Quotes of the Day

Always try to approach a woman head-on so she can see your full body. You might indicate the chair or stool next to her and ask, "May I?" You then sit down and face in the same direction the lady is facing. Make sure your body stays at a respectful distance away from her but close enough to allow easy conversation. The noise level of the room, its size, and other variables will dictate the "correct" distance. [2006] - Leil Lowndes

Multicancer Early Detection (MCED) assays are constantly getting refined. There are also assays that detect certain proteins or metabolic markers, such as glycosaminoglycans, that indicate a higher likelihood that cancer may be present, as well as blood tests that combine cell-free tumor DNA and proteins in a panel. The test with the most extensive clinical experience to date is known as the GRAIL Galleri. It uses AI to determine whether there is a "cancer signal" and, if present, to help localize its likely organ source. The problem with this test that is marketed for $949 for people aged 50 and older is that the yield is remarkably low. Only 5 per 1,000 people test positive, and, of these, just 2 per 1,000 were actually diagnosed early, in stage 1 or 2, before the cancer spread. The proportion of false negatives among every 1,000 people tested is unknowable. [2025] - Eric Topol

In Canada, mortgage penalties depend on the type of mortgage. If you have a variable-rate mortgage, you'll pay three months' interest, but if you have a fixed-rate mortgage, you'll pay the greater of three months' interest or something called the interest rate differential (IRD). Ask how the IRD is calculated. Is it based on the posted or the discounted rate? If it's based on the lender's inflated posted rate, consider this carefully before signing up. Your mortgage penalty could add up to thousands of dollars. To reduce the mortgage penalty, prepay as much of the mortgage as you can before breaking it. [2017] - Sean Cooper

If the market is depressed, mortgage holders, such as banks, seldom have the patience to await a market rebound. Most are not in the business of owning real estate. Their paramount goal is to sell defaulted units at the best possible price in order to recover as much of their investment as possible. This often means selling these units at a loss. Most mortgage holders are exclusively financial institutions, not obligated to contribute to maintenance fees and other dues on behalf of the indebted unit owner. [2013] - Dan S. Barnabic

GICs don't lose value when interest rates rise, neither do they get a boost when yields fall. This means that during a bear market for stocks-which often leads to falling interest rates-your GICs won't deliver the offsetting benefit you should expect from bonds. Since bonds and GICs each have pros and cons, you might consider a balanced approach and use both in your portfolio. For example, you could use GICs for about half of your fixed-income allocation and use a bond DTF for the other half. [2021] - Dan Bortolotti