A friend joked that we’re overly-fixated on dividends. The thing is, many studies show that dividends can add significantly to an investor’s returns.

Consider a study by Krishna Ramaswamy and Robert   Read More

Whether you invest in equity mutual funds or directly in stocks, you need to diversify your holdings and balance them to suit your own investment circumstances and objectives. Below we   Read More

If you’ve got a case of the January credit card blues, you should first use your cash flow to repay high-interest debt. As high-interest debt melts away, you’ll have more   Read More

Cryptoassets are not just cryptocurrencies; every asset will be digitized and these cryptoassets are ultimately going to come to represent almost every single asset we have—natural assets, commodities, securities, and   Read More

Willie Sutton robbed banks “because that’s where the money is”. A rewarding short-term financial plan, but for the long term all it got Willie was a new address. Assuming that   Read More

Behavioural financial analyst Ken Norquay believes managers of big portfolios are ‘concerned’ about the market. But they have a liquidity problem. Selling will depress the market. Small investors don’t have   Read More

Rebalancing your portfolio leads to trading costs. These include brokerage fees when you sell one investment and reinvest in another, bid-ask spreads and taxes on realized capital gains.

Rebalancing is a   Read More

American children’s author E. L. Konigsburg observed about honor rolls: “By the time they get to sixth grade, honor roll students won’t risk making a mistake; and sometimes to be   Read More

DRIPs (Dividend Re-Investment Plans) and cash option plans let individual investors build their wealth. That’s thanks to the dozen advantages that we outline here.

Studies have shown that dividend reinvestment is   Read More

The United States and China are embroiled in a trade war. Britain must soon leave the European Union. Italy’s populist government wants to go on a spending spree. Political uncertainty   Read More

You have gone through a major change—you’ve sold the business that took up a huge part of your life. Just as you made careful decisions while building, growing and then   Read More

Floating-rate bonds and floating-rate bond ETFs offer you a way to protect your fixed-income portfolio from rising interest rates.
In view of rising interest rates, we’ve advised you to shorten the   Read More

RRSPs, RRIFs, TFSAs, PPPs, critical illness insurance, long-term care insurance, high-limit disability insurance, life insurance, joint-and-last-to-die insurance, charitable donations at death—no wonder we get so tired as we get older!   Read More

It makes sense for Canadians to invest some money in foreign stocks. If you’re a short-term investor, there are cases where hedging against currency risk is appropriate. But don’t hedge   Read More

Many investors repeat the same mistakes. Self-awareness may help you recognize them in your own investing and make a conscious effort to avoid them. Or else you may have to   Read More

It’s easy to understand why many investors find deciding when to sell stocks so hard—even harder, in some cases, than deciding what to buy in the first place. After all,   Read More

When it comes to getting married, there is always a honeymoon period. But we know from experience that difficulties arise in life. To get the financial peace of mind you   Read More

Since 1802, the US dollar has lost 95 per cent of its purchasing power. After inflation, that dollar invested in US stocks would’ve soared to $704,997 by 2012; invested in   Read More

KISS is an acronym for Keep It Simple, Stupid, a design principle first promulgated by the US Navy in 1960. The KISS principle states that most systems work best if   Read More

The price-to-sales ratio may help you to spot potentially undervalued stocks and also excess risk in your portfolio. But remember that the p/s ratio is just one tool to spot   Read More

This market is not an easy one for investors. What worked yesterday may cause damage today. Yesterday’s dogs, on the other hand, can become tomorrow’s heroes. You need to watch   Read More

It’s best to contribute as much as you can to both your RRSP and your TFSA. But that’s hard to do. The Investment Reporter outlines two strategies to assist you   Read More

Rebalancing an investment portfolio makes intuitive sense. And it serves to take emotion out of the picture. But it also takes judgment out of the picture. And its benefits are   Read More

Behavioural financial analyst Ken Norquay points out that October’s gruesome Hallowe’en holiday reminds us that human activity is not always rational. There is no need to lose your money just   Read More

Floating-rate bonds and floating-rate bond ETFs offer you a way to protect your fixed-income portfolio from rising interest rates.
In view of rising interest rates, we’ve advised you to shorten the   Read More

The peak six months of market activity has arrived, and seasonal investing analyst and portfolio manager Brooke Thackray picks the two sectors—and names two specific ETFs—that he’s targeting to rotate   Read More

