hard-working Canadians.

For kicks, let’s elaborate on our former assumption that you bought every Canadian stock on the Canadian market, ten years ago. 

Now let’s compare how you would have performed, compared to the pros at ScotiaBank.

It’s the ten year chart that I’d like you to focus on.   The Canadian stock index would have turned $10,000 into $23,275 over the past ten years.  And ScotiaBank’s Canadian income fund would have turned the same $10,000 into just $16,697.  Check out this screen shot below:

I’m going to take you through EVERY SINGLE ONE of ScotiaBank’s Canadian stock market mutual funds to show you how poorly they have performed, relative to the Canadian stock index, over the past decade.  Look at each fund’s total return on the respective charts below.  You’ll see, in each case, the ten year return of the Canadian stock market outperforming the return of each, respective ScotiaBank Canadian stock fund.

In the world of investing, the Organic Dairy and Organic Produce are represented by a colourful display of index funds:  a green bond index; a darker green Canadian stock index; and a purple international stock index. 

I’ll show you how to open accounts of such indexes in the final instalment of this series.

Doing so will keep the junk food out of your diet.

To read more, buy one of Amazon’s top ranked Personal Finance books, Millionaire Teacher. 

Continue reading »]]>

I’ll admit that I was pretty sceptical.

We sat on a giant, open air restaurant patio, surrounded by lush tropical greenery as they explained that dental work in Thailand was much cheaper than it is in the U.S. They had boarded an airplane, flew to Chiang Mai, had their teeth fixed, and would fly back to New York after a week of beachside R&R. Total cost, including dental work and the flight? Less than a visit to a New York dentist.

Read more:

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© AssetBuilder

Two years ago I lay on a sofa, as a new age “hands on” healer stood over me.

I was dying, she moaned, as if getting the word from some divine source in the couch. And my only salvation? To visit her as often as possible, for $175 a session.

She knew that I had bone cancer. I had told her when we first met. A friend of mine had hooked us up and I wanted to be polite, so I went.

Click to keep reading

Continue reading »]]> On September 11, 2006 I spoke to a group of teachers at Singapore American School about investing. 

I created a hypothetical account with $200,000, and I promised to track that account and report on its results.

With no money added, that $200,000 account would be worth $250,549.25 by Friday, January 20, 2012 – gaining $50,549.25.

I echoed, back in 2006, what uncontested academic research suggests:

If we diversify our investments with low cost index funds, we stand a far greater chance of success, compared to a commonly practiced alternative among international schoolteachers:

That alternative, unfortunately, is the act of falling for salesmanship (and high costs) of travelling financial salespeople who make the rounds at international schools, stockpiling clients and new accounts, in exchange for enormous commissions.

There are a few things that investors should never do:

1. Never pay a sales commission to buy an investment product.  These go directly to the salespeople.  Some of my colleagues pay 5.75 percent of everything they invest.  To break even on that money the following year, they have to make 6.1 percent.  That’s not a good deal for investors, but it’s a great deal for the person selling the product.
2. Never buy financial products that penalize you for selling them early.  I’m not talking about a tax penalty here; I’m referring to back end loads—costly fines delivered by your friendly financial company if you sell your funds before a given time period.  These funds are sold by immoral folk (or those who don’t know the damage they’re causing).  Don’t buy them.
3. Never mix investing with insurance.  It’s universally accepted as a bad deal for you, and a great deal for the sales rep. 
4. Never allow an investment advisor to charge you a wrap fee or advisor’s fee to stuff your account with actively managed mutual funds. 

Here are the Vanguard funds that I suggested, back in 2006, with the following allocations:

• 1.  33% in the U.S. stock market index (VTSMX)
• 2.  33% in the International stock market index (VGTSX)
• 3.  33% in the U.S. bond market index (VBMFX)

The concept is quite simple:

Once a year, you check the portfolio’s alignment.  If the stock indexes are worth less than the bond index after one year, then you sell some of your bond index to top up your stock indexes, bringing the account back to the allocation above. I tracked this account using the portfolio tracker at www.smartmoney.com.

