I figured that I would finish off the last of the three insurance companies I was comparing, Lets see how Sun Life Financial stacks up against Great West Lifeco and Manulife Financial.

About the company:

Here is Company description of what they do, which can be found on their website here

For some reason I started thinking about an old Canadian Tire commercial which contained the phrase, "A penny saved is a penny earned" and this led me on to the idea of saving money. I have always been an avid money saver. Sometimes I think my wife loathes me because of my insistence to save money now instead of spend it. And I often catch her rolling her eyes when I talk about the merits of compounding interest. In her defense she is very good at saving money as well, and I find myself very fortunate because of this. But, sometimes I know she would like to spend a little more money then what we do. Because of this, we have developed a good system of discussing any big (> $100) purchase that either of us want to make. Once we have discussed it, we either go out and make the purchase, or we don't.

Herein lies a rare long term, speculative recommendation.

Seeing as how I did an analysis on Great-West Lifeco Inc. Last week, I figure I should do Manulife Financial and Sun Life Financial as well to see which one is the best option between the three. So, This week I give you my analsyis on Manulife Financial Corp. (TSE: MFC)

About the company:

Here is Manulife Financial Corps description of what they do, which can be found on their website here

I’ve said it before, I’m no expert when it comes to technical analysis, but I do know a double top when I see one. The chart below is a chart of the weekly closing level of the S&P 500 Index going all the way back to 1970.

Typically, double tops are bearish technical indicators. A classic double top is one where volume during the first peak exceeds volume during the second peak – which happens to be the case here.

When trying to get your portfolio balanced with the right asset allocation and diversification, it can become a little daunting to try and follow companies whose products or services are outside of what you know, a lot of the well known investors all say that you should always “Invest in what you know” but there is a problem with this. What if what you know keeps your portfolio not very well diversified? This means that you are taking on extra risk due to a case where something in your industries goes terribly wrong and your stocks start to come tumbling down. There are a few options, you can take, you can learn about these other industries, and then make informed investing decisions, you can just invest in them and hope all goes well, or you can choose to invest in an ETF (Exchange Traded Fund) or Index fund and let the professionals take care of that part of your portfolio.

Another great week of articles, enjoy the list!

The Money Gardener posted an interseting article called What's your net freedom?.

For investors with ETFs, the Canadian Capitalist talks about Indexing Canadian Equities through XIU / XIC.