My dad sent me an article from Canoe Financial over the weekend that included the chart below. What it shows is that corporate equities and mutual fund shares now make up a greater percentage of household wealth in the US than residential real estate for only the second time since 1990.

From a macro perspective, and when you consider the popularity of index funds, this means that American households probably have a lot of their wealth concentrated in high-growth tech stocks. And since these stocks are being driven higher largely due to the promise of AI, there's perhaps a concentration risk for US households.

The other thing this chart made me wonder about was what it would look like for Canadian households.

According to these net worth indicators released by Statistics Canada in October 2025, real estate as a share of total household assets was sitting at 41.8%. Financial assets as a share of total assets were at 53.4%, but this includes life insurance and pensions, which are not included in the US chart.

If we remove this line item, we're left with "other financial assets" at 37.8%. However, this account also includes cash deposits, bonds, foreign investments, and other receivables, which I also don't think are carried in the US chart. So net-net, Canadian household wealth is composed of real estate at 41.8% and corporate equities at some number below 37.8%.

Real estate is the larger net worth account for Canadian households. Whether this is good or bad is a topic for another post, but there's certainly an argument to be made that Canadians are over-indexing on real estate at the expense of investing in new ideas and businesses.

Cover photo by Daniela Araya on Unsplash

Canadian geographer Mario Polèse's book, The Wealth and Poverty of Regions: Why Cities Matter, is not new. It was originally published in 2010. But it's perhaps a good follow-up to yesterday's post about the untethering of wealth. Here's an excerpt from a review of the book by Jeb Brugmann:

All cities, Polèse explains, share the same basic economic causes and effects. These are economies of localization (i.e., locating activities close together) and of urbanization (i.e., clustering lots of diverse activities together at scale). Polèse shows how these urban economies—usefully distinguished and defined in detail as economies of scale, proximity, diversity and concentration—combine with unique natural features and resource endowments, technology and infrastructure investments, national boundaries and market controls, and historical events to create quintessentially local and unique places. Every time he explains the status of another place—New York, London, Chicago, Paris, Montreal, the northern Mexico border, the North American west coast—he demonstrates again how the source code of geography combines with specific local and historical conditions to create a momentum of wealth or poverty.

The rich may have the means to tax-optimize through physical mobility, but the draw to established urban clusters remains strong, which is why it can be a challenge to stay away from them for more than 183 days. There is a "stickiness" to established cities that is the result of momentum and compounding over centuries.

Still, nothing is guaranteed, and there's only so much that can be done if you're swimming against a global landscape that is shifting away from you. Geography does matter. And today, the world's economic center of gravity is rapidly shifting toward Asia. This is good for some cities and bad for others.

Cover photo by Zhu Hongzhi on Unsplash

One of the themes we cover on this blog is the importance of place in a world where people are becoming increasingly untethered. While I'm a firm believer that great local places have enduring value, this does not mean that technology isn't driving greater fluidity in the way people live, work, play, and optimize their taxes.

Over the last decade, the population of ultra-wealthy Americans (those with a net worth greater than or equal to $30 million) has risen noticeably in two states: Texas and Florida. California, a high-tax state, still dominates; however, Texas has overtaken New York, and Florida has overtaken Illinois. Notably, both Texas and Florida have no state income tax — they also have warmer weather than New York and Illinois.

As we have talked about before, there's a longstanding migration trend in the US toward sun, urban sprawl, and lower taxes. But it's not always as clear-cut as a rich person fully relocating to a lower-tax jurisdiction and completely severing ties. The enduring value of place means that many people still travel back and forth to meet whatever personal or professional obligations they might have.

And today, there are apps, such as TaxBird, that will meticulously track the number of days you spend (or your phone spends) in each jurisdiction to ensure you don't cross any important residency thresholds.

The global standard is the 183-day rule (or roughly half a year). In many or most cases, if you are physically present in a place for more than 50% of the year, you are automatically considered a resident for tax purposes. But it's not always this simple, so check with your tax advisor. Regardless, the untethering of life and work is surely allowing more people to tax-optimize in this way.

None of this is surprising.

As Charlie Munger used to say, "Show me the incentive, and I'll show you the outcome." But now we need to think about the longer-term ramifications for colder, higher-tax jurisdictions as capital and tax revenue continue to be siphoned off, not only to Texas and Florida, but to Dubai, Singapore, Hong Kong, Switzerland, Monaco and other places.