As mentioned, the hypothetical $200,000 investment that I used on September 11, 2006, would be worth $250,549.25 on Friday, January 20th, 2012.

That’s a $50,549.25 increase with no money added.

Even simpler, as I suggested in 2006, you could have plopped your money into Vanguard’s Target Retirement 2020 fund. It has a similar allocation as above:  roughly 35% bonds and 65% stocks. Its investment returns would have been very similar to what you see above.  You can check out a chart here.

And there’s a third option for Americans who want to wipe their hands clean of the investment process themselves, while paying a small fee to do it.

A company called Assetbuilder (which I also mentioned at my seminar) manages indexed portfolios for its clients.  And they charge a fraction of what most international financial planners charge.

Assetbuilder’s portfolio #10 has roughly 30% allocated to bonds, with the rest in stocks and REITs. If $200,000 were invested in this portfolio of funds in September, 2006, the gain would be slightly north of $49,000, with no money added.

There’s only one catch:

To open an account with Vanguard or Assetbuilder, you need to be American, and you need to present them with an American address. Assetbuilder has been increasing its number of American expat clients at a rapid pace. They’re easy to deal with, and they understand the challenges faced by American school teachers abroad.

For the record, I write for Assetbuilder, but I am not compensated for my articles, nor do I receive financial remuneration from the company.

Continue reading »]]> Internet-based rumours are suggesting that the top brass at the Bank of Montreal recently held an important meeting. 

How were they going to deal with Andrew Hallam, the pesky author of Millionaire Teacher?

It was only a matter of time, they figured, before Hallam embarrassed their bank by revealing how much money the Bank of Montreal was making off the backs of honest, hard-working Canadians. 

Hallam was in Canada during November and December, promoting his book.

But after exposing Toronto Dominion Bank, CIBC, and the Royal Bank of Canada, friends suggested that he enter a witness protection program—especially after his CBC radio interview.

Undaunted, Hallam fled to Singapore where he trains under Jason Bourne.  And he files reports, such as the one you’re about to read below:

The Bank of Montreal NB Balanced Fund

BMO sells a balanced mutual fund comprising Canadian stocks (55.84% of the fund), Canadian bonds (39.25%) and cash (4.91%)

Asset Allocation December 31, 2011

Two certified financial analysts run this fund.  Their job is to carefully select stocks and bonds…trading them when necessary to attain a strong return.

If you had invested $10,000 in this fund in January 2002, it would be worth $15,468 by January 13, 2012.

Is that good?  BMO would like you to think so.

But the blokes running the fund would have had more success if they had tossed three hundred darts at the stock and bond listings, bought the dart-selected stocks and bonds, then fled the country to join some hippy squatters in a London Warehouse. 

They could have collected their huge BMO pay checks from a British post office box, staged a life of penury, while enacting a scene from George Orwell’s Down and Out in Paris and London.  Penning their experience in a book would have shed light on the world’s impoverished.  And the investors in their mutual fund would have benefitted from their absence.

The next generation of young investors will (we hope) learn that expensive actively managed mutual funds (such as those sold at the Canadian banks) are great for our banks, but not so great for us.  One such example is little Tyler Benn.

Seven year old Tyler Benn can squash the investment returns of the average investment professional—and he knows it.  He owns a balanced account of “Insect” Funds which he set up with help from his exiled uncle.  Tyler can beat the fund managers at the Bank of Montreal, but he struggles (or pretends to struggle) with the word “index”.

If $10,000 were invested in Tyler’s “Insect” funds 10 years ago, in the same allocation as the BMO NB Balanced Fund, the account would be worth $17,896 by January 13, 2012.

Let’s juxtapose the two results:

You can see that a combination of “Insect” funds would have easily beaten the returns of the BMO NB Balanced Fund over the past decade, with the indexes coming out 15.6% ahead, overall.

