Articles

It was a dark and stormy night…

Uncertainty and danger lurked around every corner as an eerie orange glow lingered over the street. While elbows were up, they could only remain so for so long, and one misstep could spell disaster.

Millions of retail investors remain underserved by traditional financial advice channels due to high account minimums, excessive fees, poor service, and a lack of trust in the advice being offered. Historically, many turned to their banks for guidance. Unfortunately, bank branch sales personnel—often cynically referred to as "regulated finfluencers"—typically promote only proprietary products, essentially acting as distributors of sponsored content. These products are frequently high-cost, actively-managed mutual funds with embedded sales commissions, creating significant conflicts of interest that regulatory frameworks attempt, but often fail to mitigate.

Many Canadians have been experimenting with Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools, whether it’s a chatbot, like ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity, or it’s an AI-built application like video editors, content creation, audio translation, note-taking apps, etc. It has become a fast-evolving space, and we believe the tools will continue to grow at a rapid pace, but even in these early days of widespread AI, we feel there are many ways to utilize AI as a finance companion.

In terms of net worth, what does it take to be considered rich today? In the HBO series Succession, loosely based on the Murdoch family, naïve Cousin Greg boasts that he expects to inherit $5 million from his grandfather’s will, and he’ll be “golden”. “You can’t do anything with five million,” a wealthy relative tells him. “Five is a nightmare. Can’t retire. Not worth it to work. It will drive someone ‘un poco loco.’”.

In September’s issue of Canadian MoneySaver, I presented a list of eight questions to consider asking your financial advisor, and a basic overview of the sorts of answers you should be looking for. If you haven’t read that article yet, I’d suggest you go back and review it before diving into this one.

On Saturday, September 13, 2025, the Canadian MoneySaver team was excited to take part in The Toronto MoneyShow at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre. This marked our 13th consecutive year attending the event - a tradition we’re always proud to be a part of. This year’s theme, The Great Canadian Money Reset, could not have been more timely. It was reflected throughout the show in engaging sessions on topics including making the case for investing in Canadian Energy, exploring the growing influence of financial influencers, examining where we stand in the current economic cycle, discussing the hot topic of AI, and much more.

While we are typically an optimistic bunch, it is always good to think about the risks that lurk around the corner and understand the implications it may or may not have on our finances and portfolios. Being too focused on the risks can lead to someone simply hiding under the covers and ‘doing nothing’ which is a risk in and of itself, but if we are going to talk about the dangers that are out there, what better time to do it than in October where we embrace our fears and take to the streets dressed as zombies and monsters! We have curated a few spooky charts that should be on Canadian’s minds currently.

I’m in a bit of a bind. I lost my job in late 2023, I just turned 60, and I unfortunately panicked and sold about 80% of my stock portfolio when the tariff wars started. I have always been a successful buy-and-hold investor, but somehow it really felt like this could be a repeat of the financial crisis of 2008/09, and I wanted to avoid losing a lot of money. Luckily, my wife is still gainfully employed, and we own our house outright.

After going through multiple recessions, depressions and big drops in the market do you or your cohorts have a reasonable guess when the next one may occur and what would cause it? The day, month and year it might happen? How big a drop percentage wise? How long will it last? Would AI be able to come up with an answer to this?