Dehal Investment Partners of Raymond James Ltd.

The TFSA might be the most beloved account in Canada. For a US citizen living here, it can also be a quiet trap.

Here's the problem. The "tax-free" in Tax-Free Savings Account is a Canadian promise. The IRS never signed it. To the US, a TFSA is very likely just a regular taxable account. Which means the growth Canada lets you keep tax-free, the US may tax anyway.

It gets worse on the paperwork. Depending on how the TFSA is structured and what's inside it, the IRS may treat it as a foreign trust. That can drag in some of the most painful forms in the entire US tax code, the kind with penalties that start in the thousands just for filing late. And if you hold Canadian funds or ETFs inside that TFSA, you've now stacked the PFIC problem on top of the trust problem. Two landmines, one account.

So the very account a Canadian is supposed to max out first is often the one a US person in Canada should think hardest about, sometimes before contributing a dollar.

None of this means a US citizen can't build wealth in Canada. It means the account that's obvious for your neighbour may be exactly the wrong first move for you. And the time to find that out is before you fund it, not when the US filing lands.

If you hold US citizenship and a TFSA, this is worth a deliberate look. It's one of the most common and most expensive cross-border blind spots I see.

Follow for plain-language takes on cross-border wealth. Always happy to talk through what US persons in Canada are navigating on accounts like this.

Back on BNN Bloomberg on Friday discussing what's driving markets as we head into Q2 earnings season. 📈

A few key takeaways:

🔹 SK Hynix's US debut reinforces that demand for AI infrastructure remains strong.

🔹 Aritzia delivered outstanding earnings, while MTY's results highlighted the continued K shaped economy with consumers spending very differently across sectors.

🔹 Although the S&P 500 still trades above its historical valuation average, stronger earnings have helped bring valuations down this year. We expect another solid Q2 earnings season.

🔹 Two companies that remain on our radar are Visa and Palo Alto Networks, backed by long term growth trends in digital payments and cybersecurity.

Always a pleasure joining the BNN Bloomberg team to share our market outlook.

CPP: The $1,176 Question Most Canadians Never Ask

Today marks 15 years with Raymond James.

Looking back, it's amazing how much has changed in the markets, yet how little the fundamentals of investing have.

Over the past 15 years, I've had the privilege of guiding clients through some of the most significant market events of our generation. From the European debt crisis and the COVID 19 pandemic to historic inflation, aggressive interest rate hikes, geopolitical uncertainty, and now the AI revolution, every cycle has reinforced the importance of staying disciplined, thinking long term, and keeping emotions out of investment decisions.

What I'm most proud of isn't market calls or portfolio returns. It's the relationships we've built along the way. Earning the trust of clients and their families is something I never take for granted, and it's a responsibility I carry with tremendous gratitude every day.

I'm also incredibly thankful to Raymond James for the support, culture, and independence they've provided over the past 15 years. Their commitment to putting clients first has always aligned with my own philosophy, and it's been a privilege to build my practice alongside such an exceptional firm.

To my clients, colleagues, mentors, and everyone who has been part of this journey, thank you for your trust, encouragement, and friendship.

Fifteen years has been an incredible chapter, and I'm excited for what lies ahead.

Here's to continuing to help clients navigate whatever the markets bring next.

📺 Back on BNN Bloomberg discussing one of the hottest topics in today's market: AI and the wave of high profile IPOs.

Innovation is exciting, but investing requires discipline. Great companies do not always make great investments if valuations run too far ahead of fundamentals.

The conversation focused on why profitability, earnings quality and long term fundamentals still matter, even in the AI era.

As investors, it is important to separate great businesses from great investments. Valuation still matters.

Thanks to the BNN Bloomberg team for having me.

🎥 Full interview available through the link in my bio.

Two inflation prints landed this month, and the gap between them tells you more than either number on its own.

Here's something the financial industry doesn't love to say out loud: a lot of what gets sold to you was built to be sold, not to serve you.

Walk into a big bank and the person across the desk often has a shelf of in-house products to offer, proprietary funds, the institution's own managed solutions. There's nothing illegal about it. But it's worth understanding the incentive. When the products on offer are the bank's own, the recommendation and the manufacturer are the same company. Your interests and theirs are supposed to line up. They don't always.

Then there's the cost layer most people never examine: fees. Many of the mutual funds pushed through bank and large institutional channels carry high embedded fees, management costs, trailing commissions baked into the price, layers you don't see on a statement because they're quietly netted out of your return before you ever see the number. A percentage point or two a year sounds trivial. Over a few decades, compounded, it can quietly cost you a meaningful slice of your retirement.

The uncomfortable truth is that a high-fee product can be excellent for the firm selling it and mediocre for the person holding it. Those aren't contradictions, they're the business model.

So what do you actually do about it? You ask three plain questions, and you don't accept hand-waving:

1. What am I really paying, all-in, including the fees I can't see on the statement?
2. Is this product made by the same firm recommending it, and does that change the incentive?
3. Could I get the same exposure for materially less?

None of this means banks are villains or that every in-house product is bad. It means the burden is on you to know whose interest a recommendation actually serves. The best portfolios I've seen aren't built from whatever was on the shelf that day. They're built around the person, and priced like someone was paying attention.

Follow for more on seeing what your portfolio actually costs you. Always happy to talk through what an independent, fee-aware approach looks like.

The danger there isn't what most people think.

It wasn't a reckless portfolio; it was a concentrated one. The holdings had done well, and like a lot of people, he'd simply never adjusted the mix as his life changed. The allocation that made sense at 45 was still running the show at close to 65.

Here's the danger. Holding all equities in your peak earning years, when you have decades to recover from a downturn, is reasonable. Holding all equities the year before you start drawing income from that portfolio is a different animal entirely. The risk isn't just a bad year. It's a bad year at the wrong time, right as you begin withdrawing. Being forced to sell into a decline to fund your retirement is the single scenario a good plan is built to avoid.

So, we did the unglamorous work. We brought the portfolio's risk back in line with where he actually was in life, adding meaningful fixed income, broadening the diversification, and shifting the emphasis toward capital preservation and dependable income instead of pure growth. The question stopped being "how much can this grow" and became "how do we protect what's here and turn it into a paycheque that lasts."

That's the shift retirement really asks for. Early on, a portfolio's job is to grow. Closer to the finish line, its job is to show up, every month, no matter what the market is doing that quarter.

If you're nearing retirement and your portfolio still looks the way it did fifteen years ago, it may be worth a fresh set of eyes. Not because anything's wrong, but because the right mix at one stage is rarely the right mix at the next.

Follow for more on building portfolios around people, not products. Always happy to talk through what the transition into retirement actually looks like.