Investing

Most people spend their tax refund even before it arrives. Your tax refund is your hard earned money being returned to you, because over the previous year the government charged you too much tax.

Will you spend your hard-earned refund on toys, the latest gadgets, vacations, beer, sporting events, or lottery tickets? Or will you spend your refund wisely?

The key to financial success is to acquire revenue generating assets. During your peak earning years it’s important to invest in assets that g…

Update [July 2021]: The TRP dividend today is $2.81,and my dividend yield based on the purchase price is now 21%.

Today I’m going to share with you one of my success stories. The purpose of my story is to show you that great returns are possible without resorting to expensive mutual funds.

My story begins in 2000 when I decided to buy 185 shares in a company called TransCanada (TRP). After applying the 12 Rules of Simply Investing I decided that TRP would be a great investment. TRP had:

• A str…

Warren Buffett's company Berkshire Hathaway recently released their annual report. I highly recommend reading this annual report because it'll give you insight into the greatest mind in value investing today. I enjoyed reading the report, and would like to share some of the highlights here.

Here are in Warren Buffett's own words, his thoughts on investing:

• You don’t need to be an expert in order to achieve satisfactory investment returns. But if you aren’t, you must recognize your limitation…

I know investing on your own can be scary. It can be scary to put in your first order to buy investments (stocks, mutual funds, bonds, index funds). What happens if you make the wrong decision and lose all of your hard earned cash? What if you earn dismal returns?

These are all valid questions, and something every investor asks him or herself.  In today’s article I’ll show you how to take the fear out of investing. I understand the fear you have about investing. I’ve been there; in early 1996 I…

CBC Marketplace recently conducted a hidden camera investigation, to determine the quality of investment advice dispensed by the five big banks in Canada and five popular investment firms in Ontario. The investigation uncovered  ‘atrocious’ investment advice.

You can read more about the investigation on the CBC News website, but here are a few points I'd like to share with my readers:

"The tests revealed a wide range in the quality of advisers. Some performed well, giving clear answers and ask…

A recently had the honour of interviewing the blogger behind the awesome blog Passive Income Pursuit!

Passive Income Pursuit has been blogging since 2011 and his blog covers my favorite topic, dividend investing! So I invited him to share his investing knowledge and experience with us.

Kanwal: Tell me a little bit about yourself and your blog.

Passive Income Pursuit: I was laid off in January 2009, and while it was frustrating at the time, as my unemployment period continued on I realized the…

Do you want more money, more financial freedom? Then you need to start making the right investments today, and your future self will thank you as you reap the rewards. I’ll give you my personal example of earning over 13% annually on a single stock, and achieving gains of over 390%. In 2000 I purchased 185 shares of TRP at $13.40 each, at the time the annual dividend was $0.80/share. Since then the company has increased their dividend every single year:

2000: $0.80
2001: $0.90
2002: $1.00
2003: …

Happy New Year to all my readers! This month is a great time to plan for the year ahead. Below are some resolutions you may want to consider for helping you earn more in 2014.

Resolution #1: Become an investor not a speculator

In 2014 resolve to become an investor not a speculator. Speculation is buying stocks (or mutual funds, ETFs or index funds) without any knowledge of what you are investing in. People fall into the trap of buying stocks based on “hot” stock tips, or recommendations from f…

I recently had the honor of being interviewed by a prominent financial blogger over at Passive Income Pursuit, where he asked me to identify my investment heroes. You can read the entire interview at his blog, but here’s my list of investment superheroes:

Warren Buffet:  I learned from him the importance of the margin of safety when buying stocks.

Geraldine Weiss:  I learned from her the important of investing in companies when they are undervalued.  I learned from her that a company is underv…

What are stocks?

Stocks or shares represent ownership in a company. For example if Company XYZ has 100 shares, and you buy 1 share you own 1% of the company. If you purchase all 100 shares you would own the entire company. A company like Walmart currently has 3.26 billion shares, and each share sells for $79.81. Once you buy shares you become part owner of the company, and as an owner you are entitled to share in the profits of the company. Profits of the company are distributed to shareholders…