Over an investment lifetime, such a staggering underperformance by the bank’s balanced fund managers could be staggering.

BMO’s balanced fund averaged 4.45% per year, while the combination of indexes averaged 5.99% annually.

If those performance rates were to continue, check out the difference over 40 years:

• $10,000 making 4.45% for 40 years = $57,060
• $10,000 making 5.99% for 40 years = $102,469

How Could These Fund Managers Have Done So Poorly?

 When stocks fell (as they did in 2008/2009) these guys should have rebalanced their portfolio.  After all, if the stock markets dropped, and if these guys are supposed to keep roughly 55% of the fund’s money in stocks, then these chaps would have been selling off some bonds to add to their stocks.

Then, when stocks soared in late 2009-2010, these fund managers would have been lightening up on stocks to buy bonds, just to keep their balanced alignment between stocks and bonds.

Such rebalancing in a volatile market (such as what we’ve experienced over the past few years) would have seen a dramatic juice to the returns of their fund.  And it’s not rocket science.  A balanced portfolio is meant to keep a set allocation towards stocks and a set allocation towards bonds.  When the markets shift that allocation, adjustments are needed.

But I don’t think these guys rebalanced.  If they had, their fund would have performed better. 

Three Other Reasons For Their Poor Performance:

1. The bank profits handsomely from the 1.85% annual fee that it charges this fund’s investors.  This is a tough albatross to overcome.
2. The fund managers incur additional expenses when they trade stocks and bonds.  This comes out of investors’ pockets, but isn’t counted as part of the MER (expense ratio for the fund).  If these guys were holed up in a London warehouse for a decade, they wouldn’t have incurred these charges.
3. Fund managers are human.  Their fear and greed often prevents them from making rational decisions.  For example, they may have sold stocks when stocks were falling in 2008/2009.  And they may have bought stocks when they were rising in late 2009.

Is this balanced fund worse than those offered by the other Big 5 Canadian banks?

Not really.

Each of Canada’s Big 5 banks has its flagship balanced fund.  Of the funds that have existed for at least 10 years, how many of them beat a low cost, balanced, indexed alternative?  None.

Check it out here.

How about BMO’s other actively managed funds?  Have some of them beaten their counterpart indexes? 

Of course, some of them will.  But buying an actively managed fund based on its strong historical performance is one of the worst things an investor can do.  Generally, funds that outperform during one period often go on to underperform during the next period.  Nobody has figured out how to consistently choose actively managed mutual funds that will beat their counterpart indexes.

There’s only one reliable indicator of superior future performance:  cost.

The cheaper the fund, the higher the odds are of future success.

And the cheapest funds are…

“Insect” Funds.

How About the Bank of Montreal’s other funds?

If their fund managers had any skill at all, it would prove itself in their home market, with Canadian stocks.

BMO sells three Canadian stock market mutual funds, based on the funds tracked at www.globefund.com

1.  BMO NB Canadian Stock Selection

The term “Stock selection” assumes that the stocks within this fund are carefully researched.  But over the past decade, this fund has underperformed the average Canadian stock.  So much for their careful selections. 

In fact, if these fund managers brought hammocks to work ten years ago, bought every stock on the Toronto stock exchange, fell asleep for a decade and woke up, they would have been pretty pleased with their “performance”, even after charging the bank’s customers a 1.9% annual fee for their work.  By staying awake, they did a lot worse.

BMO NB Canadian Stock Selection:  $10,000 invested in January 2002 turned into $14,898 by January 13, 2012

TD e-Series Cdn index:  $10,000 invested in January 2002 turned into $19,671 by January 13, 2012

2.  BMO GDN Canadian Large Cap Fund

After seeing the results of the BMO NB Canadian Stock Selection Fund, the managers of the BMO GDN Canadian Large Cap Fund may be asking themselves an interesting question.  Would we have served Canadian investors better if we had never come to work?  The answer to that question is, yes.

