It’s hard to believe it’s already been a year since we launched TSI Network. When we flicked the switch in June 2009, after months of hard work, the web site already contained a wealth of investment information and stock advice — over 2,000 individual articles, in fact.

TSI Network is built on the strengths of our four newsletters: Canadian Wealth …read more »

Every Wednesday, we publish our “Investor Toolkit” series on TSI Network. Whether you’re a new or experienced investor, these weekly updates are designed to give you specific advice on the fundamentals of successful investing. Each Investor Toolkit update gives you a new fundamental tip and shows you how you can put it into practice right away.

Today’s tip: “Time spent …read more »

Pat McKeough, host of TSI Network (www.tsinetwork.ca) was the subject of a recent article in Globe Investor Magazine.

Entitled “A portfolio manager who’s cool on hot stocks,” the article features the basics of Pat’s investment strategy, his views on the market’s future prospects and how investors can profit in the current market environment.

If you’re interested in reading more, click here to …read more »

Every Wednesday, we publish our “Investor Toolkit” series on TSI Network. Whether you’re a new or experienced investor, these weekly updates are designed to give you specific investment advice on the fundamentals of successful investing. Each Investor Toolkit update gives you a new piece of investment advice and shows you how you can put it into practice right away.

Today’s …read more »

The results are in and they couldn’t be clearer: The Successful Investor is Canada’s top investment advisory.

That’s according to a recent analysis by the U.S.-based Hulbert Financial Digest, which is generally thought of as the bible of investment newsletter performance measurement.

According to Hulbert, The Successful Investor outperformed all other Canadian newsletters over the past 5 years — and ranked …read more »

It always pays to be skeptical when a company claims to have a have a revolutionary new invention or technology.

That’s because, when you invest based on company marketing claims, you risk becoming too focused on the innovation and failing to look at the stock’s fundamentals, such as p/e ratios and other measures of value and risk. Sound-bite-based investing also …read more »

Members of our Inner Circle service often ask for investing advice on stocks they are thinking of buying that we don’t cover in our newsletters. A large number of these stocks fall into a grey area. Sometimes our investing advice is that they are “okay to hold,” but we wouldn’t advise buying them. When Inner Circle members ask about one …read more »

In a recent TSI Network poll, we asked site visitors whether if trust the advice they get from their stock broker. Aside from a yes or no option, we gave visitors a third choice: “I trade online through a discount broker.” Seventy-five percent of the poll’s respondents selected this answer.

You can see the full results of this poll, and a …read more »

I hope you are enjoying and profiting from the stock trading advice in my TSI Network Daily Updates.

Every day, TSI Network attracts a wide variety of Canadian investors. To take the pulse of this unique online community, we publish weekly polls so we can see what the site’s visitors think of current financial issues. The feedback we get from these …read more »

At left we announce our Stock Pickers Digest #1 stock for 2010. In choosing a #1, I look for a stock that seems to offer above-average if not great returns, but with below-average risk.

Our #1’s have generally done well, and many were top performers. Autodesk, our #1 pick in 2004 for Stock Pickers Digest (and for Wall Street Stock Forecaster, …read more »

When you join my Inner Circle service, you get my investing advice on your own personal investment questions, plus you get to see what other Inner Circle members have asked, along with our answers.

So you can get a sense of how our service works, and how our investing advice might help your portfolio, I’d like to share two recent …read more »

There’s a random element in stock-price movements that you just can’t get away from.

Stocks sometimes ignore bad news for long periods, then suddenly take note of it and collapse. Stocks may overreact to bad news, or react to downbeat but irrelevant news. To top it off, stocks that are headed for a big rise often start their move with a …read more »

Exchange-traded funds (ETFs) are set up to mirror the performance of a stock-market index or sub-index. They hold a more-or-less fixed selection of securities that are chosen to represent the holdings that go into the calculation of the index or sub-index.

ETFs trade on stock exchanges, just like stocks. Investors can buy them on margin or sell them short.

The best ETFs …read more »

A good stock broker can help you manage your investments if you don’t want to do it yourself. However, good stock brokers have always been hard to find. And, as any good stock broker or experienced investor can tell you, bad brokers are all too common.

