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I’ve always said over diversification is bad for your financial health, and taking more risk does not equal higher returns. I know this goes against conventional wisdom, but it’s still true. The Globe and Mail recently printed a great article (view PDF) on diversification and risk which agrees with what we (value investors) have been saying all along.

You can read the complete article here, but I’d like to share some of the highlights with you. George Athanassakos is a professor of finance and …

Here are the 12 Rules of Simply Investing, the same rules I have used over the last 18+ years to invest successfully.

These rules are designed to minimize your risk and maximize your gains for the long-term. These rules make investing easy and simple to implement.

Without further delay, here are the rules:

1. Do you understand the product or service offered by the company?

2. Will people still be using this product or service in 20 years?

3. Does the company have a low-cost durable (lasting…

A Term Deposit also referred to as a GIC (Guaranteed Investment Certificate) currently pays about 1% annually in interest. 1% return on your investment doesn’t even cover the cost of inflation. Let’s take a look at an example in which you could earn six times as much.

Here is a list of sample annual interest rates available today:

Term Deposit (1 year): 1.095%
Term Deposit (2 year): 1.194%
Term Deposit (3 year): 1.293%
Term Deposit (4 year): 1.490%
Term Deposit (5 year): 1.786%
Checking Accoun…

Stocks prices go up and down all the time. When is the best time to buy and sell?

For those of you not familiar with Benjamin Graham he was Warren Buffet’s mentor and teacher. Graham is also considered the grandfather of value investing.

Here's what Benjamin Graham had to say about buying and selling:

*The investor with a portfolio of sound stocks should expect prices to fluctuate and should neither be concerned by sizable declines nor become excited by sizable advances. He should always reme…

In the long run is it better to create your own income mutual fund, or just buy the most popular ones being sold by the banks and mutual fund companies?

To answer this question, I refer to Tom Connolly from DividendGrowth.ca.

Tom Connolly recently wrote a post about building your own portfolio versus buying an income fund.

One reason Tom Connolly, myself and others run our own portfolios is because we can perform much better versus the "store-bought" funds:

1. We can invest in specific super…

The markets were down today by almost 4%. So far the S&P 500 stock index has fallen by about 9% for the month and 8% for the year. The media is abuzz about a market crash or correction! As an investor what do you do?

Who can accurately predict which way the stock market will go? The answer is: no one. There's many so called experts who try to predict the market direction, but no one can truly predict the future.

Charles Dow said it best, "People in Wall Street, even those who get very near the center of large operations, do not know what the market is going to do with any regularity or certainty."

Forget about trying to figure out which way the market will go. Focus on building a portfolio of quality divid…

Micheal Johnston from Fund Reference believes he has found the worst mutual fund in the world. Over your lifetime this mutual fund will cost you $114,000 extra in fees!

Micheal writes:

"...the Worst Mutual Fund in the World is not an absurdly expensive fund run by a manager pursuing some exotic strategy. It’s actually an index fund that seeks to replicate one of the most widely-followed benchmarks in the world. Wondering how such a product could be the target of such scorn from a fan of indexi…

Do you want to invest in the hottest stock right now? Are you craving to find out which stock will triple in price in the next 10 days? Of course you do, it's human nature to want the latest, greatest, sexiest, thing (which in this case is a stock). Nobody would turn down the opportunity to make money fast. But pause for a moment and think about the risk. Is there a chance this hottest stock could drop in value?

History has shown that fads and trends come and go, remember these?:

• Sony Walkma…

What is your biggest fear when it comes to investing? For most people it is the fear of losing their hard earned money. It is the fear that they’ll make a mistake and make the wrong investment. The solution is to invest wisely and not haphazardly.

The investors who have the most to fear are the ones that:

• don’t know what they are doing
• focus too much on the media noise (internet, radio, tv, magazines, newspapers)
• take “hot” stock tips from friends and co-workers
• blindly hand over their mo…