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Technology Stocks : JDS Uniphase (JDSU) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jean M. Gauthier who wrote (4856)	1/20/2000 8:21:00 PM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 24042

any advice, apart from Bermuda Well, you could try a Swiss bank. My best advice to my Canadian friends is it do what my father did in 1920. Immigrate!!!

To: Jean M. Gauthier who wrote (4856)	1/21/2000 12:10:00 AM
From: Michael Dean	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 24042

Slightly OT - Mostly for Canadians This is my personal opinion on setting up investments in Canada. It seems to have worked fairly well for me and goes against conventional advice. Conventional advice says to hold conservative investments in your RSP (after all it is your retirement nest-egg) and do your more aggressive stuff outside the RSP so that you could take advantage of 1) Interest income exemption(gone); 2) Lifetime capital gains exemptions (also gone except for certain special cases) 3)Dividend tax credits (still there) and 4) Effective deduction of brokerage costs. As you have found, this unfortunately causes investment decisions to be heavily influenced by taxation consequences. With today's lower brokerage fees, 1), 2) and 4) are now longer significant, and if you are investing in JDSU etc, neither is 3). I have maximized my RSP contributions and use the RSP for my actively traded Canadian stocks and $US (up to 20% book value). Periodically I sell and immediately buy back my Canadian winners (like JDS) which increases Canadian book value and allows me to increase US content (as I mainly invest in technology stocks) but even keeping losers (if I didn't get out in time) to maintain Canadian book value. Outside the RSP, I hold mostly foreign content - Mutual Funds, mostly. These were purchased using a line-of-credit secured by mortgage on house - interest about prime and deductible. These mutual funds are used to secure another line-of-credit, which can be used for additional investments (deductable) or personal use (non-deductible). Lines of credit are used so that if I get too exposed, can sell shares, pay taxes, and then re-borrow when I find new opportunity. In worst case can withdraw from RSP to cover interest on investment loans. You could gradually move towards this sort of setup by making your RSP contributions in kind - i.e. stocks or by selling the stocks, contributing cash then buying in RSP. In my mind, biggest advantages of RSP are ability to defer capital gains taxation and make decisions based on investment criteria only. This is what has worked for me, but you have to make your own choice. Like you, I gave up 50% to ex 9 years ago - set out to make it back. Averaged about 28%-30% per annum since. If you want further details, best do off-thread if you want to send e-mail address, or maybe there is a thread for general Canadian investment topics? Cheers and best of luck, Mike Cheers