By “bad brokers,” we mean those who put their own interests above their clients’. …read more »

When building your portfolio, it’s crucial to follow our stock investing advice of downplaying stocks that seem to be near-universally recommended by brokers and are getting a lot of favourable media coverage. That’s because, in investing, familiarity can breed excessive feelings of comfort, security and performance.

After all, brokers get information from the media, investment journalists spend a lot of time …read more »

Some advisors like to use sports or military analogies to describe their investment approach. They see a great stock pick as the equivalent of a touchdown or home run, and a series of them as a successful military campaign. This, however, puts too much emphasis on excitement and glory, and pays too little attention to risk.

In contrast, if we …read more »

RuggedCom may sound vaguely familiar to longtime readers. Nearly a decade ago, we recommended a stock called DY 4 Systems, with a remarkably similar story.

DY 4 made computers for harsh industrial and military environments — much like RuggedCom. The difference is that DY 4 focused on individual computers. RuggedCom has moved on to networking and the Internet.

Like RuggedCom, DY 4 …read more »

Pat McKeough, host of TSI Network (www.tsinetwork.ca) and the editor and publisher of Wall Street Stock Forecaster was recently featured in an article on MarketWatch written by Peter Brimelow.

Entitled “What works in Canada may work in U.S.”, the article discusses how Wall Street Stock Forecaster has performed according to the Hulbert Financial Digest (up 19.8% year to date through July), …read more »

Perhaps the most fundamental piece of investment advice you will ever receive is to make sure you carefully read a contract and get clarification of anything you don’t understand before you sign.

Most investors are familiar with this investment advice, of course, but it’s important to keep in mind, especially when doing things like opening an investment account, or transferring …read more »

We’ve been asked a number of times over the years about how we manage in our investing advice to recommend so many stocks that get taken over at a big profit.

Some readers, especially those of our Successful Investor newsletter, tell us that they never had a stock taken over at a profit until they began following our investing advice.

And …read more »

Pat McKeough, host of TSI Network (www.tsinetwork.ca) was recently featured in a pair of video interviews with Jonathan Chevreau on The Wealthy Boomer.

During the interviews, Pat answered questions on 40 stocks to retire on as well as talking about spreading investments across the five main sectors of the economy.

If you’re interested in seeing the interviews, you can follow the links …read more »

Pat McKeough, host of TSI Network (www.tsinetwork.ca) was recently featured in an article in the Financial Post written by Jonathan Chevreau.

Entitled “Extremely attractive time to buy,” the article discusses how, despite the recent stock-market rally, Pat still thinks now is an excellent time to buy top-quality North American stocks for the long term. It also includes Pat’s opinions on stocks …read more »

A good stock broker (the brokerage industry prefers the term “investment advisor”) can provide a cost-effective way to manage your investments. However, a good stock broker has always been hard to find. We mainly hear about them after they’ve retired, when investors complain about the bad brokers who have taken over their accounts.

As any good stock broker or experienced investor …read more »

Members of my Inner Circle service often ask me for stock advice about picks they are thinking of buying that we don’t cover in our newsletters. A large number of these stocks fall into a grey area. Sometimes my stock advice is that they are “okay to hold,” but we wouldn’t advise buying them. When Inner Circle members ask about …read more »

I am pleased to announce the launch of our new web site, TSI Network (www.tsinetwork.ca). Building on our four newsletters (Canadian Wealth Advisor, Stock Pickers Digest, The Successful Investor and Wall Street Stock Forecaster), the site contains archives of over 2,000 articles on individual investments.

I’m the host of TSI Network. Every day, Monday to Friday, I post free updates on …read more »

I am pleased to announce the launch of our new web site, TSI Network (www.tsinetwork.ca). Building on our four newsletters (Canadian Wealth Advisor, Stock Pickers Digest, The Successful Investor and Wall Street Stock Forecaster), the site will contain archives of over 2,000 articles on individual investments.

I’ll be the host of TSI Network. Every day, Monday to Friday, I’ll post free …read more »

Recently some readers have asked what we think of U.S. newsletters that predict a total collapse in stock prices. The short answer is that I disagree with these publishers. But the best answer has to include some industry background, and point out that I also disagree with their approach to the newsletter business.