BMO GDN Cdn Large Cap Equity:  $10,000 invested in January 2002 turned into $17,855 by January 13, 2012

TD e-Series Cdn index:  $10,000 invested in January 2002 turned into $19,671 by January 13, 2012

3.  BMO Canadian Equity Class

This is a relatively new fund, launched in October 2004.  But these fund managers are already considering selecting stocks based on horoscope readings.  Whatever they’ve been doing so far hasn’t been working.

BMO Canadian Equity Class:  $10,000 invested in October 2004 turned into $14,121 by January 13, 2012

TD e-Series Cdn index:  $10,000 invested in October 2004 turned into $16,209 by January 13, 2012

Andrew Hallam currently resides in a Singaporean cave… in the jungle… where there are big snakes, wild boars and packs of monkeys with a special taste for bank-hired mercenaries.

Jason Bourne is his neighbour.

To read more about index fund investing, check out his book, Millionaire Teacher.

It’s a thrilla, written near Manila.

Continue reading »]]> Shiral Tobin, of CBC radio, recently interviewed me about investments and money. 

I was thrilled to explain (on national radio) about the excessive fees handed out to unsuspecting Canadian investors.  The Big 5 banks hold the bulk of Canadian mutual fund business.  They reap the rewards, while investors pay the hidden piper.

Close friends suggest, only half jokingly, that I should watch my back. 

I suppose the risk depends on my book’s success.  If Millionaire Teacher keeps selling well, and if I’m suddenly found face down on a muddy trail, then at least there’s hope for Michael Moore.  He could make another movie.

If somebody makes an action film instead, I want it known that Daniel Craig has to play me.

And Michael Moore, if you’re reading this, nobody has to die first.

Check out my CBC Radio interview.  

Continue reading »]]>

© AssetBuilder

When I was a kid, Tom Fitzgerald’s The Great Brain, was one of my favourite book series.

The main character was a boy genius growing up in Utah during the late 1800s. He could solve nearly any problem.

He once strategized how to find two boys lost in a cave network; another time, he taught a young, victimized Greek immigrant how to whip the schoolyard bully; and he wasn’t above using his powers of observation and psychology to occasionally seek profits.

Read the article:

Continue reading »]]> Benjamin Franklin famously quipped that a penny saved is a penny earned. 

But he was only half right.  We pay taxes on our earnings, so $1 saved is more like $1.33 earned (assuming a 25 percent tax bracket). 

As I mention in my book, Millionaire Teacher, one of the best ways to save money is to collect receipts for everything you buy.  At the end of the day, write down your itemized costs in a spending diary (electronic or otherwise). 

After doing this for a couple of months, most people are amazed at how much money they’re spending.

And because they write it down, they start feeling accountable; they start cutting back by differentiating between their wants, their needs and their wastes.

 They start getting answers to the following questions:

• How much am I spending on coffee at Starbucks?
• How much did I spend on junk food this month?
• How much did I spend on gas for the car?
• How much am I spending on the family’s clothing?
• How much am I spending at restaurants?
• How much am I spending on impulse purchases?

 Just remember to write down everything. 

You’ll end up spending less, probably saving $100 a month or more.  And that $100 a month could be equivalent to a $133 monthly salary bonus.  Multiplied by 12 months, that’s $1,596 per year.

 Shopping Tips

• Limit your shopping for clothes and shoes to two or three times a year while taking advantage of discount retailers like T.J. Maxx, Marshalls or their Canadian counterpart, Winners.  My wife and I shop for brand name clothing once or twice a year.  If we save roughly $750 on shoes and clothing each year (it’s easy to do at the discounters) that’s equivalent to an annual wage bonus of $1000 or more.  Fewer trips to the mall also mean lower fuel costs for your car.  And it’s better for the environment.

