Author Spotlight: Gordon Hughes, a seasoned financial planner and author of “Money Smarts For Teens & Twenties”

Gordon Hughes, CFP, a financial planner for nearly three decades now, is the author of Money Smarts For Teens & Twenties.

Gordon started his career in the finance industry as a junior to Accountant Assistant at Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC) in 1964 before moving up to the role of Accountant Assistant.

After CIBC, he worked as a credit and accounts receivable manager for another company, where he was responsible for credit approval and collections for Ontario and Eastern Canada.

In 1991, Gordon became a financial advisor at Sun Life Financial, offering life insurance and mutual funds to clients. From January 1995 to December 2009, he was an insurance broker at York Financial Services Inc., where he provided investment advice and retirement and estate planning to the clientele.

Gordon founded Smart Choice Life Inc. in 2009, offering retirement planning for individuals within ten years of retiring. The company has also been helping retirees maintain their current standard of living without risking running out of money before expiry of their plan. Aside from that, it specializes in estate planning.

Besides a vibrant career in finance, Gordon is also the author of a financial advice column for The Daily Gleaner in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada. His articles expose the mistakes people make and also offer effective ways to avoid those pitfalls.

Gordon challenges commonly held practices that serve the seller more than the customer. His predictions were accurate. In 1998 when interest rates were around 7%, he predicted that we would see 2% GIC rates within five to six years.

Another prediction he made was a 20%-40% growth in equity markets in 1998 followed by a 50% drop. In 2000, the Toronto Stock Exchange was at 11,000 and dropped to less than 6,000 by 2002.

In 2007, Gordon predicted a repeat in 2008 or 2009 and warned his clients about it. Then there were similar results of growth in 2005, 2006, 2007, and then a drop in 2008. He helped his clients save money using a secure method of equity investing.