CSI Blog & Newsroom

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“When environmental engineer Erica Hartmann hits the gym, she sees the floor where people lie down to do crunches as the perfect place to test dust for microbes,” wrote CBC News on December 12, 2018.

CBC News continued, “You may think of dust as dead. But dust actually teems with bacteria because it acts as a final resting place for everything drifting through the air.

At a gym, people are often encouraged to wipe down the weights and machines with a sanitizer. One antimicrobial ingredient called triclosan stops the growth of bacteria, fungus and mildew as well as deodorizes.”

Read the full article here. 

Photographer: Rawpixel.com

“A new report from Charles Schwab shows that U.S. investors with self-directed brokerage accounts (SDBAs) who work with advisors see greater portfolio diversity and higher returns than their non-advised counterparts,” wrote Audrey Carleton for The Globe and Mail on December 10, 2018.

Carleton continued, “The SBDA Indicators report, published Nov. 27, sampled 137,000 retirement plan participants who currently have balances between $5,000 and $10-million in their Schwab Personal Choice Retirement Account in the third quarter of 2018.

According to the report, only 19 per cent of SDBA participants chose to use an advisor. But this small percentage saw far better results than non-advised participants. The former category showed an average balance of $449,552 – almost double the average balance of non-advised accounts, which came in at $234,643.”

Read the full article here.