IFA Certified Dealers

Certified Broker / Dealer Information

IFA CANADA is quickly expanding across the country. To date we have BC, Alberta, Quebec and Ontario covered, but welcomes the addition of other provinces and territories.

We have also begun to develop the IFA concept for the United Kingdom (www.ifa-uk.com) and Switzerland, as well as making arrangements for Australia.

We do not require you to work with our broker dealer, De Thomas Financial and thus you may stay and work with your current dealer as long as you wish, provided they will allow you to follow the conditions we would set out for IFA CANADA Certified Broker/Dealers. We will go over this in more detail later on should you consider working with IFA CANADA.

The IFA CANADA Certified Broker/Dealers are a select group of financial advisors who are authorized to use the extensive up-to-date information and tools throughout IFA CANADA's several hundred page web site, as well as the online 12-Step Program to Index Funds eBook. These advisors sign an agreement with our firm and are approved for use of the materials and tools on this site. Certified Broker/Dealers pay IFA CANADA a monthly fee and/or invest their client’s assets according to IFA CANADA. Other advisors are prohibited from using any of the copyrighted materials on IFA CANADA sites, including, but not limited to: investor education, risk capacity survey, and investment policy development tools. IFA CANADA neither endorses nor recommends Certified Broker/Dealers individually or as a group and does not endorse or recommend any particular investment strategy. IFA CANADA recommends strongly that investors do due diligence on any particular investment manager they consider hiring, regardless whether that manager is De Thomas Financial, an IFA CANADA Certified Broker/Dealer, or any other advisor.

The primary goal of financial advice is to determine the appropriate range of probable outcomes (standard deviation) for a clients' entire investment portfolio. IFA CANADA refers to this process of obtaining a client-specific standard deviation as risk capacity analysis. Once that is determined, that standard deviation value is matched to a portfolio of indexes that is supported by the highest quality historical data for the longest period of time available (preferably 30 years or more).* The portfolio of indexes should represent the lowest cost, most globally diversified, tax-efficient, and highest historical return portfolio, net of all fees, expenses and taxes. This is what IFA CANADA refers to as an efficient risk exposure. An advisor should then buy, hold and rebalance a portfolio of index mutual funds (a risk exposure) that most closely represents the selected indexes. It should only be changed as a client's risk capacity changes. Market changes are not relevant to asset allocation decisions because nobody can consistently predict the next random bit of new information that will move a stock or an entire market. Once that information, which is some times wrong, is transmitted to millions of traders it is immediately reflected in the price of all relevant assets. Ahhh... the beauty of capitalism and a free market system where assets are always priced at a "fair market value" reflecting the risk of the investment, the cost of capital for the equity holder, and the resulting expected return of the capital provider (your client). This rapid reflection of news in asset prices leaves no opportunity for traders to consistently profit at the expense of all the other traders. These concepts are referred to as the random walk hypothesis and the efficient market theory. If you don't thoroughly understand these concepts you should not be making investment decisions and your clients should sue you for bad advice since these concepts are generally accepted by academic researchers. Securities fraud attorney Dan Solin, one of our partners now, or his equivalent in Canada, will be happy to assist your clients in reclaiming the money you lost for them. (See his book, "Does Your Broker Owe You Money" in our library).

The result of the investment strategy described above is an optimal portfolio and investment experience for each investor. IFA CANADA refers to this overall process as Capacity - Exposure Optimization (CEO) Investing. Current events analysis, stock picking, time picking, manager picking, and style picking are the equivalent of short-term speculation and have no place in a prudent investment strategy.

If you understand and agree with the above statements, you are a candidate for our Certified Broker/Dealership. If you don't, you must be new to investing or have not done sufficient reading of academic research. If you don't understand these principles of investing, then we have no interest in working with you. Then again, you might not want to know or admit to the facts that support those statements. As William Bernstein stated in The Intelligent Asset Allocator, "There are two kinds of investors, be they large or small: those who don't know where the market is headed, and those who don't know that they don't know. Then again, there is a third type of investor - the investment professional, who indeed knows that he or she doesn't know, but whose livelihood depends upon appearing to know."

Index Funds Advisors Canada, (IFA CANADA), would like to show you a turnkey asset management program that invests your clients' assets in a risk-appropriate portfolio that will allow you and your client to sleep at night. The program is based on a strategy that is solidly backed by reams of academic research, which has identified rewarded risk factors in long-term historical market data going all the way back to 1929. You will have authorized access to a complete explanation of how the market works in the form of a web site, eBook, PowerPoint presentation and videos. You will also have pass worded access to your clients' Risk Capacity Survey, which facilitates an advisory session to discuss many elements of their financial planning process.

Certified Broker/Dealers must be willing to continually educate themselves and their clients. Matching our clients' risk capacity with a highly efficient risk exposure is the primary goal of our investment strategy. Extensive reading of academic financial research and books on the long-term historical stock market data is recommended, including the 20 books which can be reviewed in our library. We reserve the right to ask for proof of continuing education. As well we rigorously enforce a strict code of conduct for all Certified Broker/Dealers.

Please contact:

Certified Broker / Dealers
De Thomas Financial Corp.

Toronto Area:

Anthony De Thomasis
7620 Yonge Street, Suite 200 - Thornhill, Ontario - L4J 1V9
Tel: (905) 731-9800

Nationwide:

Michael Hill
300 Giles Blvd East Suite "C" Windsor, Ontario N9A 4C4
Tel: (800) 558-8519