Income trust conversions and RRSPs

On January 1, 2011 there will be a slew of Canadian income trusts that will be converting to corporations. In addition to these, all other income trusts that are not related to real estate will have their distributions taxed. Either way, the dividends or distributions will be considered eligible dividend income for a Canadian investor.

This means that for those investors that have these instruments in an RRSP that what was previously given off as income will now be heavily favoured with respect to taxation, and will be relinquishing the tax benefit by keeping these securities. The obvious action would be to swap these securities with equivalent cash at the beginning of 2011. You can then populate the RRSP by purchasing the relevant income-bearing securities when the market timing is convenient.

A middle-income bracket investor in BC (between $41k and $72k) that is able to shift $1,000 of dividend income from the RRSP to a non-registered account, and swapping into the RRSP $1,000 of straight income will be saving approximately $284.10 at tax time.

It is worth thinking about this procedure throughout the second half of 2010 and see if one can purchase income-bearing instruments if/when the market conditions are appropriate. It is also a good time to think about portfolio balancing.

What is making life difficult for most income investors is that income investing (such as going for dividends or securities with larger-than-GIC yields such as preferred shares) is coming back in vogue with the retail investing arm. Such securities are being purchased without consideration of underlying value in the company’s ability to pay such income. An example would be the equity of Rio-Can, which is the largest Canadian REIT; although I believe their income payouts (6.88% on a $20.05 unit price at present) is stable, in terms of valuation, investors are purchasing something that appears to be more than fully valued and will likely not provide material upside on income payouts.

If/when the debt market seize up again, such securities will look significantly more attractive than they are today. Chasing yield when the going is good involves much more risk than chasing yields in the middle of a crisis.

Why RESPs are not a popular product

I extensively analyzed RESP’s in an earlier post, coming to the conclusion that a person is likely better to wait until the last moment that they are convinced their children will be heading to upper-level education before opening one.

The Globe and Mail is reporting how RESPs are having a rather lacking participation rate and goes into detail why this may be the case. I believe the explanation is simpler than this, and it boils down to two reasons:

1. People do not have disposable income to invest in an RESP, and are choosing to allocate it elsewhere for more immediate priorities;
2. Opening up an RESP leads to potential losses, and people would not want to lose money on their children’s education fund compared to their own investments – ergo, they will be sticking to extremely safe fixed-income products, and given the interest rates available, it is not really worth it at the moment.

There are plenty of scholarship funds out there that try to prey on people that fall under category #2; unfortunately for those that read the fine print, they will likely be throwing away their money on these conceived structured products that are designed to enrich the scholarship fund managers.

The government is trying to promote RESPs to lower income individuals by offering significant incentives to putting money in them. For example, if you earn less than $40,970 in a year, you will qualify for the Canada Learning Bond, which is a “free” $500 plus $100/year that your income is below that level into the RESP. If your income is less than $38,832/year, your contributions will be eligible for a 40% match by the government for the Canada Education Savings Grant, as opposed to the 30% or 20% brackets if you make more income.

Many lower income individuals are usually too busy working to pay attention to any of this and thus will not be taking advantage of money of these benefits. This is even assuming they are not falling under category #1, mainly that they do not have enough disposable income to be thinking about RESPs for their children.

Investment Vacation Mode

I have still been somewhat on investment vacation mode – I have not been making any portfolio alterations, and have been letting time pass by.

It is a very, very, very important concept in investing that decision be made with the fullest of convictions, after research. It is usually a good way to lose money to “force” trades, or to try to reduce the cash balance to zero. When you see cash earn a short-term return of 2% sitting in an account, it is frustrating to know that you could invest it, minimally, in some preferred shares that yield 6.5%, but what inevitably happens is that when you want to utilize this cash, you will take a capital loss selling your preferred shares.

I think a lot of retail investors out there are chasing yield and are shying away from non-income bearing equity. You will continue to see inflows in bond and income funds, while equity will be shunned. This is something I will be eyeing a little more closely in terms of taking advantage of the matter.

The one huge advantage of cash is that it retains its principal value and is completely liquid to do whatever you want with it when the opportunity arises. Right now I am just not finding much in the way of opportunity, and hence, I wait patiently and enjoy the Canadian summer, as short as it is. This makes for boring writing, but boring is better than the alternative – permanent loss of capital.

Choosing the right credit card will save some money

For personal expenditures, some shopping around for a credit card that is aligned with ones’ spending profile will result in some savings. It will not be a life-changing amount, but it will be a perk. Some people like to collect airline miles and some like to collect points in their favourite retailers. As long as you cash in the rewards in a timely fashion, it will typically result in a 1-2% payback compared to the amount of money you spent on the card. In other words if you spend $10,000 a year on a credit card, typically you should be receiving something worth $100-200 had you paid for it in cash.

In light of the fact that credit card processors generally charge merchants over 2% for the privilege of having people use credit cards, they are still profiting, but the price you pay at retail inevitably reflects this premium. Merchants and people are essentially locked into using credit cards given that there is currently no differential payment (i.e. reduced prices for cash purchasers). You have to choose carefully in order to claim back the implied increase costs at retail. If you are not using a credit card that has some sort of “rewards” feature, then you are typically missing on a slight reduction in expenses.

Currently MBNA is offering a credit card that gives you 3% cash back in groceries and gasoline (5% for the first 6 months), and 1% on everything else. They pay it in $50 increments when you have accumulated the necessary credit. I have found this card quite beneficial to my own spending profile, which tends to be concentrated with the gas and grocery types of expenditures. The couple hundred dollars a year savings is certainly better than choosing a method of payment that does not give you a small kickback.

What will be interesting to see is if merchants start offering 2% discounts for cash purchases. The Government of Canada recently enabled this ability for merchants in their Code of Conduct that was adopted earlier this year. Item 5 is the most relevant.

Canadian Tire is the only major retailer that I know of that has some form of this – they give 1% Canadian Tire money for cash purchases. One wonders if other retailers will give point-of-sale discounts for cash purchases.

Bank of Canada raises rates a quarter point

The Bank of Canada, to nobody’s surprise, raised interest rates by 0.25% today. Key parts of their statement:

Economic activity in Canada is unfolding largely as expected, led by government and consumer spending. Housing activity is declining markedly from high levels, consistent with the Bank’s view that policy stimulus resulted in household expenditures being brought forward into late 2009 and early 2010. While employment growth has resumed, business investment appears to be held back by global uncertainties and has yet to recover from its sharp contraction during the recession.

The Bank expects the economic recovery in Canada to be more gradual than it had projected in its April MPR, with growth of 3.5 per cent in 2010, 2.9 per cent in 2011, and 2.2 per cent in 2012. This revision reflects a slightly weaker profile for global economic growth and more modest consumption growth in Canada. The Bank anticipates that business investment and net exports will make a relatively larger contribution to growth.

…

Given the considerable uncertainty surrounding the outlook, any further reduction of monetary stimulus would have to be weighed carefully against domestic and global economic developments.

The take-home message is that growth projections have moderated to a “business as usual” type of economy after the 2008 calamity and the Bank of Canada is reserving all rights to not committing themselves to future rate increases. It is likely the global situation, rather than the domestic situation, will have significant influence over the decision to continue to raising rates.

As of today, the target rate is 0.75%, and I expect a rate of 1.00% by years’ end.

The only implication of this decision is that short-term corporate paper and inter-bank lending rates will correspondingly increase. People with variable rate mortgages will see interest increases, but this will not be affecting the longer-term fixed rate mortgage rates. The other subtle implication for most people is that financial institutions such as ING Direct might be willing to offer better rates on short-term savings and/or short-term GICs.