The ‘Dogs of the Dow’ strategy involves the 10 stocks of the Dow Jones Industrial Average with the lowest price-to-earnings ratios. These low-cost stocks subsequently beat both the overall Dow   Read More

Portfolio manager Keith Richards of ValueTrend Wealth Management warns of the traps set by pros that often catch less experienced investors using stop loss orders. Keith offers a rule-of-thumb to   Read More

KISS is an acronym for Keep It Simple, Stupid, a design principle first promulgated by the US Navy in 1960. The KISS principle states that most systems work best if   Read More

Everyone knows that successful investing entails taking calculated risks. The trick is to minimize those risks while maximizing your potential profits. You can do this better if you understand the   Read More

Many investors repeat the same mistakes. Self-awareness may help you recognize them in your own investing and make a conscious effort to avoid them. Or else you may have to   Read More

Behavioural finance analyst Ken Norquay says: “If your monthly statement shows big losses, change your mind; change your view; change your strategy. If your monthly statement shows big profits, stick   Read More

Floating-rate bonds and floating-rate bond ETFs offer you a way to protect your fixed-income portfolio from rising interest rates.
In view of rising interest rates, we’ve advised you to shorten the   Read More

RRSPs, RRIFs, TFSAs, PPPs, critical illness insurance, long-term care insurance, high-limit disability insurance, life insurance, joint-and-last-to-die insurance, charitable donations at death—no wonder we get so tired as we get older!   Read More

Retirees are often advised to avoid risk by buying government bonds and holding them to maturity. But this exposes retirees to the risk of losing purchasing power due to inflation.   Read More

If China starts to sell a small portion of its holdings of US bonds and bills, US interest rates could go even higher. China has a very significant ‘ace in   Read More

There are tailwinds benefiting and headwinds hindering stock markets. It’s difficult to know whether the tailwinds or the headwinds will prevail. Even if you’re pessimistic, keep your high-quality stocks, but   Read More

Shorten the average term to maturity of your bond holdings, and more importantly their duration, by trading into high coupon short term bonds. Any new money you have to invest   Read More

This market is not an easy one for investors. What worked yesterday may cause damage today. Yesterday’s dogs, on the other hand, can become tomorrow’s heroes. You need to watch   Read More

That sums up the advice of Investor’s Digest of Canada columnist T. Edward Gardiner. “If you’re holding utilities stocks, they’re probably as safe as anything else, and resource stocks may   Read More

You have gone through a major change—you’ve sold the business that took up a huge part of your life. Just as you made careful decisions while building, growing and then   Read More

The price-to-sales ratio may help you to spot potentially undervalued stocks and also excess risk in your portfolio. But remember that the p/s ratio is just one tool to spot   Read More

We’ve always thought that discipline may help you choose the best investments and increase your returns. Here are six things to remember when you buy stocks.
We’ve often stressed the point   Read More

Behavioural finance analyst Ken Norquay encourages investors to create an action plan when the market is less emotional than it is now. Create a data-based program that tells you when   Read More

The strength of The Investment Reporter stock selection system lies in not attempting the near-impossible task of outsmarting all other investors consistently (which is what you have to do if   Read More

Not all money market instruments are substitutes for each other. Below we look at the various securities available for investing your cash in, and identify which ones we have preferences   Read More

If China starts to sell a small portion of its holdings of US bonds and bills, US interest rates could go even higher. China has a very significant ‘ace in   Read More

We expect interest rates to keep climbing in 2018. Higher rates have hurt the prices of high-yield stocks. They often raise their dividends, however, while bonds never pay more. And   Read More

Some investors think that small-capitalization stocks are the quickest route to riches. After all, big successful companies like Microsoft Corp. and Thomson Reuters started out as small-cap stocks.
Small-caps include all   Read More

In chemistry, ‘volatility’ refers to the ability of a substance to evaporate quickly—or, under the right conditions, to explode. In investments, it means much the same thing. Still, we don’t   Read More

“The key to investing is . . . determining the competitive advantage of any given company and, above all, the durability of that advantage. The products or services that have   Read More

You may find margin useful when you want a short-term bridging loan. Other than that, however, we advise against using margin—especially given the market’s volatility.
Stock prices rose after the US   Read More