Featured Articles

Here is our list of recommended reading for you:

Why does risk matter in investing? Great perspective for all levels of investor knowledge.
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7 Attributes of The Millionaire Next Door: The 7 common denominators among people who successfully build wealth.
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My hours seem to slip away. How can I manage my time better?
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My parents never put their house in order. Great article, with 2 important messages: "My parents never put their house in order. So the death cleaning fell to us." "A loved one wishes to inherit nice things from you. Not all things from you."
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The Truth About Getting Your Neck Cracked: Instagram has made chiropractic neck adjustments more appealing than ever before. But physicians say the maneuver is dangerous.
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Alternative Investments: Big Promises, Questionable Payoffs: Alternative investing has been sold on the promise of a better risk/return tradeoff, but it has underperformed. Great research by Aswath Damodaran explaining why the perpetual underperformance.
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Bonus podcasts:

They Bought Dream Homes in Tulum. Then Came the Nightmare: the dark side of a pandemic-era development spree in Tulum that has left a trail of ripped off investors, millions of dollars in missing cash and even two bodies in its wake.
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The Most Powerful People You’ve Never Heard Of: Just beneath the surface of the global economy, there is a hidden layer of dealmakers for whom war, chaos, and sanctions can be a great business opportunity. The World for Sale helps shine a light on physical commodity traders. Great podcast...so interesting.
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Mark has taken our disparate investments and created a focused portfolio that has seen steady growth. Mark is very proactive, keeping us up to date on all of our financial matters, from investments to estate planning. His explanations are always concise, easy to understand, and engaging. Mark is now helping our 2 sons start investing and teaching them the basics of investing...which we think is so important for our family. I highly recommend Mark Hougen and his team to anyone needing an investment advisor.”

-Brad Macson, VP Operations Total Energy, Calgary, AB

There is never a better time to start investing.
Discover how easy it is to build a portfolio with us.
Call Mark today at (403) 221-0364