Cover photo by Colin Lloyd on Unsplash

My dad sent me an article from Canoe Financial over the weekend that included the chart below. What it shows is that corporate equities and mutual fund shares now make up a greater percentage of household wealth in the US than residential real estate for only the second time since 1990.

From a macro perspective, and when you consider the popularity of index funds, this means that American households probably have a lot of their wealth concentrated in high-growth tech stocks. And since these stocks are being driven higher largely due to the promise of AI, there's perhaps a concentration risk for US households.

The other thing this chart made me wonder about was what it would look like for Canadian households.

According to these net worth indicators released by Statistics Canada in October 2025, real estate as a share of total household assets was sitting at 41.8%. Financial assets as a share of total assets were at 53.4%, but this includes life insurance and pensions, which are not included in the US chart.

If we remove this line item, we're left with "other financial assets" at 37.8%. However, this account also includes cash deposits, bonds, foreign investments, and other receivables, which I also don't think are carried in the US chart. So net-net, Canadian household wealth is composed of real estate at 41.8% and corporate equities at some number below 37.8%.

Real estate is the larger net worth account for Canadian households. Whether this is good or bad is a topic for another post, but there's certainly an argument to be made that Canadians are over-indexing on real estate at the expense of investing in new ideas and businesses.

Cover photo by Daniela Araya on Unsplash

Canadian geographer Mario Polèse's book, The Wealth and Poverty of Regions: Why Cities Matter, is not new. It was originally published in 2010. But it's perhaps a good follow-up to yesterday's post about the untethering of wealth. Here's an excerpt from a review of the book by Jeb Brugmann:

All cities, Polèse explains, share the same basic economic causes and effects. These are economies of localization (i.e., locating activities close together) and of urbanization (i.e., clustering lots of diverse activities together at scale). Polèse shows how these urban economies—usefully distinguished and defined in detail as economies of scale, proximity, diversity and concentration—combine with unique natural features and resource endowments, technology and infrastructure investments, national boundaries and market controls, and historical events to create quintessentially local and unique places. Every time he explains the status of another place—New York, London, Chicago, Paris, Montreal, the northern Mexico border, the North American west coast—he demonstrates again how the source code of geography combines with specific local and historical conditions to create a momentum of wealth or poverty.

The rich may have the means to tax-optimize through physical mobility, but the draw to established urban clusters remains strong, which is why it can be a challenge to stay away from them for more than 183 days. There is a "stickiness" to established cities that is the result of momentum and compounding over centuries.

Still, nothing is guaranteed, and there's only so much that can be done if you're swimming against a global landscape that is shifting away from you. Geography does matter. And today, the world's economic center of gravity is rapidly shifting toward Asia. This is good for some cities and bad for others.

Cover photo by Zhu Hongzhi on Unsplash

One of the themes we cover on this blog is the importance of place in a world where people are becoming increasingly untethered. While I'm a firm believer that great local places have enduring value, this does not mean that technology isn't driving greater fluidity in the way people live, work, play, and optimize their taxes.

Over the last decade, the population of ultra-wealthy Americans (those with a net worth greater than or equal to $30 million) has risen noticeably in two states: Texas and Florida. California, a high-tax state, still dominates; however, Texas has overtaken New York, and Florida has overtaken Illinois. Notably, both Texas and Florida have no state income tax — they also have warmer weather than New York and Illinois.

As we have talked about before, there's a longstanding migration trend in the US toward sun, urban sprawl, and lower taxes. But it's not always as clear-cut as a rich person fully relocating to a lower-tax jurisdiction and completely severing ties. The enduring value of place means that many people still travel back and forth to meet whatever personal or professional obligations they might have.

And today, there are apps, such as TaxBird, that will meticulously track the number of days you spend (or your phone spends) in each jurisdiction to ensure you don't cross any important residency thresholds.

The global standard is the 183-day rule (or roughly half a year). In many or most cases, if you are physically present in a place for more than 50% of the year, you are automatically considered a resident for tax purposes. But it's not always this simple, so check with your tax advisor. Regardless, the untethering of life and work is surely allowing more people to tax-optimize in this way.

None of this is surprising.

As Charlie Munger used to say, "Show me the incentive, and I'll show you the outcome." But now we need to think about the longer-term ramifications for colder, higher-tax jurisdictions as capital and tax revenue continue to be siphoned off, not only to Texas and Florida, but to Dubai, Singapore, Hong Kong, Switzerland, Monaco and other places.

Cover photo by Colin Lloyd on Unsplash