On taking travel for granted, on circling back to places

In Seattle back in 2010

Do you remember the first time that you travelled as an adult?

I sure do.  It was back in the winter of 2010 to 2011 when I went to Canada and travelled all the way from Victoria on Vancouver Island right through to Quebec City, as well as day stop in Seattle which was my first American city.  Most of the time was spent in Vancouver.  I had a big adventure with my bag (and passport and wallet) stolen in Toronto.

Interestingly enough, it would only be five years later where I would later go to North America again – this time living in Vancouver and Toronto and spending one week in Seattle.  And most interesting of all is that I have a pending application for permanent residency in Canada.

I like to circle back on cities and places that I have already been to, to see what has changed and what has stayed the same.  Knowing that I can ‘circle’ back on these places is a bit comforting, I guess, less pressure to run around and going to all the sights in one go.  Cities change all the time, you can live in one city like London for years and there is still something new to see and do.

At the same time, circling back to the places that you have been to puts you in a comfortable position.  You’ve been there, done that.

I feel that I am taking travel in these ‘circling-cities’ for granted, and taking the new experiences for granted.  For example, when I was in Vancouver, I barely went outside the house.  A lot of the time was spent, surprise-surprise, in front of the laptop and typing away at who knows what.  Back then, I was really stressed out juggling a freelance contract that was in a different timezone as well as looking for work-and-a-career-change in a foreign country.  I decided to spend the time on side-projects, not wanting to take on board full-time commitments for 3 to 4 months.

Part of taking things for granted has been due to trying to continue to be a digital nomad, while also maximizing my savings rate as much as possible (with some shopaholic induced fails).

Living in Toronto, I was in a complete frugal-living phase and was determined to set some savings goals and meet it (which I did).  However, I went too overboard with the frugality, leaving very little time to do a lot in and around Ontario other than two trips.  If I wasn’t frugal, I was travelling to the USA with a total of six trips in the time I was living in Canada. Some lessons were learnt and I later noted that there is such a thing as being way-too-frugal.  I felt that I could  have spent more time exploring Canada and Ontario some more while I was there.  I don’t regret taking that many US trips, though, considering the climate that we are in this year.

In Dublin, again, I was taking my time there for granted.  The first reason was that I already travelled throughout Ireland back in 2012.  The second reason why was that I was sick for about half the time, while also starting a new role.  Therefore, the last thing on my mind was to go around exploring Ireland.  Again, there were familiar sights which lends my sense of comfort and familiarity with the place.  Maybe familiarity breeds laziness, perhaps?

Berlin seems quiet different, though I don’t know if it’s because I am living in a completely different culture now or because I have never been to Berlin or perhaps both.  However, I am not really heading out and exploring the city and culture as much as I wanted to.  And now that it’s the beginning of these colder months, the cool spring and summer Berlin that I have first been introduced to is now gone and will be for a long time.  Maybe..just maybe…I should try to find the balance between not taking my situation for granted, to relax a bit more, and not be so fearful and risk-averse of the future?

Trips of note during my 1.5 year stay in Canada


This is another 2016 round-up entry but this entry is more focused on travel.  I also realized that I have been really quiet in keeping up to date with my travel blogging.  I don’t have a personal Facebook or Instagram account and I have steered clear (for the most part) sharing anything remotely personal on Twitter.  In this case, I’m just going to do a round-up post over the past 1.5 years.

Below is a notable list of trips since I moved to Canada (May 2015 to October 2016):

  • New York 1 – for the 2016 fashion week and to catch up with my sister
  • New York 2 – art fairs
  • New York 3 – even more art fairs
  • Boston, Mass – for a conference at MIT
  • Miami, Florida – checking out the art scene, bought a bit of the local art
  • Las Vegas, Nevada – for a conference
  • Seattle, Washington – for a conference
  • Somewhere in Washington state – for the 4th of July celebrations!
  • Waikiki, Hawaii – week-long holiday
  • Vancouver, British Columbia – lived here for a short while
  • Toronto, Ontario – lived here for just over a year
  • Kelowna and Okanagan Valley, British Columbia – checking out the wine region
  • Sun Peaks, British Columbia – holiday
  • Niagara, Ontario – the falls!
  • Wasaga Lake and Simcoe County, Ontario – first time I’ve encountered the great Ontario lakes! And yes there is a beach on this massive lake.
  • Stratford, Ontario – went for a Shakespeare festival and their high street/downtown core reminds me so much of the town that I grew up in!
  • St John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador – all day layover
  • Dublin, Ireland – helloooooo Europe!

I didn’t go to the other main Canadian cities (Ottawa, Montreal, Quebec City) since I have already visited in my first great Canadian trip of 2010-2011.

I was also going to visit Chicago for an art fair and even had my accommodation (not flights) booked, but decided against it.

