Before letting any investment rule for tax shelters play a role in your retirement investing decisions, make sure it makes sense for you in today’s market.

For instance, one long-standing retirement investing rule for tax shelters says you should hold fixed-return investments, like bonds, in your RRSP and hold stocks outside your RRSP.

Its rationale is two-fold. First, bonds are safer …read more »

Savings accounts at banks and trust companies pay annual interest rates as low as 0.20% and require minimum balances or monthly service plan charges to avoid transaction fees and maintenance charges. But these two institutions offer you much better deals:

ING Direct (1-800-464-3473) offers a no-fee, high-interest savings account that currently pays 3.75%. ING’s Investment Savings Account has no minimum deposit …read more »

Long-term studies show that stock market performance as a whole generally produces total pre-tax annual returns of 10% to 11%, or around 7.5% after inflation.

Returns will vary widely from year to year, of course. But I think the market will generate average annual compound returns of 10% to 11%, or 7.5% after inflation, over the next couple of decades as …read more »

In this month’s issue, you’ll find seven new buys which we first recommended in our service for aggressive investors, Stock Pickers Digest. Their subsequent gains ranged as high as 1,920.0%, but we feel each of them has further gains ahead.

The Successful Investor has two main goals. First, we explain our 3-pronged investment approach, which consists of investing mainly in well-established …read more »

So far, the market downturn seems to have stayed within the limits we envisioned for it in our July 27 Stock Pickers Digest Hotline, and last month’s issue.

However, no one can consistently predict the market’s future. That’s why you need to take a portfolio approach to your investments, including any aggressive investments you hold.

Our aggressive recommendations vary widely in risk, …read more »

Readers sometimes ask why we don’t advise you to sell more often. But you aren’t in the stock market to buy or sell – you’re in it to make money. Over the years, I’ve found that the market’s big winners are investors who don’t do a lot of trading.

These investors follow the essence of an old real-estate saying: “You make …read more »

A basic rule of marketing is to “turn a feature into a benefit.” That is, you describe the feature so that it sounds as if it’s an actual benefit for the people you aim to sell to.

For example, hedge-fund marketers stress the fact that much of the money in hedge funds comes from rich private individuals. Today’s investment innovations let …read more »

Some readers have asked when we plan to recommend some new stocks, to replace recent takeovers.

Regardless of takeover activity, we continually look for new stocks to buy. But a key part of our stock-picking philosophy is “win by not losing”. If we have any doubts about a stock, we refrain from recommending it, no matter how promising it may seem. …read more »

We have to look through lots of penny mines to find a handful of attractive buys. That’s because of the many safeguards we apply to cut your risk. Here are some examples.

1. We insist on political stability. Exploration is risky enough without the threat of expropriation or onerous taxes.

2. We look for well-financed penny mines with no immediate need to …read more »

When you think about putting money in any investment that has yet to establish a history of profit, you need to keep one key fact in mind: It’s far easier to create an intriguing investment opportunity than a successful, self-perpetuating business.

Mind you, both tasks take some ingenuity. Both call for an injection of capital and the application of various professional …read more »

Investors often ask how long they should hang on to a disappointing stock, even if it’s not an outright loser. There is no single answer to the question. We do our best to look at as much information as possible, and to weigh each tidbit of information according to how much impact we expect it to have. That way, you …read more »

Cedar Fair and Buckeye Partners are Master Limited Partnerships (MLPs). Investors that hold units in them have similar rights to ownership and dividends as common stockholders in regular corporations.

MLPs pay out most of their income to investors, which lets them avoid federal and state income taxes. The IRS treats distributions from MLPs differently than regular dividends, and investors may have …read more »

As we said in our March 2 Successful Investor Hotline, North American stock markets could be sluggish or weak for a month or two.

Since then, investor fears have shifted from China to so-called “sub-prime” lending to home buyers with less-than-sterling credit ratings. Investors fear that if tighter lending standards shut these buyers out of the market, it will have a …read more »

The recent U.S./North Korea nuclear agreement enhances an already attractive stock market outlook for this year and next.

