Weekend Reading – The loss of John Bogle – an investing legend, bank stocks to buy now, spending $50K in retirement and more #moneystuff

Weekend Reading – The loss of John Bogle – an investing legend, bank stocks to buy now, spending $50K in retirement and more #moneystuff

Welcome to my latest Weekend Reading edition where I share some of my favourite articles from the week that was across the personal finance and investing blogosphere.

Another BIG weekend of football folks…I look forward to it!

Who you got? 

I think I’ll side with network television and cheer for a Patriots vs. Saints Super Bowl (that would be great and must-see-TV) but I wouldn’t be disappointed to see the Chiefs in the big show.

…On a more sober but also celebratory note – the investing world lost a legend this week, arguably the biggest retail investor advocate there ever was – with the passing of John Bogle.

For those of you that don’t know, Mr. Bogle founded Vanguard as an independent, client-owned company in January 1975.

With no outside owners sharing in the profits nor sales commissions, Vanguard was founded on the premise to offer low-cost investment services, including the first index mutual fund – to help investors get wealth eventually – while basically sticking-it to Wall Street and all the active money management fees that goes with it.

In its first year, Vanguard managed $1.7 billion in investors’ assets, in 2018, it was managing $5.1 trillion.

For those devout index investors (and others who buy and hold low-cost index funds today like I do…), it’s hard to explain Bogle’s impact to the investing community.

In his own words:

“It was never my intent to build a colossus. I’m a small-company kind of guy,” he told an audience once.

“Turns out, when you do what’s right for investors, money pours in.”

Maybe his contemporary Warren Buffett said it best in his 2016 annual report:

“If a statue is ever erected to honor the person who has done the most for American investors, the hands-down choice should be Jack Bogle. For decades, Jack has urged investors to invest in ultra-low-cost index funds. In his crusade… Jack was frequently mocked by the investment management industry. Today, however, he has the satisfaction of knowing that he helped millions of investors realize far better returns on their savings than they otherwise would have earned. He is a hero to them and to me.”

Phenomenal praise for a phenomenal mind, businessman, and investor.  Rest in peace.

Here are the articles I wrote this week that got a few thousand pageviews:

Need some guidance or help regarding how to get wealthy eventually?   Me too.  This is why I wrote this post – how to mind your investing behaviours this year.  Check out this post to enter to win a FREE copy of The Behavior Gap by noted author Carl Richards.

I also posted this article about our 2019 financial goals to save $12,000 for our 2020 TFSAs and more.

Enjoy these other articles and we’ll see you here next week!

Mark

I enjoyed what Ben Carlson wrote about diversification – it is almost undefeated.

I’m working on my diversification over time by investing low-cost U.S. ETFs.  You can see some of my favourite ETFs on this page here for income AND growth.

Susan Brunner did some heavy lifting for you, posting detailed review of these bank stocks I intended to buy (and did) for my TFSA.

Here is my article – 5 stocks I’m considering for my TFSA.

Here are Susan’s posts reviewing:

Bank of Nova Scotia (BNS)

TD Bank (TD)

Royal Bank (RY)

Gen Y Money highlighted 6 Canadian Personal Finance Blogs to follow in 2019.   A huge thanks for including yours truly!

For any 40- or 50-something couple aspiring for early retirement – here is a great article to benchmark if you might have enough.  This couple wants to spend $50,000 in retirement.  Did they save enough?

Save, Invest, Prosper!

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Happy Investing! 

Mark

Oh, and blogger Jordan Mass and passionate dividend investor said he’d have a few beers with me and buy them all.  Very nice of him!  🙂   Kidding aside, it’s great to know this site is an inspiration for you.  All the best and thanks for being a fan.