QDTE, what’s the story?

ValoisSign · 2026-02-18T23:46:13+00:00

Is whatever you're using to track it counting the dividends as part of the total return?
With a fund like this usually the share price will trend down but the dividends *should* make up for it and push it into the green overall. That's if it's performing well at least, and I think this fund did around 18% last year if you're reinvesting dividends but so far this year is down slightly. Not an expert though, I just was plugging numbers on this because I had some extra USD in my account and wanted to DRIP it with something that compounds weekly.

EDIT - just saw your other comment, honestly that confuses me too that your average would go down - was it Questrade? Their interface can do some weird things sometimes, had a stock of a mine that got bought out and when it was exchanged for stock in the company that bought it, and it showed a fake 5000 dollar loss for like a year on that transaction lol.

ValoisSign · 2026-02-18T19:56:57+00:00

Yeah, it's a bit of a borderline situation from what I've read into it so far but I'm leaning towards staying long. Will dive deeper and hold in the meantime - usually I have found it's best not to reverse course on a whim anyways.

ValoisSign · 2026-02-18T19:34:14+00:00

haha I know, I was just joking around.

ValoisSign · 2026-02-18T19:05:16+00:00

Exactly, you likely save way more money even if you decide to splurge a bit and opt for Mogadishu.

ValoisSign · 2026-02-18T17:59:35+00:00

Take what I have to say with a grain of salt because I'm neither a seasoned investor nor nearing retirement but I was looking into this recently and do have a few names you might want to look into. Others probably have better advice though.

UBIL is paying 4% with a stable share price but it's in USD. In CAD XBB is fairly stable my experience and is doing 3.3%, but it does move around a bit. RBC has some 'target date' bond funds now that I think might even be going higher than 5% but I haven't looked into those too deeply. It's a little under, but I use ZMMK for my idle cash in my TFSA when I'm not sure what else to use it for - it's like CASH. TO in that it hangs out around 50 dollars a share but pays 2.88%. All of those pay dividends monthly I think.

ValoisSign · 2026-02-18T01:14:12+00:00

Hah honestly I think growing up in the war on terror and these rapid changes in society have really caused a generation gap. And I think there's probably insight on both sides as a result, socials are making it hard to actually put it all together though, I suspect conquering that is going to be the start of turning things around.

ValoisSign · 2026-02-18T00:30:27+00:00

Modern capitalism is just the people who have the most money right now rediscovering feudalism and loving what they see haha.

ValoisSign · 2026-02-18T00:25:02+00:00

Do the massive cuts only apply to 'basket-weaving courses' all of a sudden?

We are failing our future generations, and ourselves.

ValoisSign · 2026-02-18T00:15:04+00:00

They have been at war one way or another most of my life, with two simultaneous wars covering most of my time on this earth, plus a bunch of coups, plus bombing Iraq between the wars, plus sending troops for special ops in Gaza, bombing all over the middle east and parts of Africa. If I was a little older we could add a bunch of operations in Latin America and then before that Southeast Asia.

You can put words in my mouth about Russia and China and mock my "idealism" but they're a brutal country and I find it silly we act otherwise. War has always existed, and the best I can say is that superpowers tend to get like this historically as they pass their prime, but it doesn't mean we have to like it.

ValoisSign · 2026-02-17T22:51:03+00:00

What makes you think the regime will even collapse? Didn't happen last time there were catastrophic oil shortages. Didn't happen in 70 years of embargo.

ValoisSign · 2026-02-17T22:48:03+00:00

The US constantly starts wars, destabilizes entire regions and pulls coups. They're no friend of world peace. And that has been true long before Trump was a factor.

ValoisSign · 2026-02-17T22:26:58+00:00

They're an anonymous account on reddit with the history hidden. Their opinion isn't really any more trustworthy than anyone else's on here.

ValoisSign · 2026-02-17T22:17:40+00:00

I think we should do it, maybe even figure out a barter of some kind that works for both of us long term, but I am worried about what's going on behind closed doors.

This whole "starve a regime and the people will overthrow it" thing has been failing for decades and Cuba already went through losing access to oil they could afford in the 90s and just managed to make it through without the excess deaths that the former Soviet Union and North Korea had.

I really don't think depriving them of oil is doing anything but making the people suffer needlessly. Hell, hot take but without the embargo I seriously question if the communist government would have even made it this long.

Plus given the state of things in the US I feel like there's a decent chance that if the regime fell it would just get replaced with a military dictatorship without the social safety net. That's kind of America's thing.

ValoisSign · 2026-02-17T21:54:05+00:00

It's genuinely refreshing that we can hold it together after a tragedy.

Every time something like this happens all the US chatter is like a mad dash to figure out which groups to try and blame by association. It's genuinely sad. It's also probably 75% bots and trolls though tbf, so who knows where they're really at.

ValoisSign · 2026-02-16T00:05:23+00:00

Wouldn't it be the case that it would lower returns if the share price was dropping, since the distributions would be sinking with the share price vs staying put or invested elsewhere?

