Category: Thoughts

Recently, I learned about Norbert’s Gambit, and it seems like a really nice way to avoid paying currency conversion fees. You still end up paying something, but depending on the amount you’re converting, the fees can be pretty small — I’ll illustrate this later.

So what is Norbert’s Gambit? Norbert’s Gambit is a strategy used to convert Canadian dollars (CAD) to U.S. dollars (USD) (or vice versa) by buying and selling interlisted stocks or ETFs — stocks that trade on both Canadian and U.S. exchanges. The idea is simple:

1. Buy the stock in CAD on the Canadian exchange.
2. Transfer the stock to the U.S. exchange.
3. Sell the stock there in USD — effectively converting your money with minimal fees.

As I mentioned, this method helps avoid conversion fees that banks, brokers, and private exchanges charge. Here’s what I’ve seen:

• Banks: Typically take 3–5 cents per dollar (3–5%).
• Brokers (InvestorLine in my case): Around 2 cents per dollar (2%).
• Private exchanges near me: About 1 cent per dollar (1%).

Fees of 1–5 cents per dollar might not seem like much at first, but they add up fast—especially for larger amounts. For example, if you exchange $10,000 CAD, the fees would be ~$300–$500 for bank, ~$200 for broker and ~$100 for private exchange. Now think about your entire retirement fund — suddenly, those fees don’t look so small.

Norbert’s Gambit isn’t completely free. Here’s what you still have to factor in:

1. Trading fees: InvestorLine charges $10 per trade, so buying and selling costs $20 total.
2. Stock price movement: Prices fluctuate, so there’s a chance the value changes before you sell.
3. Market spread: The difference between bid and ask prices can result in a small loss.

That said, InvestorLine does automatic online transfers, so there’s no need to call anyone or wait a day — minimizing the risk of price movement. To test it out, I ran a small experiment:

• Bought 1 share of BMO:CA for $138.17 CAD
• Sold 1 share of BMO:US for $95.8516 USD
• Effective exchange rate: 0.694
• Market exchange rate at the time: 0.693

I actually gained about 10 cents per exchange, but that was just luck due to market fluctuations going my way. Now let’s extrapolate and assume things didn’t go in my favor. If I exchanged $13,817 CAD, I’d buy 100 shares of BMO:CA and sell them in USD at an effective exchange rate of 0.692 instead of the market rate of 0.693.

• Norbert’s Gambit: 0.692 × $13,817 = $9,561.364 USD
• Official exchange rate: 0.693 × $13,817 = $9,575.181 USD
• Loss due to the exchange rate difference: $9,575.181 − $9,561.364= $13.817 USD


So, I lost $13.82 USD due to the slightly market volatility. If I had used a private exchange instead (charging 1 cent per dollar), the fees would have been: $9,575.181 –  (13817 * 0.683) = $138.17 USD. That’s 10 times more expensive than my $13.82 USD loss from Norbert’s Gambit! Now, let’s add in the trading fees: 20 USD + 13.82 USD (loss) = $33.82 USD total cost. Even after including the trading commission, the total cost is still way lower than the $138.17 fee from the private exchange.

In my mind, Norbert’s Gambit is an awesome strategy, especially considering that Canadian investors have to exchange currency at least twice in their lifetime — once to invest and again to cash out for retirement. This means Norbert’s Gambit can save Canadians around 2% on foreign investments.

It’s been three years of war, and it keeps on going. My naïveté is slowly being replaced with cynicism. Last year, I hoped the West would pull itself together—providing much more support to Ukraine while applying greater economic pressure on the other side. While there have been some increases, once again, it’s been too slow, too little, and in some cases too late.

To some degree, I’ve started to feel like the West is trying to preserve the aggressor. Yes, save the murderer—because otherwise, someone would have to deal with the fallout?! It’s astounding to contemplate such a scenario. It feels like there is no justice, no honor—it’s all about preserving the status quo. And by the way, the same seems to be happening in Israel. After the horrendous October 7th attack, somehow Israel is labeled the bad guy.

If you attack, kill, or kidnap—you are the aggressor, the murderer. It should be plain and simple. Yet, this concept seems too difficult for some to grasp—or so it seems. Another concept that apparently baffles people is democracy, liberalism, and freedom. Some places have them; others don’t. Ukraine and Israel have them. And the opposing sides? Let’s see: one place has had the same “president” for over 24 years—marked by repression and political killings. The other hasn’t held elections in the last 19 years, and political opposition tends to end up flying out of windows shortly after speaking up. But again, this concept seems too hard to grasp. Who are the bad guys in this situation? Somehow, we’ve bent the truth so far that Ukraine supposedly started the war and Israel is somehow the aggressor.

I’m tired of watching these horrific events unfold, but I don’t dare look away. It’s a reminder of how people operate, how disinformation spreads, and how evil prevails. But we cannot give up. We must keep fighting—keep going until the very end.

Source

Slava Ukraini.

Immortality is not an option, so we must face the music sooner or later. On a grand scale, the life of a person is not very noticeable; thousands of people embark on their last journey every day. Yet, those closest to us feel particularly special. I’ve been told that everyone processes such an event in their own way, and I’m no different.

For some, the journey starts abruptly, while for others, the beginning stretches out, like trailers in a movie theater before the main show. The prolonged ones seem to be the most difficult. Horrible pain and suffering, without even a glimpse of hope. Can you imagine being sick—having an endless flu, a fever that never breaks, constant headaches, muscle pain, coughing, and a runny nose? And along with all of this, you know, you understand, there is no getting better. There is no recovery. This will end in only one way. Now, multiply that pain several times over.

Departures are always sad. We miss loved ones, even when they embark on a great journey, yet these departures aren’t typically accompanied by excruciating pain that lasts for months on end. After all the pain, suffering, and goodbyes, the journey begins. So shouldn’t we rejoice that our loved one has finally embarked? Shouldn’t we feel some happiness, at least for their sake? Not for our own selfish feeling of being left behind, but joy for their journey—for their release, for the end of their suffering, when nothing more could be done. I don’t know the right answer. I just feel serene, with a trickle of sadness and joy. In my mind, it is not about me; it is about them, wherever they are now.

Rest now, Aunt Zoya.

Everyone is different; all of us mutate slightly in different ways, and we don’t all come out identical—well, at least most humans don’t. This bundle of differences is called humanity. I guess that’s what makes it fun—a randomness factor. For some reason, I’ve never liked cycles. In a way, cycles annoy me. The irony is that over time I started to embrace routine, but not for the sake of it, but rather due to an aging body.

20 years ago, I got a gig at a car parts factory, working the night shift, packing plastic parts and cleaning floors when it was slow. The job sucked; I didn’t like working nights and going to sleep when everyone was out and about. But what bothered me the most was the job itself—the endless repetition of the same steps, over and over again, all night long and the next night and the next. It seemed like an endless cycle of doing exactly the same things over and over again.

Although I enjoy video games, the reason I don’t tend to play a lot (besides not having enough free time) is the repetitive cycle. Yes, different cycles and repetitions with a different combination of red, green, and blue on the screen, yet with sufficiently different cycles to get me bored or annoyed. There are only so many times I can go on a quest to kill 10 boars or whichever virtual animal is demanded by a virtual quest giver. Now I’m not complaining about games; I do enjoy them—I played Diablo repeatedly—I just want to point out my own personal mutation for lack of a better word.

Life itself seems annoying; it is repetitive cycles with a different given at each new start. You are 10, so you need to do this and that. You made it to 20 – education time, 30 – family time, 40 – wealth gathering time, 50 – health…, 60 – retirement… and so on. The illustration is crude but has some merit to it. Does it have to go that way? Well… no. There are different ways life can be played or be played out. Hey, remember: “live fast, die young”? – it is a viable option too. If I had a choice, I would probably go to the other extreme; let’s do the whole life thing for a few hundred years and then decide.

Human time constraints seem to put us into well-defined, optimized, and seemingly inescapable cycles. Each cycle presents its challenges, and there’s never enough time. Ricardo Semler had an interesting idea about working less and spending more time on ourselves early on and not waiting for retirement when the body is broken and tired. His arguments and ideas were very convincing! As much as I would love to implement that, I do not live in theory; bills are due, time is running, and food should be on the table. So cycles continue… meanwhile, we miss moments, and before you know it, people near and dear start to die off.

Those endless cycles of being busy, accomplishing things that seem meaningless now. If only we had more time, more time to make educated choices, more time to figure out priorities, more experience to understand what’s important to ourselves. Perhaps one day we may get more time, but for now, the only thing is to dispense it conservatively.