Relax, we’ll tell you how to get there. February 27, 2023 Sign Up | Made in Canada IN THIS ISSUE Estimated read time: 6 mins 📰 No news for Canadians! 🩸 No needles for diabetics! 👵 Retirement for (hopefully) everyone? Wilford Brimley (above), originator of the oft-memed dia-beet-us commercial, would have been encouraged by the rumours out of Apple last week. See below for more. | Liberty Insurance THE WEEK IN MARKETS More Meh Stocks finished lower for the second consecutive week, with the S&P 500 down 2.7% and the TSX down 1.4%. The major indices are still up since Jan. 1 (S&P: +3.4% YTD; TSX: +4.3% YTD). But not-great inflation data (more below) dashed optimism among investors, who now suspect central bankers will hike interest rates through the summer to get prices under control. Adding to the meh news, Walmart and Home Depot cautioned shareholders that consumer spending, though strong, could begin to fall as rate hikes rock everyday people. But it’s probably best not to project any prolonged happiness (or sadness) into the future based on a couple weeks of news or market action, since the bigger picture is apparently taking its time to develop. THE WEEK IN ONE NUMBER 1.3M The approximate number of Canadians blocked from reading national and local news on Google for the next five weeks as the company tests a response to a bill that would require it to pay for republishing content. WHAT HAPPENED LAST WEEK IMPORTANT Another week, another round of inflation numbers. New data showed prices in Canada jumped 5.9% in January compared to a year ago. That’s far from the 2% dream, but it does show rate hikes are working. What it doesn’t do is ease the pain of Canadians who enjoy things like fresh veggies (up 14.7%) or a slice of bread (up 15.5%) with dinner. In case you were starting to feel anything nearing optimism, on Friday we found out that U.S. prices rose faster than they have since June ... leading to a big drop in the stock markets. Ottawa defies DeFi. On the heels of a U.S. crackdown, Canada issued its own strict new crypto rulebook to help avoid the next FTX-style disaster. Decentralized finance companies have until the end of March to show that they are keeping customer cash separate from their own, no longer offering highly leveraged margin trading, and issuing stablecoins (crypto backed by real, don’t-have-to-explain-it-to-Grandma money) only after special approval. Otherwise, voilà la porte. An Apple Watch a day could keep diabetes at bay. The big rumour last week was that Apple is inching closer to technology that would allow its health division to monitor blood sugar through the Apple Watch — an update that would liberate diabetics from daily needles and get a lot more people buying tech bros’ favourite wristwear. Such a jump in demand could help transform Apple’s wearables division from one of its smallest (a mere $18.2 billion in annual revenue, which, nbd, is more than what Air Canada brings in) into a global health-care behemoth. INTERESTING Amazon comes for grocery stores. Again. Just like you did with your new nightly dessert habit, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy blames COVID for the company’s failure to gobble up the massive grocery business (worth $144 billion in Canada alone and $2.2 trillion in the U.S.) these past few years. And he wants another chance. Jassy announced that the company plans to “go big” on brick-and-mortar food sales this year, just as soon as they figure out the best way to destroy all competition do it. Day trading in your TFSA? Beware the CRA. TFSAs were designed to help Canadians save for long-term expenses or retirement, not act as a tax shelter for active traders. But that’s exactly what some retail traders have turned them into. And over the past couple of years, the CRA has started cracking down. If your TFSA is full of short-term trades and massive windfalls, along with congratulating yourself, you should probably slow things down. Too much activity and the CRA will label your TFSA a business — and come for the tax you owe. FROM OUR SPONSOR THE FOMO INDEX by Stacey Woods IMPORTANT 🤖 ChatGPT reportedly co-writes 200+ books on Amazon without even smoking, drinking, whining, or missing deadlines. Source 🎙 Viral video of Joe Rogan interviewing Trudeau is a deepfake, but Rogan still wants to do his own research. Source 👔 Major study concludes that a 4-day work week works better for employers and employees. So let’s not do it. Source 🍺 Buy low, drink up: Stock Exchange-themed bar where prices go up or down to match demand opening in Toronto. Source CRASH & BURN TO THE MOON 🚆 The trains in Spain are in for some real pain: country bought trains that won’t fit through their tunnels. Source 🙄 Don Lemon returns to CNN after learning about how women’s channel-changing muscles actually get stronger with age. Source ✅ Meta to launch Meta Verified, a monthly subscription service to verify who has $12–$15 extra dollars every month. Source 🎈 A $57K Jeff Koons balloon-dog statue is accidently broken at Miami art show, but sadly, hundreds more remain intact. Source WHO CARES WHAT’S UP THIS WEEK It’s Big Bank earnings week in Canada! (starts Tuesday) Reports from Royal Bank of Canada, TD Bank, Bank of Montreal, and friends. Season 3 of “The Mandalorian” premieres. (Wednesday) Pedro