Mathew Conniff

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Sherwood Park, AB
Mathew Conniff

I help clients gain clarity when it comes to their financial goals. I do this by getting them organized in all areas of their financial life.

Are you looking for financial clarity?

02/07/2024

Tax time is almost upon us so I wanted to remind everyone of some important upcoming dates to be aware of:

Feb 29 - Last day to make RRSP contributions for 2023 tax year.

Feb 29 - Last day for most employers to provide T4 slips to employees.

Feb 29 - Last day for companies to send out T5 & T5008 slips.

April 30 - Last day to file your taxes for 2023 (provided you or your spouse do not have self-employment income) without a late penalty.

June 17 - Last day to file your taxes for 2023 if you or your spouse have self-employment income without a penalty.

Here is a note regarding T3 slips. These need to be issued no later than 90 days after the end of the trust’s tax year. This means if the end of the trust’s tax year coincides with the calendar year, the deadline would be around the end of March. Not all trusts will have a tax year at the end of the calendar year so make sure you are aware of this.

There are a lot of slips to be aware of during this upcoming time of year. It can be very overwhelming and you want to make sure you have everything before you go to file your taxes. A helpful tip is to make sure you are signed up for CRA My Account. In here there is a tax slips section that you can gather all of your tax slips from all of your respective institutions (provided they have all filed them and on time).

Happy Tax Season!

This information is not intended as investment advice but general financial information. For specific investment advice please see a qualified licensed professional.

01/31/2024

A friendly reminder to everyone that the RRSP contribution deadline for the 2023 tax year is Feb 29 2024. Due to the leap year the deadline this year falls on Feb 29th!

If you are still needing to make a contribution to your RRSP for your 2023 taxes you still have time. This also applies to those who have used their Home Buyers Plan and have to make their annual repayment amount.

This information is not intended as investment advice but general financial information. For specific investment advice please see a qualified licensed professional.

01/24/2024

One of the most important factors in determining if an investment or portfolio is right for you is your time horizon.

Generally speaking, the longer the time horizon the more capacity you have for risk and volatility.

Now that does not mean you have to, or need to, take a riskier investment just because you have a long time horizon. But the impact of the volatility will generally be greater with a shorter time horizon.

For example, let's say you have $10,000 you want to invest and you need it in 20 years from now. Well if you were to have a bad or negative year, you’d have 19 other years to make that loss back. So lots of time to do so.

Now let’s say you need that $10,000 in 4 years from now. If you have one negative year and lose money, that has a much bigger impact on your money because you only have 3 other years left before you need it.

Now this is a very basic and simplified example, there is way more nuance to get into when selecting an investment or a portfolio, but I think it explains the concept well enough.

This is why we must take into consideration our time horizon when looking at our investment selection. The impact can be drastically different, depending on your situation.

I hope that makes sense, if you have any questions feel free to send me a message or drop a comment below.

This information is not intended as financial advice but general financial information. For specific financial advice please see a qualified professional.

01/17/2024

When we talk about our investments we often have to discuss volatility as well, they pretty much go hand in hand.

What I mean by volatility is simply the changes in value of that particular investment or portfolio as it goes up and down.

Typically, the riskier the investment the more volatility we will see.

Now when we talk about volatility, we typically think of it with a negative connotation. We only think about the value going down, when in reality the value going up is also a part of volatility.

Think of volatility like interest, it's good when it's working for you but bad when it's working against you. So the ideal situation is to spend as much time having positive volatility and limit the amount of time with negative volatility.

This is why we diversify our investment portfolios. It allows us to spread out that risk and volatility over a variety of individual investments, industries, geographies, and so forth.
It’s really important to understand the concept of volatility, if you have any questions, drop a comment below.

This information is not intended as financial advice but general financial information. For specific financial advice please see a qualified professional.

01/10/2024

What is an index?

When talking about investments, you may have heard the term index. Well an index measures the performance of the specific thing it is tracking.

For example, the TSX Composite is an index that tracks the Toronto Stock Exchange.

It is not the exchange itself, they are two different things, but it tracks how the exchange is performing, and this is when we hear things like “the TSX is up 1% today.” We know this by tracking the index.

Indexes can be used to track a variety of things. Whether it is a specific stock exchange, like in my last example, or a grouping of other companies, industries, or even commodities.

You have probably heard of the S&P 500. This is an index that tracks the top 500 companies in the US by market capitalization. So it’s not tracking a specific stock market but a specific group of companies.

Another index you may have heard of is the Dow Jones Industrial Average, or just the Dow. This tracks 30 specific companies in the USA.

There are numerous indexes out there that track a variety of different things. You can find an index that tracks just about anything. These indexes are useful tools that help us measure how things are performing in our economy and around the world.

This information is not intended as financial advice but general financial information. For specific financial advice please see a qualified professional.

01/03/2024

We always hear about “the stock market” but what is this? Simply put, a stock market is a place where stocks of publicly listed companies are traded.

A few examples include the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX), the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), the London Stock Exchange, and the NASDAQ.

Publicly listed companies can list their shares on these exchanges, and that allows investors to trade them.

So if you own shares of a publicly listed company, say Tesla, and want to sell them, and there is someone else who wants to buy shares of Tesla, you can do this through the exchange.

Traditionally this was done at a physical location, but nowadays most trading is done electronically.

This information is not intended as financial advice but general financial information. For specific financial advice please see a qualified professional.

07/27/2023

Many people understand how life insurance works but have you heard of critical illness insurance? Do you know what it is? Well in this weeks video I go through it and explain!

If you have any questions send me a message or drop a comment below 👇

This information is not intended as financial advice but general financial information. For specific financial advice please see a qualified professional.

07/20/2023

When it comes to investing, it is important to understand different management styles. It’s important because each style is so different and approaches investments differently.

If you have any questions send me a message or drop a comment below 👇

This information is not intended as financial advice but general financial information. For specific financial advice please see a qualified professional.

07/13/2023

The RRSP is a widely known tool when it comes to investing, but did you know there is a Spousal RRSP? Well you’re in luck, in this video I go through the Spousal RRSP and explain how it works.

If you have any questions send me a message or drop a comment below 👇

This information is not intended as financial advice but general financial information. For specific financial advice please see a qualified professional.

04/20/2023

Taxes can be complicated. There’s also a lot of misconceptions when it comes to taxes. In this weeks video I’m going to explain a common tax misconception.

If you have any questions send me a message or drop a comment below 👇

This information is not intended as financial advice but general financial information. For specific financial advice please see a qualified professional.

Address

Sherwood Park, AB
T8B0B3

Telephone

+17804670056

Website

https://linktr.ee/matfinance

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