Plus: a fix for Toronto traffic? January 20, 2025 Sign Up | View online IN THIS ISSUE 8 min read 🚗 Toronto traffic 🤿 (Under)water wars 🪦 Will writing If the 1983 blockbuster WarGames gets a reboot, it should center not on nuclear war — but cable cutting. Read why below. | MGM THE WEEK IN MARKETS Two interesting things happened last week that underscore modern markets’ yin and yang — that is, the cautiously conventional and the daringly kooky. Thing 1 was investors exhaling at the latest U.S. inflation report, which came in far lower than expected and fuelled big jumps in global markets. Thing 2 was investors stampeding to snap up $TRUMP coins, the newly-launched Trump memecoin, whose market cap quickly hit US$9 billion, making it the 16th most valuable cryptocurrency in the world. Markets are both voting machines, powered by attention and popularity, and weighing machines, powered by fundamentals, like expected future cash flow. The markets’ response to the inflation report was classic weighing-machine behaviour. $TRUMP’s surge, meanwhile, was all voting machine — a demonstration that attention and popularity can have real-world value, especially if you’re going be in the limelight for the next four years. THE WEEK IN ONE NUMBER 135 The number of years Cherry Blossom candies have been made in Canada. Hershey Canada is reportedly discontinuing the retro confection, owing to an ever more competitive candy market. WHAT HAPPENED LAST WEEK IMPORTANT Big Oil is counting on a tariff exemption. Will it get one? Canada is America’s top oil supplier. The U.S. buys something like 4.4 million barrels from us daily. So ever since Donald Trump started threatening to impose across-the-board tariffs last summer, the general assumption has been that he meant everything except oil. Well, last week, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith returned from Mar-a-Lago with a sobering prediction: that oil won’t get a tariff exemption. Canadian oil stocks sank by 2.6% on the news, but shares recovered fast and are still way up over the past month. That brief disruption suggests that (1) the prospect of oil tariffs is indeed spooky for markets but (2) insiders, despite their mini-freak-out, still suspect that Trump is self-interested enough not to slap a levy on Canadian oil, since doing so would drive up gas prices for Americans. Hot take of the week: Canada should mine more. So argued Vancouver-based journalist Vince Beiser on The New Yorker Radio Hour. You’d expect to hear such an opinion from a mining exec, not an environmentally-minded reporter like Beiser. But the world is going to need a lot of rare-earth metals to power the energy transition and tech of the future — and Canada has a bunch of these rocks. Plus, we’re home to 60% of the world’s mining companies, though most firms currently drill abroad, effectively “outsourcing the damage,” as The New Yorker’s Elizabeth Kolbert put it. Beiser contended that, though mining is inherently destructive, Canada would have greater worker-protection and environmental standards than China, which dominates the rare-earth mineral industry. Whether Canada’s economy is already over-reliant on extractive industries is a whole separate debate. INTERESTING Imagine if Toronto got rid of 7.5% of traffic. That’s what New York City just did after implementing its new US$9 congestion fee for driving in parts of Manhattan. Which means it has (so far) succeeded in reducing gridlock! Policy wonks love this sort of thing because it’s a chance to see how humans react in real time to changes in incentives. City planners might learn to love congestion pricing too. Last year, gridlock in the Toronto and Hamilton area cost Ontario more than $50 billion in lost productivity. But past congestion-fee proposals died after legislators predicted that drivers would revolt. There’s secret underwater warfare being waged in Europe! In what sounds like the plot of a Cold War-era B-movie, Russian- and Chinese-linked ships allegedly sabotaged several undersea telecom cables in and around the Baltic Sea. This infrastructure is vital: about 95% of global internet traffic — including US$10 trillion in banking transactions daily — passes through the world’s 1.4 million kilometres of submerged fibre (neat map here). The trouble is that it only takes a dragged anchor to knock out a cable. Bloomberg’s editorial board has called on free nations to lay secret “dark cables” as backups. The Atlantic went further last week, publishing an editorial urging Europeans to recognize that they are now in a real-deal war with Russia. NATO, not disabusing the notion, announced that it would deploy warships and naval drones for “enhanced surveillance and deterrence.” —Sarah Rieger FROM OUR SPONSOR THE FOMO INDEX by Stacey Woods IMPORTANT 🪫 Canada shuts down its EV incentive program. The new incentive will have to be your conscience, which doesn’t offer rebates. Source ✅ LinkedIn adding “verified” label to postings so people can be sure it’s a real job they’re not going to get. Source 👏 Canada added 91,000 new jobs last month. That’s 91,000 people who will soon rather work from home. Source 👟 Skechers expects to bring in an impressive US$10 billion by 2026. Would like to thank preschoolers and retirees everywhere. Source CRASH & BURN TO THE MOON 🤖 Google’s AI car assistant available for Mercedes. Now drivers can ask their cars about the best way to double-park. Source 👚 Amazon discontinuing “Try Before You Buy” in favour of previous promotion, which was simply called “Buy.” Source 🐔 