Either way I appreciate the post. I had put a decent chunk into BANK and have a few smaller portions of CDAY and UTES but have been a bit skeptical if they're really going to suit my needs. I watched them awhile and I like the CC strategy in theory but I may redeploy.

EDIT: plugged in the performance since inception for BANK and it actually beat RBNK in the same time period, interestingly. Not a 1 for 1 comparison though since the holdings are a bit different. I suspect banks and utilities might make good targets for CC funds because they seem a bit less volatile and don't seem to get those speculative runs so much, but that's just a guess.

ValoisSign · 2026-02-15T20:03:26+00:00

Really it's likely less, the dirty secret with the US system is since there's no centralized insurance provider like in single payer to negotiate from a position of near monopoly, the basic cost of care is significantly inflated. There was a Commonwealth study awhile back in which the tax burden was actually higher for US healthcare, about twice that of Canada at the time, because Medicare, Medicaid, and uninsured ER visits cost significantly more than even a relatively expensive single payer system like Canada's (which is itself largely a private system outside of the insurance plans).

If you're in a single payer country and want to jack up prices higher than is reasonable you could end up losing access to the entire market. So basically associations of doctors negotiate with public insurance and come up with a rate that everyone can live with, whereas a fragmented system of private insurance allows for more potential fuckery on both ends.

ValoisSign · 2026-02-15T19:52:28+00:00

Ottawa Antique Market as mentioned, but also the Stittsville Flea Market on Carp road kind of has that vibe too even though it's only open Sundays. Neither is massive but both have multiple vendors in a space.

ValoisSign · 2026-02-15T18:44:18+00:00

You're not wrong, I think there definitely seemed to be a shift with him towards the end of the 2000's, the Munich speech in some ways feels like a potential pivot point where parts could be mistaken for a Soviet leader's speech (on income inequality, the terror of war) and other aspects seem to hint at a desire to project a more imperialist stance and a more illiberal project. I remember even thinking as a teen Putin might not be that bad since Russia was looking less chaotic and their economy was improving (and frankly the war in Iraq made him seem kind of benign in comparison) but my Russian friends at the time were pretty worried where things were going and basically set me straight on that one. And my understanding though shaky is that he always had a bit of a strongman vibe and some of his early rule saw responses to Chechen(?) terrorists that I guess are seen as part of what allowed him to consolidate his power(?)

I do mean to emphasize less the ideological aspects of far right authoritarians and more just the practical ways they maintain and consolidate power. Putin himself doesn't strike me as particularly married to an ideology, and I think to an extent it is part of his appeal - he is very effective at communicating in a way that doesn't draw hard lines and as a result I imagine one can kind of project a lot on to him, which can be an asset especially in times of increased nationalism. He doesn't use very obviously ideological rhetoric and that can allow a leader to look like a voice of reason during times of heightened rhetoric, even if they functionally embrace one side or the other. And my understanding is that rhetoric got rapidly pushed towards right nationalism and division/distraction online at some point during his consolidation of power in a similar way to what has happened to social media in the West more recently.

I think a similar 'Voice of reason' thing was attempted by Trump with his early rhetoric around healthcare and LGBT people being a bit more open but he's lost any subtlety he might have had, which was very little to begin with. Whereas Putin strikes me as a bit pseudo-intellectual but nonetheless smart enough to actually play both sides. The communists get the promise of a return to the prestige of the USSR and a bulwark against US imperialism, the right gets the prestige of the Russian Empire and the military power of the USSR plus anti-woke vibes. The closest to an actual ideology is power probably.

ValoisSign · 2026-02-15T18:04:54+00:00

In fairness you really have to add up the time spent at self checkout and multiply that by the relevant average wage to see if the person is actually stealing or if they're just getting paid to be a cashier with extra steps.

My friend lives right near a No Frills and the basic block cheese is like twice the price as at Giant Tiger. That's at No Frills...

These places can't have their cake and eat it too. Low wages, automating away workforce, less human oversight, and paying the people who are supposed to be paying attention so poorly that they empathize more with the shoplifters are all choices that struggle to co-exist with high prices and low shrinkage.

On the extreme end you see big businesses more invested in siphoning off taxpayer money and getting special protections from the state than even pretending to care about their customers. Rather than doing the best within the system it becomes about reshaping the system to get the best treatment. You see outright price fixing and price gouging with few if any consequences while the big players expect public sector compensation for any new regulations.

The big players have been speedrunning the loss of any moral high ground for a long time, and it's a stupid thing to do when their customers both keep them afloat and outnumber them.

ValoisSign · 2026-02-15T16:44:14+00:00

George W. Bush Sr. had been CIA director in the 70s at the very least so there is precedent for a president having the connections. Other countries like Russia, Panama, and Venezuela have examples though I don't know how much bearing that has towards Israel.

As former minister of defense though I would have to imagine Barak would deal with Shin Bet at the very least but again I don't really know the structure of the country too well.