•  Take advantage of “after season” sales for items like Christmas cards, wrapping paper, spring/summer/winter clothing and upcoming birthday presents.  The best time to get a great winter coat, for example, is at the tail-end of winter.  The best time to get a bathing suit is when the summer season fades.  Retailers are hungry to slash prices as they make room for next season’s products.  It won’t be difficult to save 50 percent off such items, if you shop for them at the right time of year.  Again, this could be equivalent to a further $1000 annual salary bonus.

•  If you’re buying a new television, discounters such as Best Buy can be great options.  But don’t forget to try your hand at bargaining.  Go with a friend (or more than one) who would also like to make a big ticket purchase or two.  You’ll have more bargaining power if you’re buying more.  Ask, for example, if you can get that $600 television for $550.  You’ll probably get lucky.  Remember that $50 saved could be more than $66 “earned”.

•  We all know people who feel compelled to buy the latest and greatest tech products: the new iphone; the latest television; the new ipad or laptop.  If you know somebody who’s upgrading a product (these people aren’t hard to find!) ask them what they want for the product they’re replacing.  You might be surprised how cheaply they’ll let those items go—especially after they receive their credit card bills. 

•  If you notice a sale on the non-perishable food items you regularly buy at the supermarket, then buy as many of them as you can.  This can save you hundreds of dollars a year on groceries.

 Other tips

•  Turn down the thermostat

 Wearing a pair of winter slippers can be like increasing the room temperature by 3 degrees.  And according to Bill Prindle, deputy director for the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy, turning down the thermostat 3-4 degrees can save 10 percent off your heating bill.  If you turn down the temperature another 10 degrees at night, and when you leave for work in the morning, you could end up saving 15 percent.

 That could add up to a $200 savings each winter, which could be equivalent to a wage bonus of $270 dollars or more.

•  Driving

  When driving, you could end up saving a combined 10 percent in fuel costs if you do the following:

• Accelerate smoothly, instead of stomping on the gas. 
• Stick to the speed limit.  Wind resistance has the greatest impact on a car’s efficiency.  The faster you go, the more fuel you burn.
• Limit your use of air conditioning to increase your fuel economy.
• Ensure that your tires are always set at the right pressure.  If you’ve ever ridden a bicycle with slightly deflated tires, you’ll recognize how much more energy this takes.
• If your car has a roof rack, and you’re not using it, make sure you remove it.  Doing so will increase your car’s aerodynamics, furthering your fuel economy.

By decreasing your fuel consumption by 10 percent, your car could (for example) travel at 30 miles per gallon, instead of 27.5 miles per gallon.  If you drive 15,000 miles in a year, this could be saving of $150 a year—equivalent to a salary increase of $200 or more.

Seemingly small daily savings can make huge differences.  Write down what you spend, follow some of the strategies above, and you’ll likely save thousands of dollars a year.

 Applying the savings towards extra mortgage payments (or credit card debts, if you carry a balance) would have a compounding effect.  You could end up saving tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands a year.

If you’re already debt free (or paying just a small mortgage) then you can put that saved money to work in the stock or bond markets—or perhaps in a carefully selected, positive cash flow rental.

Small changes can amount to huge differences.

Continue reading »]]> I don’t own any individual stocks in my investment portfolio. 

Frankly, I believe that a rebalanced portfolio of indexes, over my lifetime, will beat the aggregate returns of a stock portfolio that I might bust my butt to compile.  Investing has never been “fun” for me.  I’m pretty dispassionate about it, and I’ve been that way for a long time now.

If I live another 45 years (I’d be 86 years old) then I’d have money in the markets for a very long time.  As an individual stock picker, I might beat an indexed portfolio for a few years, perhaps even for a decade or so, if I’m lucky.  But the odds of maintaining an index-beating advantage are lean.

That said, I do run an investment club that has had a lucky run for more than a decade.  Our returns have made those of most professional investors look silly, in comparison.  In 2008, I published a MoneySense magazine article outlining our success, and we’ve continued to do well.

From October 1999 to December 31, 2011 the 3M investment club has averaged a compounding average return of 7.5 percent per year.