Archives

- The Things That Make You Money: "It's not the things you buy and sell that make you money; it's the things you hold." And many other important lessons.
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- The Simon Abundance Index 2025: Earth was 518.4 percent more abundant in 2024 than it was in 1980. Good news happens slowly!
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- Misbehaving in a Volatile Market: we all have Behavioural Biases, and we should be aware of them. Really valuable article.
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- How Raymond James Spends $1B a Year on Tech, With Advisors and Clients in Mind: which is more than all 5 Canadian banks spend on Wealth Management tech combined. One more reason so many top Wealth Management Teams are leaving bank owned firms for INDEPENDENT firms that focus exclusively on wealth management.
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- WestJet owner sells 25 per cent stake to Korean Air and Delta: could be a sign that Onex is looking to get out of the airline business entirely.
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- Investors duped in $300 million Ponzi scheme sue Royal Bank, B.C. financial regulator: yet another real estate/mortgage Ponzi scheme and obvious fraud.
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- Best Cars of the Year: 10 Top Picks of 2025 by Consumer Reports, the gold standard for research and recommendations.
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Bonus podcast:
- The Memecoin Casino: Crypto is a joke. A website making Dogecoin and other memecoins becomes even more unhinged, all while generating small fortunes for foul-mouthed children. Classic Pump & Dump. "Thanks for 20 Bandos."
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- Nearly 900,000 fewer people went to the U.S. in March as cross-border travel plummets: Canadians sending a message.
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- Pure Independence: a simple formula for a pretty nice life is independence plus purpose. From Morgan Housel, our generation's best writer on the Psychology of Money and Investing.
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- Why People Won’t Change Their Mind: People should learn from their mistakes in a rational world, but we do not live in a rational world. A great article by Ben Carlson.
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- Canadians who sold assets based on proposed capital gains tax changes left to deal with the consequences: Amateur hour (again) by the Trudeau government in 2024, with the pain being felt by Canadian tax payers right now.
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- Chart: Which U.S. States Import the Most From Canada and Mexico? Stupidest Trade War ever.
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- The Diabolical World of Phone Scams
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Bonus articles:
- Tired of scrolling? This Calgary club is helping people reconnect in real life.
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- Why I Joined an Intergenerational Housing Experiment in Calgary: a student moved into a retirement home in Calgary to get affordable housing and the seniors get companionship (and tech support).
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- The 30 best Netflix original movies: Always a good debate.
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- If parents struggle to put their phones down, how can we expect our kids to do the same?
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- Protesters target Tesla showrooms in US over Elon Musk’s government cost-cutting.
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- The top rated Fire Extinguishers, Smoke Detectors and Carbon Monoxide Detectors For Your Home: great independent recommendations by the New York Times, and all available in Canada.
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- The real reason it costs so much to go to a concert: we can’t just blame Ticketmaster and scalpers.
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Bonus videos:
- Congratulations Mike Hasinoff (and team) on your truly impressive and award-winning work. It has been 5 years since the Covid 19 pandemic first hit us and the message of your video remains: We are never lost if we can find each other. Take care of yourself. Take care of each other.
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- We are Canadian
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- Addiction Economy: restaurants are smoke-free, but phones are ubiquitous at every meal. Today we spend 70% less time with our friends than we did a decade ago. We're addicted to our phones, and they keep notifying us on average 46 times per day for adults and 237 times per day for teens.
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- There Goes My Hero: a very thoughtful article by the great writer, Ben Carlson.
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- The New Housing Market Premium: yesterday's luxuries have become today's necessities. A new home in 1950 was 983 square feet. In 2023 it was 2230 square feet. And fewer people are living in these homes since families are smaller than they were in the past.
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- Why You Need an Untouchable Day Every Week
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- Michael Lewis: Tobacco, Opioids, Sports Betting: the worst things to impact our society. And again, the regulators are years (maybe decades) behind the evil industries.
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- Good News Stories You Didn’t Click On in 2024: maintaining an accurate perspective on the world takes work—reading this will help.
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- Planning Your Trip: tourists with too little (or outdated) information run out of money, fly home early, and hate the French. Don't let this be you. Plan your trip for success.
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- Intergenerational wealth transfers: Part 2: strategies for gifting while living versus at death
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- 12 Things That Probably Won’t Happen in 2025: Predicting the future is hard.
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- Five costly mistakes to avoid in your 40s for a better retirement
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- New scanning technology at Calgary airport removes need to take out laptops, liquids during screening
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- Money transfer service Wise closed a Canadian customer’s account. It took seven months to return his money. "I felt powerless that an organization without any live touch points can just take $6,500 from me." Wise only responded to his requests to have the funds returned with automated or unsigned e-mails, without providing a customer-service phone number.
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Bonus Podcast:
- Legalizing Sports Gambling Was a Huge Mistake: We hear from recovering gambling addicts and state regulators frustrated with some of the perverse incentives to keep people on a losing streak. Meanwhile, our show’s own producers hope for a VIP night at the concert of the year.
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- Intergenerational wealth transfers: Part 1: The pros and cons of gifting while living versus at death
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- What Are ETA and ETIAS, Europe’s New Visa-Waiver Programs? Canadians will need to have an ETA to enter the UK as of January 8, 2025. Most of the EU will require ETIAS mid-2025.
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- A Message From the Past (Thoughts on Nostalgia): The past wasn't as good as you remember. The present isn't as bad as you think. The future will be better than you anticipate. VERY interesting article !
