Investing Basics

Featured Article

Rock, Paper, Scissors: Lessons in Strategy, Psychology and Investing

The classic game of rock, paper, scissors, offers a fascinating analogy for a well known, but often forgotten, adage of keeping your eye on the prize. In this modern world, we are inundated with massive amounts of ultimately useless information, intended to spark a reaction in us and to lure us in. By staying focused on the prize and ignoring the noise, rock, paper, scissors can help us become better investors and professionals!

by Max Kirouac

Investing, Investing Basics

The Role of Fixed Income in Your Investment Portfolio

For investors wanting to manage their risk (stocks don't go up forever), introducing fixed income into your portfolio may be your next step. Fixed income can provide predictable cash flow in volatile times, acting as a safeguard during market pullbacks...

Investing, Investing Basics

XEQT vs VEQT: What’s the Difference Between these two ETFs?

For investors looking to build high quality long term investment accounts, you're likely wondering what the key differences are between XEQT vs VEQT. This article provides a comprehensive overview of the two ETFs and it may help you decide which one is the best fit for your TFSA, RRSP, FHSA or cash investment accounts..

Investing, Investing Basics

Why a Bullish Mindset Pays Off: Optimism in Markets and Life

Despite the overwhelming amount of negativity and cynicism that we are subjected to everyday, it shouldn't be a secret that those people with optimism and a positive outlook generally fare better when it comes to their own lives as well as their investments. Evolutionarily, negativity kept us alive, however optimism is what keeps us moving forward and progressing. Ignore the noise, be optimistic in your daily life and in the stock market, and chances are that everything will be ok!

Investing, Investing Basics

QQC vs QQC.F: What’s the Difference?

For Canadians looking to invest in US technology, the NASDAQ 100 is one of the best index funds out there tracking the best and the brightest companies. Here's the difference between QQC vs QQC.F, two low cost ETFs that track the NASDAQ 100...

Investing, Investing Basics

Do Current Events Affect Stock Market Returns? An Optimistic Perspective

Despite what the news might be telling you, the data clearly shows us that the good, bad and ugly current events that happen in the world, don't really impact the long term outcome of investing in the stock market. For news organizations, fear and greed sells when it comes to investing, so it is important to remember to step back and look at the bigger picture!

Investing, Investing Basics

VFV & VSP: What’s the Difference?

What’s the difference between VFV and VSP? The answer is simple. VFV and VSP are both low-cost Canadian Vanguard ETFs that track the S&P 500, but the difference between the two is that VSP is hedged to the Canadian dollar...

Investing, Investing Basics

The Price of Compounding

For young professionals focused on building their wealth and optionality later in life, compound growth will be your greatest ally. Compounding means the ever increasing return on your investments as you add more and more money over long periods of time....

Investing, Investing Basics

Investing in the NASDAQ with QQC

A simple way to invest in the NASDAQ is by purchasing the Invesco NASDAQ 100 Index ETF (ticker: QQC). QQC is a passively managed equities fund that tracks the performance of the NASDAQ-100 in Canadian dollars. For Canadians looking to grow their wealth over the long term, QQC may be a great option!

Featured Article

What is the 2024 TFSA Contribution Limit?

The Tax Free Savings Account (TFSA) is one of the best ways for Canadians to invest and grow their money. Give this article a read to better understand how they work and how much cash you can "contribute" in 2024!

by Modern Money

Investing, Investing Basics

VOO and RRSPs: Why VOO Isn’t Subject to Withholding Tax in an RRSP

Every investor seeks to maximize returns, and paying as little tax as possible along the way helps with this. For Canadians wondering why VOO dividends aren't subject to the standard 15% withholding tax, this article will give you the answers you are looking for!

Investing, Investing Basics

Mastering Patience: The Behavioural Edge of Successful Investors

Many investors are not properly prepared for the psychological rollercoaster that is investing. Mastering patience and staying calm through the volatility and the noise is what will lead you to long term success. Learn how to gain the behavioural edge to become one of the successful investors here...

Investing, Investing Basics

Hedging Your Position: What Does This Actually Mean?

For sophisticated investors, hedging can be an important tool, however, for the vast majority, hedging is a complicated and unnecessary strategy. Slow and steady, by investing into a broad market index fund ETF, is how most people should be growing their wealth...