North Korea’s nuclear activities can’t do the stock market any good, but the agreement will shelve these activities for a year or two. That may be all the Bush administration hopes to accomplish — to leave North Korea for the next president to …read more »

We always try to strike a balance in the information we provide — not too little and not too much.

One bit of information that doesn’t get the attention it deserves is a company’s market capitalization or “market cap”. This is the value of all common stock it has outstanding.

When analyzing a stock, we of course always look at its market …read more »

We always try to strike a balance in the information we provide — not too little and not too much.

One bit of information that doesn’t get the attention it deserves is a company’s market capitalization or “market cap”. This is the value of all common stock it has outstanding.

When analyzing a stock, we of course always look at its market …read more »

You can now take out $2,000 a year from a RRIF without paying federal income taxes i f you’re over 65, up from $1,000 previously.

This will let you save around $305 a year in tax, up from $153.

To take full advantage of the credit, you can transfer approximately $9,100 to a RRIF at age 65 (which assumes a …read more »

Here are three key rules you’ll need to follow to invest safely and successfully in 2007.

1. Make sure you have substantial U.S. market exposure — 20% to 30% of your equity investments, if not more.

Some Canadian investors have avoided the U.S. market recently. They worry that Americans are spending too heavily on consumer goods, especially with borrowed money, while neglecting …read more »

This past year brought richly rewarding takeovers of several of our long-time favourites including Falconbridge, Inco, Fairmont and Sleeman. As a result, you may face a substantial capital-gains tax bill.

Before yielding to the year-end tax-loss selling urge, keep in mind that it’s always a mistake to sell good stocks at this time of year. Tax-loss selling sometimes drives share prices …read more »

Everybody likes to save money, but some cost-cutting investment techniques can wind up costing you money in the long run. They can channel your investing away from good stocks and into bad ones, all in pursuit of lower costs. They can filter a substantial part of your profit out of your portfolio.

For instance, participating in a Dividend Reinvestment Plan or …read more »

As you probably know, our Successful Investor business model has two parts. We publish investment advice through The Successful Investor Inc., and we manage investor portfolios through Successful Investor Wealth Management Inc. (These two companies are affiliated by common ownership; I own both but keep them separate for regulatory purposes.)

This two-business model has advantages for our subscribers. The problems we …read more »

Rising stock prices inevitably lead some investors to get too confident and make dumb mistakes. I’ve seen it again and again since 1964, when I had the good fortune to stumble into an investing-related part-time job at age 16.

Back then, investors were still shell-shocked at memories of the 1962 market collapse. But a great deal changed by the end of …read more »

Widely predicted financial calamities rarely do much harm to the market or economy. Even if the facts are correct, the calamity never materializes since the predictions give investors and businesses plenty of warning.

The best recent example was the late-1990s Y2K scare. It predicted a rash of computer failures for the start of the year 2000, since computers couldn’t distinguish 1900 …read more »

All too many investors start out believing that the surest route to long-term profit is a series of profitable short-term trades.

Most eventually learn differently. It’s easy enough to put together a series of short-term trades that generate small profit.

The hard part is avoiding the occasional disaster that wipes out most if not all of your profits.

That’s why we so often …read more »

Many investors assume new investments come into existence to satisfy some genuine investment need — to fill gaps in investor finances that unquestionably need filling. More often, in fact, new investments come into existence much like new hair shampoos and toothpastes. That is, marketing specialists dream up new financial products that they think they can sell.

The products have to be …read more »

Investors often ask how long they should hang on to a disappointing stock. There is no single answer, but you should never base any investment decision solely on a rise or fall in the price of a stock. Stock price changes usually depend on a variety of factors, including economic, industry and company-specific issues.

Also remember that the stock market anticipates …read more »

The 2005 deadline for tax-loss selling on the Toronto Exchange is Friday, December 23. If you sell at a loss on or before that date, you can deduct your loss for tax purposes against 2005 capital gains. However, you can also carry your loss back for the past three years, or carry it forward indefinitely, to offset past or future …read more »