Progresso launches new hard candy Soup Drops, for those who find gum and mints not chicken-y enough. Source 🛒 Walmart debuts new logo, which is nearly identical to old logo. They wanted something that said “Walmart” but that still said “Walmart.” Source WHO CARES THE BIG IMPORTANT STORY FINANCE 101 You Are Human. You Will Die. You Need a Will “Estate planning” sounds like something you need to do only if you’re rich enough to own a country manor with a landscaper who trims your hedges into animal shapes. But “estate” in a legal sense just means anything you own — cash, stocks, property, etc. — so nearly everyone leaves behind an estate when they die. Which means every financially responsible person needs to do some estate planning. And don’t wait until you’re old! Accidents and illnesses happen, and you don’t want to leave your loved ones in a jam. This week, we’re focusing on one of the most basic yet important parts of estate planning: creating a will. Half of Canadians don’t have a will, which is a shame, because getting one could be one of the most consequential financial decisions you make for your family. Here’s the gist: What makes for a well-crafted will? A good will provides for everything from the orderly administration of your estate after your death to telling the world how to deal with your taxes, assets, and outstanding bills to who gets your cherished Maple Leafs 1967 Stanley Cup pint glasses. But a will isn’t just about giving away your stuff; it should also manage the process. What happens if I die without a will? As a rule, when someone dies, their estate must go through probate, i.e., court proceedings for verifying wills and distributing one’s assets. Even with a straightforward will, probate can take six to 12 months. But if you die without a will, the process gets extra complicated. That’s because a court-appointed administrator will have to divide up your assets among your survivors based on provincial regulations, which is a reliable way to cause tons of family infighting. Also, if you die without a will and you’re in a common-law marriage, your partner might not have a right to a share of your assets, depending on your circumstances and province. Almost as bad as dying without a will is having a will but not discussing it with your family. You don’t want its contents to be a surprise. Is there a way to get my family money faster than through probate? Designating a beneficiary, like a spouse or grown child, on your insurance policies (you have life insurance, right?) or registered investment accounts will generally let your beneficiary access the funds fast. At what age do I need a will? You probably don’t need a will until you’re out of school and working — unless you have children. Anyone with a kid under 18 really, really needs a will so you can appoint a guardian to take care of the little one in the event of your demise. A few considerations when picking a guardian: where do you want your children to be raised? Who do you trust most as a parental figure? Who is going to work most amicably with your executor? (More on executors in a moment.) How much money should you give them to help with childcare costs? How do I get a will? It’s usually smart to hire a lawyer who specializes in estate planning to help you draft a will so it’s tailored to your specific circumstances. Many lawyers will charge a flat fee, typically ranging from $400 to $1,500. If you can’t afford that, you can draft a will using an online service for about $100. Anything is better than nothing. What sort of things should my will include? Obviously, you’ll want to designate your beneficiaries, aka the people who will get your stuff. Almost as important, you’ll want to appoint an executor, or trustee, who will carry out the instructions in your will. Pick someone you know well and who’s organized, calm, resolute, and trusted by your beneficiaries. And be sure to name backup executors in case your #1 pick is unavailable. (Same goes for guardians.) And make sure they’re compensated properly in your will. OK, that’s probably all the estate-planning info you can stand for now! OTHER VERY GOOD READS ☀️ The Spectacular Burnout of a Solar Panel Salesman He thought he’d make millions. The reality was much darker. | Wired 🤖 She is in Love With ChatGPT* A young woman spends hours on end talking to her AI boyfriend. | The New York Times 🚑 The First First Responders When disaster strikes in B.C., Indigenous rescuers are often the first on the scene. | Hakai Magazine *Article is paywalled, which, yeah, is kind of annoying. But we think good journalism is worth paying for. THE WISDOM OF SOCIAL We’re living through peak snapback statesmanship. THOUGHTS ON TODAY’S ISSUE? Love it Good So so This week’s newsletter contributors: Ben Mathis-Lilley (writer), Devin Gordon (writer), Stacey Woods (writer), Sarah Rieger (news writer), Ambrose Martos (fact checker), Ciara Rickard (copy editor), Clare Douglas (copy editor), Sara Black McCulloch (fact checker), Mohini Tailor (lifecycle marketing manager), Matthew Karasz (markets editor) Jared Sullivan (senior editor), Peter Martin (senior editor), Kat Angus (managing editor), and Devin Friedman (editor-in-chief). Wealthsimple Media Inc. 80 Spadina Ave Suite 400 Toronto, ON, M5V 2J4 VIEW IN BROWSER PRIVACY POLICY UNSUBSCRIBE The current yield for the Bond ETF portfolio is calculated based on annualizing the most recent dividend payments and the latest available ETF prices at the time of the calculation. 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