Investing, Investing Basics

Common Investment Strategies and their Shortcomings

Many investors have been fooled by blindly following common investment strategies that may seem popular, but ultimately and often lead to them losing money. Use this guide to avoid the common pitfalls to ensure that your money is growing for you over the long term!

Investing, Investing Basics

What GDP Does and Doesn’t Measure

What is the exact role that GDP plays when evaluating the health of the economy? GDP, or gross domestic product, is often misunderstood but commonly referred to in the media and the news. Learn more about GDP and how you should be looking at it here...

Investing, Investing Basics

What GDP Does and Doesn’t Measure

What is the exact role that GDP plays when evaluating the health of the economy? GDP, or gross domestic product, is often misunderstood but commonly referred to in the media and the news. Learn more about GDP and how you should be looking at it here...

Investing, Investing Basics

What Does an Inverted Yield Curve Mean?

Have you heard the term "inverted yield curve" and had no idea what it means? The media loves to point to the inverted yield curve as a doomsday prediction of impending pain in the financial markets, however, there's more to the story....

Investing, Investing Basics

Demystifying Capital Gains in Canada: Everything You Need to Know

In simple terms, capital gains in Canada are the profits you earn when you sell an investment, such as stocks, for a higher price than you paid for it. In this article, we'll break down Canadian capital gains taxation, provide an example of selling stock in a non-registered account, and discuss tax-protected accounts...

Investing, Investing Basics

The NASDAQ Deciphered: Illuminating the World of High-Tech Stocks

The NASDAQ Stock Market is the second-largest stock market exchange in the world, with more than 3,330 companies listed and it is the world’s second-largest stock exchange by total securities value; its major attraction for listing companies is its significantly lower listing fees, which enable many new high growth and more speculative companies to get listed, while its electronic trading platform allows investors to trade on any major stock-trading platform.

Investing, Investing Basics

What is the S&P 500?

The Standard and Poor's 500 (S&P 500) is s stock market index that tracks the performance of 500 large companies listed on U.S. based stock exchanges. The S&P 500 is considered the best indicator of the American economy and markets.

Investing, Investing Basics

Index Funds Explained: A Complete Guide for Investors

When it comes to investing, index funds are one of the best tools available to help grow your wealth. Index funds offer exposure, risk diversification and significant growth potential to investors, by tracking benchmark index funds (such as the S&P 500). With index funds, you are investing your money into hundreds, if not thousands of different companies...

Investing, Investing Basics

VFV & VOO: What’s the Difference?

What’s the difference between VFV and VOO? The answer is simple. VFV is the Canadian version of the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF offered by Vanguard U.S. Although they both track the S&P 500, one of the major differences between investing in VFV versus VOO is that dividends paid out by VFV are subject to a 15% foreign withholding tax...

Investing, Investing Basics

Investing in Life Insurance: Is Life Insurance a Good Tool for Wealth Building?

Life insurance is an essential step in protecting your loved ones if the unthinkable happens, but you may have also heard it can double as an investment strategy. When you’re trying to set your family up for financial success, the idea of an investment component can seem inviting...

Investing, Investing Basics

What is the First Home Savings Account (FHSA)?

Brand new and set to launch in 2023, the First Home Savings Account (FHSA) is going to provide another tax-free opportunity for Canadians to save and grow their money to be used on the purchase of their first home. Learn more about how the FHSA is going to work here...

Investing, Investing Basics

The Inevitability of the Financial Markets

At all times, my outlook on the market is short-term agnostic and long-term bullish. Investing with a bullish long-term outlook is logical: the test of time has proven its viability. Market corrections, such as the one we have been experiencing, are often looked back upon as incredible buying opportunities...

Investing, Investing Basics

Saving vs. Investing – What’s Best?

There’s a running joke in the investment management space that the Harper government did the Canadian public a great disservice by going with the name Tax-Free Savings Account instead of Tax-Free Investing Account. This subtle descriptive difference has caused many to use their TFSAs as little more than an additional bank account when it should be a primary means of compounding wealth for retirement...

Investing, Investing Basics

How To Navigate a Bear Market

Bear markets are both dangerous and full of potential. They have fooled many investors and will continue to. With that said, they present an incredible investment opportunity for long-term investors. Learn more about navigating a bear market here...

Investing, Investing Basics

Twitter’s Future in Focus: Investing Strategies for the Privatization Buzz

For those unaware of the details of the purchase arrangement, Musk put forth a tender offer to take Twitter private at a price of $54.20 per share, for a total purchase price of $44 billion. When the offer was accepted on Monday, April 25, Twitter stock (TWTR) was trading around $51, so it represented a premium to its current stock price (Musk had earlier purchased 9% of the company, and Twitter stock is up more than 40% since that initial buy). As of market close on April 28, Twitter stock is trading at $49.11. This leads some to ask: why shouldn’t I just buy Twitter stock now, knowing that I’ll make a quick profit when it’s taken private at $54.20 per share....?

Investing, Investing Basics

Why You Should Care Less About the Dow Jones Industrial Average

The Dow is a relic of another age and it is truly remarkable how heavily its movement influences the market news cycle. It has been around since the late 1800s, when Charles Dow and Edward Jones decided that they needed a more efficient proxy for the broader stock market so that investors could have a rough idea of how the markets were performing (it wasn’t quite as easy to get real-time market data back in those days).

Investing, Investing Basics

Sequence of Returns Risk: Why Average is a Lie

If you had invested $10,000 at the beginning of 1981, it would have been worth about $780,000 by the end of 2020. However, this statistic doesn't really tell the full story. This is why it's important to understand sequence...

Investing, Investing Basics

Which Investment Platform is Right for Me? Wealthsimple or Interactive Brokers?

In our last article, we compared two of Canada’s leading low-cost investment platforms: Wealthsimple Trade and Questrade. In this article, we are going to consider another low-cost option that is lesser known north of the border: Interactive Brokers Canada.

Investing, Investing Basics

Zero-Commission Trading Announced by National Bank

National Bank Direct Brokerage has announced zero-commission and fees on online trading of Canadian and U.S. stocks and ETFs...

Investing, Investing Basics

Target Date Funds: What You Need to Know if You Own Them

Over the forthcoming years, target date funds (used as a passive investment strategy) will force investors to sell their stocks to purchase bonds with near all-time low interest rates, drastically hampering the portfolio's future performance. As interest rates fell, bond prices have increased, meaning investors will be paying a premium price for bonds purchased while the interest rates designed to fund a retirement income stream will not deliver the same type of income they once did...

Investing, Investing Basics

Share Buybacks 101: Everything You Need to Know

Buybacks are a tool for returning value to shareholders. When companies post a profit at the end of the year, they have some options for what to do with the cash...

Investing, Investing Basics

ESG Investing: What it is & Why it’s Important

ESG stands for Environmental, Social, and Governance. ESG Investing refers to understanding these non-financial elements to better assess potential risks and make more informed investment decisions...

Investing, Investing Basics

Will Higher Capital Gains Taxes Crash the Market?

Speculation is mounting that capital gains inclusion rates could increase significantly, perhaps including 100% of capital gains as income. The question is, how would this change impact investors?

Investing, Investing Basics

Following Cathie Wood & Warren Buffett? What You Need to Know Before Blindly Following the Big Names

Cathie Wood is the latest in a long list of investment managers to be put on a pedestal on the strength of recent performance or one fantastic call...

Investing, Investing Basics

Understanding Short Selling & Short Squeezes in the Stock Market

For the first time in years, Blackberry, Nokia, and AMC are in the news. Trading activity has brought a number of once-great monoliths back from the grave, none more so than GameStop – the brick and mortar video game retailer, which traded as low as $3.94 in late July 2020, hit an all-time high of $483 on January 28, 2021 amidst a frenzy of retail trading...

Investing, Investing Basics

Understanding the Basics of Portfolio Rebalancing

Rebalancing is the act of periodically reviewing the asset allocation in your portfolio and, if the balance is “off” from your original intention, then investments are reallocated to ensure your portfolio is restored to your original goal...

Investing, Investing Basics

Which Investment Platform is Right for Me? Wealthsimple or Questrade?

For many people – especially beginners – the world of investments can seem like a daunting place. Financial jargon is notoriously difficult to understand, and the myriad of choices available in products, strategies, and brokerages can be overwhelming. For most, however, investing doesn’t have to be so complicated...

Investing, Investing Basics

What is the 2021 TFSA Contribution Limit?

Wondering what the 2021 TFSA contribution limit will be? Well, the wait is finally over as it has officially been announced. The 2021 limit is $6,000, matching the amount set in 2019 and 2020...

Investing, Investing Basics

The Power of Average – Dollar Cost Averaging 101

When it comes to succeeding in long-term investing, winning pretty much boils down to not losing. If there’s one thing history has taught us, it’s that the stock market’s long-run projection is inevitably upward...

Investing, Investing Basics

Robo-Advisors vs. Human Advisors: What’s Best For You?

Exploring investing options outside traditional investment advisors – like robo-advisors or DIY investing – saves you a lot of money in fees while producing the same (or sometimes better) results. While the difference in fees between these options seems small, the compounding effects can actually help you retire years earlier...

Investing, Investing Basics

ETFs vs Mutual Funds: What You Need to Know Before Investing

The differences between these two investment vehicles are often overestimated. Ultimately, they are vehicles through which financial companies can deliver portfolios to interested investors...

Investing, Investing Basics

Sports Betting and Stock Picking: What You Need to Remember

In many ways, stock picking is a lot more like betting on sports and displays a lot of the same psychological biases...

Investing, Investing Basics

Understanding Home-Bias in Investing & What You Need to Consider

Home-bias investing is the practice of investing a disproportionate amount of your portfolio in domestic companies, often at the expense of diversification, and capital efficiency...

Investing, Investing Basics

Why do Companies Split Their Stock? What You Need To Know

The primary reason companies split their stock is to increase the liquidity of their shares. Take Apple for example. As of market close on August 4, Apple’s stock is trading at $438.66 US (about $584 CAD). For a beginner’s investment portfolio, a single share of Apple stock may prevent adequate diversification...

Investing, Investing Basics

Primer on Stock Dividends – What You Need to Know Before Buying

Dividends are derived from a company’s excess cash flow (i.e. the money left over after a company has met all of its obligations, including administrative expenses and debt payments). After obligations are met, a company is left with the option to either retain that excess cash for future investment or pay it out to shareholders...

Investing, Investing Basics

Timing the Markets vs. Time in the Markets

The appeal behind timing the market is tied to the age-old adage of buy low, sell high. History has proven that investing for a sufficiently long time frame, no matter the start and end points, will accomplish this goal...

Investing, Investing Basics

Why Companies Split Their Stock: Slide Series Edition

Ever wonder why publicly traded companies split their stock? Use this slide deck to understand their rationale for doing so alongside a recent example of Apple’s stock split that most recently occurred on August 31, 2020...

Investing, Investing Basics

How to Invest in a TFSA: Slide Series Edition

Use this quick slide series guide to learn the basics of how to invest in a TFSA...

Investing, Investing Basics

Fixed Income – Your Primer on How it Can Benefit Your Investment Portfolio

Fixed income is comprised of the debt of corporations, governments, and individuals (in the form of mortgage-backed securities). Given that debt holds a senior position to equity and is therefore safer, the returns on fixed income are lower (and less volatile) than the returns on equities...

Investing, Investing Basics

4 Reasons Why You (probably) Shouldn’t Day Trade

When it comes to investing, knowing a little bit is much more dangerous than knowing nothing. When I first started learning about trading, I thought that I could learn everything I needed to know to make profitable trades in a matter of weeks. I didn’t realize the extent of my own ignorance, as I somehow believed that every piece of information I consumed was available only to me and I could simply outsmart all other market participants...

Investing, Investing Basics

Investment Strategies 101: What to Look For

Given the high stakes involved with stock market participation, countless investment strategies have been developed to try to outperform the market. These range from fundamental analysis of financial metrics to tracking the patterns that are produced when a stock’s price is plotted on a line graph...

Investing, Investing Basics

The Little Book of Common Sense Investing

The Little Book of Common Sense Investing is an ideal starting point for anyone wishing to expand their financial literacy. There are no get-rich-quick proclamations or vague anecdotes presented as “proof” of successful investment strategies. Instead, Bogle’s presents a clear message: the vast majority of investors should target the market return and ignore the cost-laden, inconsistent strategies preached by active fund managers...

Investing, Investing Basics

Your Investment Portfolio Just Dropped 10%. What Do You Do Now?

Making wise decisions results from good process. Develop your process, follow it, and let everyone else worry about the noise. Use these 4 investing tips when the market drops...

Investing, Investing Basics

What is an RRSP & is it Right for You?

An RRSP is a tax-advantaged account. This means that it allows you to contribute to it and the amount that you do contribute will be exempt from your total taxable income for the year that you make the contribution. This usually results in you paying less tax...

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