Pascal and Baby Yoda: something for everyone. SHARE TLDR WITH FRIENDS 🤝 Put this link in your group chats, in your Slack threads, on a tattoo on your back — whatever works for you! THE BIG IMPORTANT STORY RETIREMENT A Non-Nepo Baby’s Guide to Becoming a Millionaire Here’s a really big number: $1.7 million. According to a recent BMO survey, that’s how much Canadians believe they need to kiss their nine-to-five goodbye and retire to Acapulco or whatnot. Which, again, is a lot of money! So what’s a person to do if their mother was not a Spice Girl or if their father doesn’t run a hedge fund and can give them a high-six-figure fake email job? Well, we did the math to figure out how much you’d have to sock away to hit $1.7 million by retirement, and, turns out, you don’t necessarily have to be a nepotism baby to pull it off (though of course it would help). Read on: If you want to sock away enough money for retirement, investing, rather than sticking your cash in a savings account, is probably the way to go. That’s because, though no future outcome is certain, the stock market has historically grown 7% a year on average, while high-interest savings accounts tend to return 3%. So, going back to our $1.7 million benchmark: you could reach it by contributing $15,700 into a retirement account each year. We calculated that based on a 35-year investment horizon, since that’s how long folks in their early 30s have; we also assumed a $52,000 savings baseline, since that’s about average for that age group. Don’t get us wrong: $15,700 is a lot.* But it’s a lot less than the $31,560 you’d need to contribute annually to hit $1.7 million if you kept all your money in a savings account.** And, as the chart shows, if you saved, rather than invested, $15,700/year, you’d retire with $726,000 — a million short of your goal. No dice. *Our chart accounts for inflation, so you’d actually end up with more than $1.7M when you retire, but you’d have the equivalent of $1.7M in buying power today. **To be sure, there’s a time and place for savings accounts, as we covered last week. And investing carries risk, so know that going in. OK, so what if you’re not 30, as the first chart assumes? And what if you don’t have any savings, much less $52,000? How can you reach $1.7 million then? The answer hinges largely on time. If you’re 25, the power of compounding returns is definitely on your side: if you want to retire at age 65, an annual $14,073 contribution over the next 40 years should get you to $1.7 million. (Congrats!) With every year you put off investing, though, your goal gets a lot more, let’s say, ambitious. The point being: it’s crucial to invest as early as you can, since the money you invest now will earn more over time than money you invest later. And, if you’re panicking about not having enough time or money to save for retirement, remember that how much you need really depends on how much you expect to spend. You can use a retirement calculator to get a better picture of where you are and how much you might need. — Sarah Rieger & Jared Sullivan OTHER VERY GOOD READS 🚍 Ottawa’s Transit Gong Show The dream transit system becomes a nightmare | The Walrus 🛍 The Battle for the Soul of Buy Nothing* How an idealistic community ended up breaking apart | Wired 💰 A Freelancer’s Guide to Saving Like a Corporate Lifer Money strategies for the self-employed | Wealthsimple Magazine 🇺🇦 The Secret Weapons of Ukraine* On the ground with volunteer foreign fighters | Esquire *Article is paywalled, which, yeah, is kind of annoying. But we think good journalism is worth paying for. THE WISDOM OF TWITTER It’s 4:49 p.m. on a Friday and then ... THOUGHTS ON TODAY’S ISSUE? Love it Good So so This week’s newsletter contributors: Brennan Doherty (writer), Devin Gordon (writer), Stacey Woods (writer), Sarah Rieger (news writer), Ambrose Martos (fact checker), Ciara Rickard (copy editor), Sara Black McCulloch (fact checker), Jared Sullivan (senior editor), Peter Martin (senior editor), Kat Angus (managing editor), and Devin Friedman (editor-in-chief). Contributors to this newsletter own stock in Amazon. Wealthsimple Media Inc. 80 Spadina Ave Suite 400 Toronto, ON, M5V 2J4 Replies to this email address are not monitored. Have questions? Visit our Help Centre or submit a request to our Client Support team. PRIVACY POLICY UNSUBSCRIBE TLDR is offered by Wealthsimple Media Inc. and is for informational purposes only. Any views expressed are those of the individual author and/or of Wealthsimple Media Inc., not of Wealthsimple Financial Corp or any of its other subsidiaries or affiliates. The content in TLDR is not investment advice, a recommendation to buy or sell assets or securities, nor any other kind of professional advice. TLDR is not a research report and should not serve as the basis for making investment decisions. Wealthsimple Media Inc. does not endorse any third-party views referenced in this content. When you invest, your money is at risk and it is possible that you may lose some or all of your investment. Past performance is not a guarantee of future results. Historical returns, hypothetical returns, expected returns and images included in this content are for illustrative purposes only. Always research before investing. © 2023 Wealthsimple Media Inc.