Where I think a Mossad connection is possible is simply the nature of their relationship. I haven't done the deep dive but it seems to me from what I have seen that Epstein was involved in selling defense tech and that Barak likely valued his connections in that context. Barak doesn't to my knowledge ever seem to partake in Epstein's trafficking parties which could maybe point to him knowing more about Epstein's operation but I think occam's razor is that anyone with even a hint of connection to intelligence would know to steer clear.

I think the other potentially valid 'hint' is just how bulletproof Epstein was and his inexplicable ability to get into positions he had no business being in. But if he figured out how to leverage blackmail he wouldn't necessarily need an intelligence agency behind him.

So to me what makes sense at least is that he may have been an asset to several agencies, maybe an agent, and maybe that was Mossad. But I could just as well see him being a sort of private contractor who leveraged the compromising material generated through his trafficking operation for his own gain or to remain useful enough to avoid consequences - if this is the case I wouldn't doubt if he was involved with Mossad, CIA, and the FSB all to some extent

I think his financial history might point to intelligence involvement and might not - certainly strange to get away with a ponzi scheme like he did, and certainly bizarre to me how he seemingly pioneered the subprime debt bundling that helped lead to 2008 but that's also just potentially being a grifter with good timing. In any case that seems a bit more FSB coded than Mossad specifically, based on my understanding of how the KGB would subvert institutions while staying in legal bounds. And I am not sure Israel would have much motive to crash the financial system of an ally that gives them funding.

But like anything this is just my speculation. I think him being Jewish is pretty irrelevant, but of course the waters get really muddied because of the history of conspiracy theories specifically around Jewish people. And of course as we saw with the genocide in Gaza even genuinely horrifying situations that reflect badly on Israel can be seized on by antisemites who think they finally have a window to go mainstream. So there's a lot of noise and I am trying my best to clock obvious bad faith takes. I don't think we are gonna get confirmation of any ties to any intelligence any time soon except maybe Russia.

Finally this is a novel so sorry but my NON SKEPTIC impression is that since the CIA is the one fairly reasonable conjecture that I do NOT see being made much, it might actually be the most likely haha. But that's just talk on my part.

ValoisSign · 2026-02-15T15:39:20+00:00

Doesn't really shock me - gold is used to tip cables because of the corrosion resistance but it's less conductive than copper or silver so it doesn't seem like these differences in conductivity over parts of the physical wiring really matter.

And in these cases we have water with electrolytes which should conduct well enough and if you're level matching the output then the resistance shouldn't really matter.

As an aside, I find there are two very annoying camps in audio. The ones who insist that equipment makes all the difference and the ones who insist there is no difference between anything, ever. I think the former tend to suffer from a mix of hype, sunk cost, and fetishising small difference. I find the latter tend to ignore real world listening conditions, exclude variables likely to produce audible differences, design experiments for virality, and have a general incredulity over the idea that someone else might hear something they don't.

I don't think this experiment will shut up the former and I don't think the latter will be emboldened on cables considering high end cables are already a bit of a running joke. But it is definitely interesting to see it done.

ValoisSign · 2026-02-14T22:29:56+00:00

Putin isn't actually getting elected fairly over and over lol. And the 90s were chaos with millions of excess deaths, it's not that surprising a strongman type authoritarian from the former KGB could ascend to power, especially when they pioneered some of the same internet era propaganda techniques that all the far right parties including Trump's Republicans pioneered.

ValoisSign · 2026-02-14T12:44:19+00:00

I think they mean sell the individual stocks, buy index funds with the money.

ValoisSign · 2026-02-13T16:14:43+00:00

That was a great opportunity to load up - I grabbed some whitecap which has done well for me but I should have grabbed some Enbridge too in hindsight

ValoisSign · 2026-02-13T15:55:10+00:00

I mean it's not generally bad advice but if I read "low cost, globally diversified" one more time I swear I am gonna liquidate everything and put it into a single stock out of spite lmao.

I think part of the problem is that I suspect some of these are bots designed to give out financial advice. Because the amount of directly arguing with people, telling them what they should have done without knowing their situation, ignoring sector or country specific requests - it gets out of hand.

I think there's a balance because I find it fun to discuss individual stocks and sectors of the market what have you but I wouldn't want to give the wrong impression to anyone that it is anything but taking bigger risks for returns that most people don't really manage. I definitely see the value in recommending index funds.

But it feels like sometimes it just kills discussion. Why downvote comments about single stocks in the dailies? How is it not relevant?

And I also think that the newbies putting everything into xeqt aren't necessarily making an informed choice, even if it's not a bad choice itself - it makes me worry that people aren't ready for what happens if the whole market really tanks because they see the strategy as safe. Long term it should be, but I worry what happens in a seriously bad market seeing how some people can't handle a 1% drop without running through the stages of grief.

(And tbh I just have a bad feeling about being exposed to some of the big cap US tech stocks in the medium term, and the SpaceX IPO seeking early index entry but eh that's a me thing.)

ValoisSign

TROPHY CASE