In the end, it has been an interesting time.  I wish that I was able to experience more of the Canadian lake areas during the spring and summer.  Cottages are a pretty big deal in Canada!

Another activity that I didn’t do was anything to do with snow like skiing.  The last time was in Whistler several years ago and honestly, I haven’t looked back since then.

 

Toronto MoneyShow 2016 – Canadian ETF market, Canadian Roboadvisors, Gold as Plan B and Dark Pool prints

On Friday September 16, I attended the Toronto MoneyShow which seemed to be aimed at various levels of investor experienced and attended to by retail investors, day traders, investment advisors and accredited investors.

This was my first finance related expo and it was very relevant to me.  I know of fintech-type of events more geared towards technologists and entrepreneurs but I was looking for something more towards the investor side.

State of the Canadian ETF market

The first main speaker that I saw was on the current state of the ETF market and the types of ETFs available in Canada.  Very interesting topic as I have not had much exposure with these types of tax efficient, Canadian-focused vehicles deemed to be the modern to the mutual fund.  However, the Canadian ETF is now $100 billion and growing.

The speaker, Jaime Purvis, introduced the notion of a strategic beta ETF.  This is any passively managed index strategy that uses a different methodology from cap-weighing to determine security weight.  Morningstar has a guide on strategic beta.  There were also other weighing strategies that he introduced such as equal weighting, FAFI or fundamental indexing and low volatility.  The best takeaway that I had obtained from the expo was how far ETFs had grown since they were first introduced as an investment vehicle.

Personal finance emails to The Globe and Mail

The next speaker was from The Globe and Mail, a Canadian news media outlet, who recounted about 17,000 emails that he had received as a personal finance writer over 18 years.  I didn’t take away that much from him, however it would be interesting if there was a way to automate the findings in those emails to determine any patterns from it.  For example, is there a linguistic pattern arising that could measure overall sentiment of a particular event?  I know that in social media, there are data mining SaaS that automates and measures sentiment based on tweets.

Gold / GDX

Definitely an interesting panel introducing this precious metal as an investment.

gdx-2332-sept24
State of GDX in 2016 – Data as of 23:32 EDT September 24 2016

The overall sentiment, I found, was that they were bullish on gold investments overall with gold being seen as ‘chaos insurance’ especially in the threat of quantitative failure.

If you want to read more about gold, The Bull and Bear has a digital edition out dedicated to gold which you can read here.

Eight years after our near meltdown in 2008, trust in our politicians, central banks and the intelligentsia have eroded…As such investors are more concerned about the return of their money, rather than the return. Investors beware, better to come up with a Plan B. Gold is everyone’s Plan B.

Active Investment Management 

One of the dedicated sessions that I sat in was on high probability swinging strategies as a swing trader capitalizing on oscillations on the market, analysing price behaviour, a bit about risk management and candle stick charts.  This was a really great panel and spiked my interest, especially when trying to make sense of the world through finding out what is ‘normal’, pattern recognition.  The risk management portion really struck out to me.  I think that there is surely a correlation between expats/nomads and day traders when it comes to risk management.

RoboAdvisors

Having been aware of roboadvisors since early last year, I was very interested to see what the panel can bring.  I am personally not a big fan of the term but it really is about technological innovations in current investment vehicles and in wealth management.  It’s about digital going to the future.

One could determine that roboadvisory services are simply services that utilizes technology to make things more efficient.  The mechanisms could be in algorithm but there is still a component involving human interaction.   While traditionally these types of services have high human touch points, robo advisories could bundle up high human touch with lower human touch for certain areas, or it could even do away with human touch in portfolio management depending on the segment.  I appreciate the ability to innovate bundling offers and I can easily sense a writeup regarding the potentials roboadvisors have with expats.

Roboadvisors enhance the digital experience of how you interact with portfolio management

One of the panel speakers made an interesting note about the difference between the US model (which can be fully digital) and the Canadian model (more correlation with portfolio managers).

Profiting and trading from dark pool prints

This was by far the most interesting part of the day for me at the Toronto MoneyShow.  The presentation was by The Stock Whisperer or Stefanie Kammerman.  LightSpeed Trader has a recorded webinar on how to profit off the dark pool which you can view which has some points from this talk.  I subscribe to her Whisper of the Day which lands in my inbox each morning also.


Please note that these do not count as investment advice whatsoever.  View the LinkedIn post here.

Follow up blog post: Session with a professional coach formulating a personal investment education plan.

Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, Quebec City and the creative industries

Toronto

The walk after we arrived at the Toronto Central Station was possibly the best that I’ve ever had.  It’s a bit surreal having spent the last few days in the Prairies in a train carriage and the following morning walking in the busy financial district in Canada’s largest city.  The bagel and cream cheese that I had was heaven as well… Continue reading Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, Quebec City and the creative industries