It is my belief that one should maintain multiple investment accounts. The primary reason is to separate your different investment strategies and goals. Each account has its own purpose making it easier to track your progress and easier to organize come tax time. Currently I maintain 3 accounts but when the time is right I’ll probably end up with 6 different investment accounts. Here’s an overview of my accounts:

The Leveraged American Bank Account

It’s pretty much like it sounds. This account consists of some of the “top” American financial institutions purchased with a $40,000 line of credit. The entire account is a play on the financial crisis in the US. As it stands I’m way down but I’m happy with my current holdings (except maybe for BAC). I still have about $7500 in cash on the sideline waiting for some stability in the market. I’m giving my fingers a chance to heal after being cut from trying to catch that falling knife. The US/Canadian exchange rate is the one bright spot as most of the money was converted to American when the Canadian dollar was at par.

The Passive Indexing RRSP Account

In April of 2008 I sold all of my RRSP mutual funds at ING Direct and moved them over to my brokerage. I decided to implement a passive indexing strategy. After looking around at the various approaches out there I decided on The Sleepy Portfolio by Canadian Capitalist . Since I’m at an age that allows me to invest aggressively this account holds no bonds. Bonds will eventually be added based on the modified age rule used in the One-Minute Portfolio outlined by Larry MacDonald. In this account I’m also down but I’ve been dollar cost averaging which is smoothing things out. Once again the bright spot has been the US/Canadian exchange rate.

The Gambling Account

This account only holds a small amount of money. I have no intention of adding any additional funds. It’s sole purpose is to make purchases based on hunches and to play out my riskier investment desires. I’ve actually been quite happy up to this point about this account.

In the future I will most likely open a TFSA investment account, an account to invest money from the Smith Manoeuver, and a pure investment account for any cash that doesn’t fit into the RRSP or TFSA.

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