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The recession savaged retirees’ investment portfolios and slashed their incomes, according to Desjardins Financial Security’s 2009 Rethink Retirement survey.

The study found that 35% of retirees saw their personal income fall over the past year, compared to just 12% who said it increased. Only 6% reported an income in excess of $70,000 a year, while 44% were getting by on less than $30,000 a year.

Retirees were twice as likely to report a drop in savings than an increase, with 39% seeing their nest egg decline. Twenty percent reported an improvement.

On the upside, nearly half (46%) of retirees were carrying less than $1,000 in debt. While 21% saw their debt load increase, 27% were able to deleverage.

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Barclays brings iPath ETNs to Canada

Barclays Bank has launched a series of exchange traded notes in Canada, offering investors exposure to currencies, a covered-call investment strategy and stock market volatility itself.

The iPath Exchange Traded Notes are TSX cross-listings of existing products that trade on U.S. markets. The suite of notes is as follows. p>

• iPath S&P 500 VIX Short-Term Futures ETN • iPath Optimized Currency Carry ETN • iPath JPY/USD Exchange Rate ETN • iPath GBP/USD Exchange Rate ETN • iPath EUR/USD Exchange Rate ETN • iPath CBOE S&P 500 BuyWrite Index ETN

“We are pleased to expand our iPath ETN platform in Canada. iPath ETNs have been tremendously successful in the U.S., attracting over US$5 billion in market capitalization with over US$80 billion in volume traded since inception,” says Philippe El-Asmar, managing director, head of investor solutions with Barclays Capital. “Barclays has experienced tremendous growth in the Americas in recent years and this cross-listing underlines our commitment to the Canadian markets.”

The ETNs are senior, unsecured, unsubordinated debt securities that trade in the secondary market during trading hours at market prices and may typically be redeemed in at least 50,000 units on a daily basis directly to Barclays.

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Goodman seeks fund mergers

Goodman & Company’s investment counsel is seeking unitholder approval for the merger of six closed end funds into similar mutual funds under the Dynamic brand.

In each case, the continuing fund has a larger portfolio and a broader investment mandate. Investors should benefit from improved economies of scale and greater liquidity.

The proposal would see the merger of the following:

• diversiGlobal Dividend Value Fund into Dynamic Global Dividend Value Fund; • diversiTrust Energy Income Fund with Dynamic Focus+ Energy Income Trust Fund; and • diversiTrust Income Fund, diversiTrust Stable Income Fund, diversiTrust Income+ Fund and diversiYield Income Fund with Dynamic Strategic Yield Fund.

Special meetings will be held on March 2, 2010 to allow unitholders to vote. For each merger that is approved, the terminating fund will transfer all of its assets to the continuing fund in exchange for Series A units of the continuing fund.

(12/08/09)