A close-up external view of the old Toronto Stock Exchange building

Let’s revisit the basics of investing in stocks

Investing for Fun and Profit: Three ways to invest, three culprits for poor performance — and three antidotes

This week we’re looking at the advantages and disadvantages of the three main ways to invest in stocks, as a path to achieve higher returns compared to cash, GICs or bonds. As investment vehicles go, pension funds are out of control of their individual investors, so let’s quickly move the discussion to areas where we have control.

Evaluating your investment performance

Are you getting your money’s worth when it comes to mutual fund fee structures?

There has been a lot of negativity directed towards the mutual fund and financial advisory industries around performance and fees, partly because of the emergence of Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) with lower fees. Advisors, however, rely on mutual fund fees. My bias is towards taking control with direct stock ownership. This virtually eliminates fees and, […] Read more


Index investing versus buying mutual funds

Index investing versus buying mutual funds

Guarding Wealth: To get diversification in your portfolio you have to pay for it, but not every mix works

There is an old saying that you can’t beat the market. Famed investor Warren Buffett has said, “Mr. Market always wins.” One school of investing agrees that, given you can’t beat the market, you might as well join it. That is the birth of index investing: the concept of buying index funds packed in exchange […] Read more

stock market display

The difference between mutual funds and exchange traded funds

This look inside mutual funds and exchange traded funds shows how each of these investment types work, and how each of them handle risk

How do mutual funds really work? At the ground level, they are diversified collections of assets, usually stocks or bonds — sometimes both — in balanced funds, picked for their ability to generate income and/or capital gains. The key word is “diversified,” for that is their distinctive advantage. They are usually actively managed to seize […] Read more


bonds

Why should you invest in bonds?

Bonds no longer offer interest above dividend rates, 
but they are an insurance policy for market mayhem

Readers often ask why and how one should buy bonds. The reason used to be to get interest at a rate above what stocks pay as dividends. That does not work anymore, for bank stocks and big telecoms, for example, pay four to five per cent. Ten-year Government of Canada bonds pay 2.5 per cent. […] Read more