"Investors, you have enemies."

1. The banks

Asked to name Public Enemy No. 1 for investors, Mr. Solin instantly mentioned the Big Six banks. “The obstacles to intelligent investing are even greater in Canada than in the United States because of the quasi-monopoly power of the Big Six banks,” he said. “You have six banks that basically dominate the financial services world.”

Investors are negatively affected by this dominance because it limits the amount of competition from independent firms, Mr. Solin said. But he’s more concerned about the guidance provided by the banks through their investment arms. “I think the investing advice they give is fundamentally flawed.”

Here, Mr. Solin’s bias toward index investing comes into play. He believes investors are much better served by using low-cost index funds or exchange-traded funds than they are in having advisers at bank-owned firms or elsewhere pick stocks or traditional mutual funds. “That, to me, is just gambling, not investing.”

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