Investing

Mark Seed recently wrote in his blog, My Own Advisor, that his thoughts on his dividend investing style haven’t changed. This was actually a rebuttal of the post by our own Robb Engen, aka Echo, who described why he switched to an all ETF portfolio a short while ago. It’s apparent that readers of both…

I was born in 1979 – a year that places me at the tail-end of Generation X but still makes me cool enough to give advice to Millennials about investing. My mom worked in a bank and encouraged me at an early age to save and invest. I started investing in mutual funds at 18…

In 2008, then Federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty introduced the Tax Free Savings Account. “We already have a retirement plan. This is a savings plan for everything else,” he explained. Perhaps that comment, as well as the name of the plan (not to mention the heavy advertising by banks), is the reason that most people…

It’s been almost two years since I made the switch from dividend investing to a passive, two-fund ETF solution. I sold a portfolio of 24 Canadian dividend-paying stocks and REITs and bought Vanguard ETFs VCN (Canadian stocks) and VXC (U.S. and International stocks). I started buying individual stocks in 2009, just after the stock market…

It isn’t what we say that makes a difference in the world. It’s what we do. There has been high interest and significant growth in socially responsible investing – also known as ethical investing – especially among younger investors and women. But, even though the trend is growing, it’s not new. Socially responsible investing has existed since…

The final stage of implementation for phase two of the client relationship model (CRM2) comes into effect today. What it means for Canadian investors is that they’ll begin to receive some much needed disclosure about investment fees and performance. Under the directive of the Canadian Securities Administrators, financial institutions are required to send two new mandatory…

The long term economic and cultural fallout over Brexit is still very much up in the air. What is crystal clear, however, is that investors, economists, and market pundits overreacted (again) to the news of Britain’s departure from the European Union. Stock markets took a sharp decline late last week and investors were treated to headlines such…

Using a robo-advisor can be a great way to lower your investment costs, diversify your portfolio, and reduce the time you spend worrying about investing. But if you’re a DIY investor like me then you can lower your costs even further by building a portfolio of index funds or ETFs on your own. Here are…

Canadian income trusts were a beneficial alternative corporate structure for companies due to their lower tax liabilities. They are known as “flow-through” vehicles because taxation was avoided by paying out all earnings, less expenses, as dividends directly to unitholders. Income trusts first became popular investments in the early 2000’s when interest rates declined. The main…

I’ve been using TD’s discount brokerage since 2009 when I made the switch from mutual funds to DIY investing. At that time, the TD Direct Investing WebBroker platform left much to be desired. The legacy web design of TD WebBroker was clunky and difficult to navigate (with 55 different navigational links!), trades cost $29 each way, and…