Spare Change Education: Recent Episodes
Wenhan Hu
Welcome to Spare Change Education, a finance-related series designed to help you understand how your money works. Each week, the show will explore fundamental concepts in finance, offer practical tips to manage your wealth and suggest additional learning materials for the curious listener. Learn what school doesn't teach you, and put your spare change to work!
Exchange-traded funds (ETFs) have gained much popularity among investors over the past decade. This episode will help you learn what ETFs and indexes are, make the distinction between ETFs, index funds and mutual funds, as well as present the pros and cons of exchange-traded funds. To learn more about the concepts explored in this episode, check out Lawrence Carrel's ETFs for the Long Run.
Learn how biases and mental accounting affect our daily decision-making process as consumers and investors. This episode takes a look at the psychology behind decision-making, biases, mental accounting (budgets, sunk costs, etc.), and our attitudes towards risk. These concepts are explored in-depth in Daniel Kahneman's Thinking, Fast and Slow, and Richard Thaler's Misbehaving.
Peter Lynch's bestseller One Up on Wall Streetintroduces the individual investor to the "invest in what you know" philosophy. Packed with practical advice, Lynch assures that it is possible to beat the pros at their own game. You'll find in this episode an in-depth summary of his book, including a checklist for the individual investor, the 6 types of businesses, how to research a company, common investing mistakes and more.
This episode will help you understand how bonds work, the risks that affect them, the different types of bonds, how bond funds and ETFs work. You'll also find advice for the individual investor. Recommended reading of the episode: The Bond Book by Annette Thau.
Benjamin Graham's The Intelligent Investor is a must-read introduction to value investing. This episode condenses some of my takeaways, including the distinction between investment and speculation, advice for both the defensive and enterprising investors and the margin of safety.
Filing your income taxes or learning how to become more tax-efficient can be a daunting process. In this episode, you'll find the basics about our progressive taxation system, how to benefit from tax credits and deductions, a step-by-step process to filing your taxes, how registered accounts (TFSA and RRSP) work, and more.
An insightful discussion about the economy and the market's reactions to the pandemic in 2020. The episode includes some pointers as to what to look for in a company's financials, business model and management during difficult times, the central bank's response, and a word of caution to help you keep your emotions in check as an investor.
The importance of acquiring financial literacy, what assets and liabilities mean, how discount rates work, and how you should use the time value of money to your advantage. Suggested reading of the episode: The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham