Keith Sharp

Keith's bits of paper:
PhD FSA FCIA CFA   lapsed FIA  very lapsed FIAA and some Cadbury's Fruit and Nut wrappers.

Act Sci Club Announcements:

Actuarial Students National Association
Place and time: This year, the convention will take place in Quebec City during the weekend of January 8-10th, 2010.
Registration dates and price: Tickets will go on sale starting on Oct 26th at an early-bird price of $90. After the early-bird special ends on Nov. 27, tickets will be available at the regular price of $120. The ticket price includes meals worth over $150, so this is a bargain! The events will be held at the Hotel Chateau Laurier with a special room rate of $94 per night with up to quad occupancy. ASNA will also supply a travel reimbursement for anyone who has attended the convention.

If you are interested please email uoftasna@gmail.com so we get an estimate of how many will come so we can organize a bus to go down to Quebec City.

Thanks

uoftasna@gmail.com

Student participation laser pointers:

Are less than 5 mw - I've shone one in my pupil for 5 seconds but you are strongly advised not to do the same! (Or to stare at the sun either!)   Please don't distract your classmates by shining them around too playfully, but please do use them to point at items you don't understand, suspected errors in formulas or diagrams, or to respond to questions. Please return them at the end of every lecture by leaving on a table near the door - I currently pay for them personally in dollar stores.  Can anyone recommend a bulk supplier in China who'll ship more conveniently  then 'FOB Shanghai' where they could get left in the rain for a while before I pick them? Comments or recommendations please to me at sharp@utstat.utoronto.ca

Medical certificates

To be fair to the honest 399 students, I assume that your MD, despite his/her (required) College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario number, is like the one above and feels that his/her time has better uses than guessing how you sick you were on term test day.  Please see course outlines below about my policy for (usually not) accepting medical certificates.  A medical certificate usually results in a zero on a term test.

Courses  Summer 2009F2009 W2010
(Note that assignments and helpful content is primarily on the password-protected Blackboard portal for each course currently being taught)

Press and other materials                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    

Retirement savings (ACTB40, ACT230, ACT239, ACT240)
Improved retirement savings rate calculator - use at your own risk   USEFUL

T Star June 21, 2007 save 33% of pay for retirement
Retirement calculator from AARP One of the best available online. Can input zero starting assets, zero pensions etc.
Globe and Mail Nov 1, 2007 on retirement needs
Example of frequently-seen bad advice on savings
New York Times Dec 2007: annually spend 4 percent of savings
WSJ Feb 16, 2008: spend 4 percent of savings
WSJ Jan 2, 2008 on how much to save by age 45
Necessary retirement savings rate calculator for these ACT courses in Excel     PDF version
Buffett on investment return assumptions and a couple of jokes   More details 
WSJ Mar 11, 2008 Interest rate assumption: negative real yield?    Data
New York Times Mar 30, 2008 Bernstein on 5% real for stocks in future
T Star Apr 2, 2008 on Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan  p1.  p2.  $40,000 per year indexed worth $850,000
Yahoo June 10, 2008 on retirement life expectancy
T Star Oct 22, 2008 on seniors needing to work
T Star Oct 28, 2008 on 4 percent drawdown rate
Brad De Long Oct 2008 on zero 10 year real return on stocks (even without taxes and fees)
T Star Mar 16, 2009 Malcolm Hamilton: 30% of pay for federal retirement
Forbes Mar 25, 2009 :last paragraph on possible negative after-tax real yield on TIPS
Zvi Bodie on PBS June 12, 2009: risky to assume stocks will beat inflation-indexed bonds
WSJ June29, 2009 Ruth Madoff living off 3% real return
Financial TImes Aug 12, 2009 UK Inflation-Indexed ('RPI") annuity purchase rates

Credit cards and nominal interest rates (ACTB40, ACT230, ACT240, STAT219)
Mastercard to U of T students 2008
Do you believe that Mastercard really doesn't want you to have the monkey on your back?
Mastercard example at 12%; but in reality see MBNA U of T application form (details 1, details 2)
MBNA Mastercard application 17.99% per annum: what convertibility period?
Does CitiBank really want you to pay your monthly card balance?
Bank of Montreal October 2008: semi-annual compounding of mortgage
WSJ March 12, 2009 How credit card companies target us as potential profit sources 




Bonds (ACTB40, ACTB47, ACT230, ACT240, ACT349, STAT219)
Yahoo Finance Jan 8, 2008 bond prices
Yahoo Finance Jan 8, 2008 US yield curve
WSJ Feb 21, 2008 on TIPS - do you agree with his belief that 1.5% risk-free real is uncompetitive? It's controversial.
Calculated risk blog May 17, 2008 on a toxic mortgage-backed security  More  Good More  Too much more
WSJ Feb 6, 2009 on Weinstein, Wang, Ackerman trading at Deutsche Bank