In 2011, the investment club made 2.1 percent, including dividends.

On a dollar weighted basis, the S&P 500 index returned 0.5 percent.

To be clear, we don’t select stocks based on dividend records.  Although I believe that can be a fine strategy, it doesn’t count as one of our tenets.  I did outline our stock picking strategy in my book, Millionaire Teacher, but I insisted, in the book, that investors shouldn’t keep any more than 10 percent of their portfolios in individual stocks.  Indexing a portfolio over a lifetime has a far greater chance of long term success.

 We don’t typically trade stocks.

We’re opportunists who take advantage of great businesses when they’re struggling, or when the markets are low.  No, we’re not “market timers”.  We’re more like security analysts.  If we think a great stock is selling at a price that makes sound business sense, then we buy it.

And if the price falls further, and dismal news about our stock accompanies that price drop (or acts as its downward catalyst) we often buy more shares.

Our top performer this year is a case in point.  We bought Pfizer shares when nobody seemed to want them.  Including dividends, we’re up 34 percent on the shares.

It took plenty of courage, of course.  We felt that buying Pfizer was a sound move, so we continued to load up on the shares that so many others shunned.  Currently, Pfizer makes up 13.9 percent of our portfolio.

You can see the portfolio below, and the performance of each stock over 2011, not including dividends.

If you’re curious as to why we hold two international indexes (VEA and EFA) the story isn’t likely to impress.  We started out with EFA, found that VEA was cheaper, added fresh money to VEA and were simply too lazy to trade our EFA shares for VEA.

Investment Performance (using prices from market close for 12/30/2011)

Continue reading »]]> While watching yesterday’s Time Square New Year celebration, a Facebook survey revealed the top 10 New Year’s resolutions. 

 Number 2 was no surprise—losing weight.

But the number 1 resolution surprised me: saving more money.

My publisher at John Wiley & Sons claims that January is a big month for personal finance books, as many people start their “New Year, New Me” personal campaigns to strengthen their finances.  With the recent economic crisis and the recession, it does appear (if the Facebook survey is an indication) that people are hungrier than ever to get their financial ducks in line.

As I’m writing this, the only Personal Finance book in the top 10 for both Amazon USA and Amazon Canada is the book written by little ol me:  Millionaire Teacher.

My biggest risk, when writing Millionaire Teacher, seems to be paying off.  I went international.

I tried to hit an American audience, and I’ll be outlining some of my book’s finance tips on CNN Television’s Your Bottom Line, with Christine Romans, next Saturday.

And the book reached a Canadian audience as well, which you can sample on Calgary Today’s QR77 Radio, where I’ll be speaking at 2:30pm Pacific Time on January 2, 2012.

Although my book’s timeless investment lessons are the same regardless of the country you live in, I wanted to specify exactly how Americans, Canadians, Australians or Singaporeans could utilize these lessons with brokerages they could use.

Perhaps no other Personal Finance book on the market has done that.

 Millionaire Teacher is the only Top 10 investment book transcending Amazon’s charts in Canada and the United States.

 I’ve had huge support as well.

The latest comes from Tradestreaming’s Zack Miller who named Millionaire Teacher the Best Personal Finance book of 2011.

And of course, Scott Burns continues to sing my book’s praises.  Here’s the legendary finance writer’s review in the Seattle Times, for January 2, 2012.

Everyone who reads this book, I believe, can become a Millionaire “Teacher” if they pass on what they learn.  The title, of course, is a double entendre.

We can all help others reach their financial resolutions for 2012.

Have a great year everyone!

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My brother was a professional soccer player.

Today, he’s grooming his fifteen year old to earn a soccer scholarship.

That’s the first goal, and my brother is doing just about everything he can to give his son’s career a push in the right direction.

 If he helps him enough, his son might be as good as his father, or better. “With me in his corner,” says my brother, “Niklus could end up playing professionally.”

But the competition is tougher than it used to be…

…he explains.