IndependentInvestor Newsletter 079C of 10 01 2010 

Today's quote: "Canadian politicians seem to be content fiddling with automatic bank machine fees while almost three-quarters of Canada's private-sector workforce lack adequate pension provisions," he complains. "Maybe, we should close the honourable members' generous pension plans." Keith Ambachtsheer, director of the Rotman International Centre for Pension Management at the University of Toronto.Keith Ambachtsheer

Hello [NAME],

This is our seventy-sixth newsletter on current events and new developments, always from the viewpoint of the independent investor. If you are a new member, click here for general information about our newsletters.

This week welook at the financial markets in 2009 and your portfolio.

We hope you enjoy it.

The financial markets in 2009: how did your portfolio do?

The beginning of a new year is the ideal time for all of us to critically review the performance and composition of our portfolio. In this, the first of two commentaries on the year 2009, we look at how the various financial markets behaved, and the performance that would have been produced by a portfolio created following some admittedly arbitrary criteria but which are nevertheless based on the philosophy of our site. We hope it will encourage you to look at the returns and composition of your own portfolio, and consider what changes might be appropriate. In a subsequent commentary on the year 2009 we'll look more generally at the highlights of the year for a self-investor.

To read the balance of this commentary, please click  here to access the full text on our site.