Mortgages (ACTB40, ACTB47, ACT230, ACT240, STAT219)
Wall Street Journal Aug 7, 2007 on subprime, LBOs, China, no-doc mortgages
Wall Street Journal Oct 17, 2007 on subprime mortgage crisis impact on investors and families
Scarborough House for sale November 2007
Downtown condo for sale November 2007
Toronto Star Jan 9, 2008 on 40 year mortgages (beware: zero-interest total of payments makes little sense)
Toronto Star Jan 29, 2008 on 33 year mortgage impact on monthly payment (makes more sense)
Toronto Star March 10, 2008 Mortgage rates
Toronto Star April 16, 2008 on 40 year mortgage a  b
Toronto Real Estate Board Average House Prices 1974-2008
Wall Street Journal Aug 6, 2008 on payment option mortgages
Bank of Montreal October 2008: semi-annual compounding of martgage


How we got into this mess: Downey 2007 ad, bankrupt Nov 21, 2008
2008 financial disaster in pictures
Walk Away mortgage calculator April 2009   Many problems with this, starting with lack of discounting of future payments


Futures, forwards and options (ACTB47, ACT245, ACT349)
Toronto Star Feb 19, 2008 on Chicago wheat futures and Toronto bread prices 1   2    3
WSJ Mar 17, 2008 on Lehmann put options
WSJ Apr 7, 2008 Eurodollar futures quotes through 2018
INO Mar 31, 2009 Eurodollar futures quotes
Financial Times Aug 12, 2009 on orange juice futures rising: smaller trees!

Shorts (ACTB47, ACT239, ACT245, ACT349)
WSJ May 16, 2008 on bubbles, housing, Chinese Class A and B shares
FT (Financial Times, UK) July 16, 2008 on short squeeze and 'hard to borrow'

Repos (ACT245)
WSJ Mar 18, 2008 on repos and the Mar 16, 2008  Bear Stearns rescue

Swaps (ACTB47, ACT245, ACT349)
Globe and Mail US Futures quotes
Toronto Enbridge Gas
Toronto Home Gas Supply Commodity Swap
Toronto gas price quarterly change
NPR Oct 2008 explains CDS (credit default swaps)


Actuarial Job Market

http://www.beanactuary.org/ has some info about the US job market, which appears to be more promising for entry level actuarial students than the crowded Canadian job market.  For a Canadian citizen with a math or act sci degree and a letter offering US employment, a TN (Trade NAFTA) US employment visa is likely to be obtainable but check it out first: http://travel.state.gov/visa/temp/types/types_1274.html Most employers like to see some office work experience on your resume, preferably actuarial experience - try very hard to get some work experience anywhere. Many recent graduates want to live in Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal, Boston, New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles etc. but you might have a better chance of getting a suitable job in a less popular city.

Another way to get your resume noticed in the pile could be to attend Toastmasters  (public speaking - preparation for client contact) and give enough five-minute speeches to get  a "Competent Toastmaster' certificate;  Clubs close to the campuses are likely to be particularly student-friendly: email and go and try it.

The membership listing at www.soa.org is very useful in a job search. Maybe look for excuses to send an email to a potential employer.  Don't send a lot of spam and don't be upset if you don't get a reply.  Everyone is busy and everyone quickly deletes non-essential email, faxes and snail mail. But for example, maybe you'll notice at   www.soa.org   a person working in investments in X-land and you are a fluent X-ese language speaker and have taken some investment-related courses. Then try sending an email with a email 'subject' field such as 'X-ese speaker with investment skills', attaching your resume.  For greater visibility, you could snail-mail a hard copy resume. A follow-up phone call is likely to be necessary - stay cheerful despite hearing 'no thanks' a few times and, if your resume is OK, you may eventually hear 'come and talk to us!'.

www.actuarialoutpost.com has job ads and, on the popular discussion board, a lot of comments and information, much of it correct. See in particular the forum named 'Careers-Employment'. An October 2009 posting from a Canadian ('up here') sounded about right: "As for online postings, most of the people who graduated with me and got hired never applied online. It was either through previous internships or through contacts/referrals. It seems many companies are now preferring this approach (at least up here) as it's often a safer approach in terms of candidate quality + you don't have to sort through 100 CVs to find people."

Here is placement rate info on an ad for a 'how to stay competitive' Act Sci Club seminar in October 2007.

Admin Links for UTM

Admin Links for UTSC

Admin Links for UTSG

Society of Actuaries Exams

Info at Society of Actuaries  Please note that these professional exams are run worldwide out of the Chicago offices of the Society of Actuaries, not by University of Toronto, though instructors sometimes act as proctors.


Professional Links

Society of Actuaries

Canadian Institute of Actuaries

CFA Institute   

Comments on CFA for actuarial students

Talk to ASNA on CFA January 5, 2008
 

Other stuff

Evaluations by students

Resume


Contact
sharp@utstat.toronto.edu