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What type of companies should you invest in? The answer is simple: "good" businesses.

Think about this for a moment when you purchase anything, be it clothing, smartphones, TVs, furniture, cars, or a home you strive to purchase the best. You are probably not going out of your way to purchase mediocre products. The same is true for stocks, don't purchase mediocre investments, focus on good companies to buy.

Glenn Greenberg a famous value investor defines "good" businesses as:

"They [Glenn Gree…

Should you buy the bank (stock) or their mutual funds? Great question and one that has already been answered by Tom Connolly recently.

Mr. Connolly reported that in 2004 the RBC Monthly Income Fund was paying out $0.56 a unit. In 2014 the disbursement grew to $0.57 per unit. Can you imagine only a $0.01 increase in ten years! Mr. Connolly goes on to say:

"You might as well call this fixed income [refering to the RBC Fund]. It's a bit more bother, but we buy quality individual dividend growth s…

Everyone wants to know what's the key to riding out stock market downturns, and thriving in the long-term. Fortune magazine recently published an article tackling this important question.

Fortune writes that Don Kilbride who manages the $24.6 billion Vanguard Dividend Growth portfolio has an answer: "he's now convinced that dividend growth is the key to riding out bad markets and thriving in the long-term."

Fortune magazine continues to write:

"Investors have treasured dividend growers for ag…

I’ve been asked many times what stocks I hold in my portfolio. I have now published the entire list of my holdings on my website (click here to see the list).

As you can see there are a number of stocks in my portfolio that have exceeded 40% in return. But the focus of today’s article is to look at stocks with triple digit returns:

Canadian National Railway (CNR) 164%
Empire Company Limited (EMP.A) 157%
TransCanada Corporation (TRP) 439%
Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA) 143%

CNR was founded in …

I know investing in the stock market can seem risky. It is risky if you don’t know what you’re doing. Imagine getting behind the wheel of a car if you don’t know how to drive. Or sitting in the cockpit of an airplane but you don’t know how to fly. The missing ingredient in these scenarios is a lack of training.

Training and knowledge help you to overcome the unknown; the same scenarios no longer appear risky. The same goes for investing in the stock market, training will give you the confidence…

Each time you invest your hard-earned cash in mutual funds, ETFs, stocks, bonds, CDs, or GICs, there’s that inner voice saying “what happens if the invest tanks and I lose my money?”. As an investor your mind races with questions like:

• What if the stock market crashes?
• What if corporate executives are stealing money from the business?
• What if the financial results are made up, and the company goes bankrupt?
• What happens if I lose my savings?

These are valid questions, and the solution i…

Last year Globe & Mail interviewed 12 investors, from Bay Street to Wall Street to Silicon Valley, about how to make money now. Here’s what Satish Rai had to say about investing:

What can a boomer approaching retirement do?

I have a simple piece of advice for boomers: Live off the dividend income, not capital gains from stocks or bonds. If you need the capital gains, you have to try to time the market when you buy and sell. But if you’re able to sustain your lifestyle with dividend income—plus…

Most investor buy a stock and then hope for the price to go up. You can hope all you want, but at the end of the day what really matters is the dividend (the money paid to you the shareholder).

Last year Globe & Mail interviewed 12 investors, from Bay Street to Wall Street to Silicon Valley, about how to make money now. Here’s what Geraldine Weiss had to say about about dividends:

What about the way investors approach dividend stocks?

I look at dividends not necessarily as an income factor, b…

Would you like to increase the amount of money you currently make? Have you thought about how to increase your income? Getting a raise? Starting a second job? Changing your career? Launching a new business? Investing in real estate? All of these are great ideas but the time and effort involved is huge!

What then is the quickest and easiest way to grow your income? I would suggest investing in quality stocks that pay dividends. Dividends are cash payments made to shareholders, dividends are paid…

I've often heard the phrase "You can't beat large institutional investors, they have access to more information!" I disagree, an individual investor has the advantage of being small, and being able to hold a long-term perspective.

Here's what Motley Fool had to say about the advantage of being a small investor:

"While Buffett has buying power and access to deals ordinary investors can only dream of, there's one area where Buffett himself concedes that the small investors have the advantage.

B…