The Wiseword Library

The Wisewords Library of Financial Information

A Living Entity that Continues to Grow
A Historic Database showing Worldwide Trends

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Update Policy:
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The weekly data is the most fundamental data series. Where weekly data is available, the weekly information has been used to compile the monthly, quarterly and annual data series.
"Monthly" data in the context of The WiseWords Library means from the last Friday of one month to the last Friday of the following month. Note that there can be a difference between the last Friday of a month and the last business day of a month! Users should be aware of this distinction, and not use this Library for things like making wagers on the value of the closing Dow for some year in the past!
The WiseWords Library gets updated weekly. However, the web-accessible version of The Wisewords Library will be updated on a monthly basis. Users who require up-to-date weekly information for some special project can email us to get a special one-off version emailed back to them. We will NOT provide weekly updates on a regular basis.
Most monthly data becomes available in the 3rd or 4th week of the month following the end of the previous month. Therefore, the web-accessible version of The WiseWords Library will normally be updated in the final week of the following month.
Quarterly economic data, such as GDP numbers, are frequently up to 6 months behind and are often subject to radical revision. Annual data, with the exception of the economic data, will usually be updated at the same time as December monthly data

History of The WiseWords Library of Financial Information:
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Michael Wise is Custodian of The WiseWords Library. Playing with numbers is Mike's hobby. He has been using computers for business and recreation for a longer time than he cares to remember. In the early days, people who enjoyed collecting and working with data were looked at strangely; now they are known as "quantitative analysts".
Mike began gathering financial and economic data almost 30 years ago. Originally the information collected was confined to Canada, because it was almost impossible to find articles and examples that used the Canadian experience. This is still the case; Canadian newspapers and articles still seldom make use of Canadian data.
Mike published Canadian Asset Allocation Strategies in 1993. The book illustrated how some fundamental and technical analysis techniques would have performed, using Canadian data, over the time period from 1980 to 1992. This remains one of the few Canadian research texts.
Over time, Mike's research interests expanded, and the number of subjects covered by the database has also expanded. The data has been collected from newspapers and other public sources over the years.
Mike also spent many hours in the basement of the Calgary Public Library, extending the database back into history. He acknowledges the tremendous resources that the CPL has made available to the public, and gratefully acknowledges the heroic assistance of the library staff.
The major sources of information have been the Financial Post, Globe and Mail, Barron's, and Wall Street Journal. Economic data comes from the Bank of Canada, International Monetary Fund, and U.S. Federal Reserve Bank.
Database compilations have copyright protection. Mike has therefore not used any online compilations for The WiseWords Library, with the exception of acknowledged public sources such as the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis for monthly currency exchange rates. The WiseWords Library provides links to two important data compilations: the MSCI Indexes¹ and the Zurich Capital Markets Indexes of Hedge Funds and Futures Funds².
The WiseWords Library is a living thing, and continues to grow each week. The euro has become an important world currency and this year Mike began tracking the euro, Canadian dollar, and US dollar on a weekly basis.

Michael Wise, Custodian of the WiseWords Library:
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Prior to entering the financial services industry, Mike worked as a Professional Engineer for more than 20 years before switching careers. He has served as an advisor to a large corporate retirement fund, as an investment advisor with a full-service brokerage firm, and now provides financial advice to individuals and corporations with Portfolio Strategies Corporation. His specialty is a portfolio approach to financial planning, using Modern Portfolio Theory to custom-tailor client portfolios.
Mike is a Fellow of the Canadian Securities Institute. This is the highest award available in the investment industry in Canada. He holds licences from the Alberta Securities Commission and Alberta Insurance Council that authorize him to provide investment and insurance advice to clients.
He is a contributing writer for Canadian MoneySaver magazine, author of Canadian Asset Allocation Strategies, and has been quoted in local and national newspapers in Canada. Mike has spoken as guest lecturer at a national corporate sales conference, and a professional society annual meeting. He has also been a guest on CBC Newsworld, where he spoke on retirement planning issues.
The Investor Learning Centre of Calgary used his services on a regular basis to present investor education seminars; he was their most frequent guest lecturer. Presentations given included:
• Give Yourself Your Mortgage
• Head, Heart and Stomach: Managing Risk in Your Investment Portfolio
• Uses - and Abuses - of Universal Life Insurance
• Conservative Leverage: Investing for Income
Mike's website, H.Michael Wise Asset Management, contains back issues of his Canadian MoneySaver articles and recent copies of his quarterly newsletter "Investing Wisely".

Referral Program:
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The WiseWords Library will provide you with a rebate of 20% of the initial subscription for every individual or multi-user subscriber that you enlist!
To take advantage of this offer simply email us the name and email address of the potential client with whom you have discussed The WiseWords Library, and who seems keen to enroll. If they subsequently become subscribers, we will credit your PayPal account with the rebate.
The WiseWords Library is currently available to individual subscribers, with the Library mounted on an un-networked computer. Please email us if you require a subscription for multiple users and/or multiple locations. We will work with you to arrange a custom network subscription.

Privacy Policy:
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The WiseWords Library respects your privacy. We will not divulge the names or email addresses of any of our subscribers to any other party.
The Custodian of The WiseWords Library is Michael Wise, a financial advisor licensed in Alberta, Canada. He periodically emails information to his clients, subscribers, and important contacts that he thinks may be relevant to their financial well-being.

NOTES:
¹ This information is available on the MSCI website. The Wisewords Library links to the MSCI site. Users must agree to the Terms and Conditions imposed by MSCI on the use of their data. (Return to Section)
² This information is available on the Zurich Capital Markets website. The Wisewords Library links to the Zurich site. Users must agree to the Terms and Conditions imposed by Zurich Capital Markets and CISDM on the use of their data. (Return to Section)

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