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- The Surprising Power of Questions: the Surprising Power of Questions...and most importantly, how to ask great questions
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- How Can We Reduce Crime? A relatively small number of people in a relatively small number of places in a relatively small number of circumstances. Researchers also found that violent crime is much more likely to happen at night, on the weekends, during the summer. All of which makes it sound like we could do an awful lot to reduce crime if we just made a concentrated effort to go after the most dangerous people in the most dangerous places.
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- How safe are safety deposit boxes? They're not as protected as you think.
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- A Little Perspective: The world has never been better but it feels like things are getting worse. Let’s look at the data.
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- B.C. man sues RBC after losing $415M on Tesla stock due to bad financial advice. Is this another case of a Bank owned investment firm putting their interests in front of the clients? Hopefully, it goes to trial and the details are made public.
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- TD reaches $70M class-action settlement on broker commissions paid to discount brokers. You cannot get great investment advice at a bank owned firm hawking their own in-house/proprietary products. The incentives are misaligned. That is one of the many reasons so many top wealth advisory teams have left the bank owned investment firms in the past 10 years.
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- OPP warns about new extortion message sent via email.
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- Widow contests husband's will that leaves their Vancouver house to an Italian church. This is Estate Planning 101: get organized and make your intentions clear and known while you are still alive.
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- 15 Ways to Lose Money in the Markets
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- Canada’s Best Affordable Places to Live: Ten cities on the rise where you can still buy a house for less than $700,000
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- The Most Reliable Car Brands, According to Consumer Reports: a lot of surprises
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- Beware of the new “bank investigator” scam: fraudsters are posing as banks, claiming that your bank account has been compromised.
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- Driverless cars may already be safer than human drivers
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- This U.S. couple bought a home in Greece for US$150,000. Here's what happened next
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- The 30 best documentaries on Netflix. Since this list was published, also added to Netflix is the documentary Daughters: four girls prepare to reunite with their fathers through a special dance at a DC jail in a moving documentary about the healing power of love. At the 2024 Sundance Film Festival, Daughters won two awards: Festival Favorite and Audience Choice: U.S. Documentary Competition.
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- The Happiness Paradox: people who are more connected to family, to friends, and to community, are happier and physically healthier than people who are less well connected.
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- The Most Reliable Car Brands: No surprise to see Lexus, Toyota, Porsche, Mazda and BMW. But how about Buick, Chevrolet, MINI, Kia, Jeep and Dodge also making the top 10. The bottom 10 includes Acura, Mercedes-Benz, Infiniti, Volvo, VW, Land Rover and Audi. Ouch!
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- How to Make a “Good” Presentation “Great”
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- How Gen Z, the so-called ‘loneliest generation,’ got its groove back
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- Ranked: The Most Trustworthy News Organizations in 2024
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Bonus video:
- What makes a good life? Lessons from the longest study on happiness. Really worth watching, 12 minutes
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- My 7 Rules for Happiness: especially #5... Stop listening to people who are paid to make you angry.
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- When Losing Your Job Feels Like Losing Your Self
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- Grim Old Days: Let's not romanticize the past: the human experience worldwide was once united by pervasive poverty, limited life choices, and forced labor. The best time ever to be alive, is right now !
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- Bowling, booze and chicken wings: Dad’s send off was as fun as he was.
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- Not Getting Rich Fast Enough: Everyone wants to find the shortcut to wealth and some people will take dangerous risks to find it. Successful investing is generally a boring process. The best way to get rich...is slowly.
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- What’s the difference between Alzheimer’s and dementia?
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- Top 5 regrets people have when they die
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- Why Canadians should head back to Maui
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- Protecting yourself against financial abuse – great resources to share
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- These scammers called almost everyone in Canada — and swindled millions, averaging between $8k and $20k
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- What do phony gold, a Russian godfather and a crypto scam have in common? They all illustrate how Canadian journalists an important role in exposing corporate malfeasance and fraud. Business journalism is often derided as boring. But an independent financial press is fundamental to the efficient functioning of free markets. Reporters are an important check on corporations, analysts and regulators by ensuring a free flow of information that enables ordinary people to make informed investing decisions. The stories are amazing in their scope and audacity.
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- Visualizing the Growth of $100, by Asset Class (1970-2023): Might just be the most important chart to understand the basics for long-term investment success
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- The Two Things Killing Your Ability to Focus
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- Calgary warns of fake parking ticket scam
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- Caitlin Clark's Not-So-Surprising Childhood: for all parents to read
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- True Cost of Owning a Second Home: Great perspective on what is usually an emotional buying decision
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- The News is Making You Miserable: Negativity drives eyeballs
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- What Super Productive People Do Differently
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- How to spot AI-generated deepfake images: We are all going to need to learn this skill
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Bonus Articles: How good news happens slowly, significantly and quietly
- The Simon Abundance Index 2024: measures the relationship between resources and population into a single value
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- 50 Ways the World is Getting Better: incredible perspective
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- The short history of global living conditions and why it matters that we know it: scroll down and review the amazing charts
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