We aim to publish balanced, realistic investment advice …read more »

Should you stick with your current stock broker or switch to a discounter? To answer that question, you need to consider your own experience and abilities, and those of your stock broker.

Brokers, good and bad

A good stock broker (one who is experienced, knowledgeable, and oriented toward the long term) is worth the top commissions you are likely to pay. For …read more »

One challenge with researching investments over time is that companies sometimes change names as they grow and mature. As you search through our archives, one such example of this you will find is Trimark investments.

Long known as Trimark Investments or AIM Trimark, the company changed its name in August 2008 to Invesco Trimark to reflect its relationship with Invesco Ltd., …read more »

The world is full of conflicts of interest, especially when it comes to stock advice, so investors need a healthy sense of skepticism. That’s especially so with junior companies, because they sometimes pay for their stock to be recommended in an investment publication.

A stock promoter may pay all or a large part of the cost of sending an investment publication …read more »

TRIMARK FUND $28.55 (CWA Rating:Conservative) (AIM Funds Management Inc., 5140 Yonge Street, Suite 900, Toronto, Ontario M2N 6X7. 1-800-631-7008; Website: www.aimfunds.ca. Buy or sell through brokers) takes a value-seeking investment approach, and this cuts its risk. This fund sticks to the long-time Trimark Investments approach to stock-picking — buying high-quality investments and holding them for the long term. That Trimark …read more »

We created our Stock Pickers Digest Hotline to keep you up-todate on our recommendations, and tell you when they change. We also make the Hotlines available to you on the Internet, so you’ll never need to worry about missing a Hotline.

As a subscriber, you can receive our Stock Pickers Digest Hotline every week (48 or more time per year) by …read more »

Our Wall Street Stock Forecaster Hotline is a key part of our three-part service (including the monthly advisory and Portfolios supplement).

The goal of our Hotline is to keep you up to date on our market outlook and changes in our advice.

The Hotline is available for free to all our subscribers, by phone and email. We update it 44 or more …read more »

Our Successful Investor Hotline is a key part of our three-part service (including the monthly advisory and Portfolios supplement). The goal of our Hotline is to keep you up to date with our market outlook and changes in our advice.

The Hotline is available to our subscribers by phone and email. We update it 44 or more times per year.

To make …read more »

The brokerage industry is organized in a way that makes it hard for investors to find a good broker. The industry mostly pays brokers on commission, and commissions vary with the type of investment. That arrangement gives brokers an incentive to trade. It also gives them an incentive to place their clients in new issues and in-house mutual funds, which …read more »

The Canadian dollar remains high, in part due to rising commodity prices. Unlike many industrialized countries, Canada is a major exporter of commodities, particularly oil and metals.

Hopes that the new Conservative government of Prime Minister Harper will cut taxes and improve productivity have also raised demand for Canadian dollars on foreign exchange markets.

The Bank of Canada has raised interest rates …read more »

Our Successful Investor Hotline aims to keep you up-to-date on our advice in between our monthly editions, particularly for fast-changing situations — like these takeovers.

The Hotline is a free service for our subscribers. We update it 44 or more times per year, generally on Friday after 7 PM Toronto time (any changes in timing are always announced in the previous …read more »

We created our Successful Investor Hotline to keep you up-to-date on our recommendations, and tell you when they change.

Now we’ve made our Hotlines available to you on the Internet, so you’ll never need to worry about missing a Hotline.

As a subscriber, you can receive our Successful Investor Hotline every week (44 or more times per year) by phone or email.

To …read more »

Our Successful Investor rating system uses nine key factors to judge a company’s investment quality. They are: a record of profit; a record of dividends; an influential industry position; balance-sheet strength; geographical diversification; freedom from business cycles; freedom from excess regulation or insider abuse; ability to profit from lasting secular trends, like the falling cost of computers; and the ability …read more »

We created our Wall Street Stock Forecaster Hotline to keep you up-to-date on our recommendations, and tell you when they change.

Now we’ve made our Hotlines available to you on the Internet, so you’ll never need to worry about missing a Hotline.

As a subscriber, you can receive our Wall Street Stock Forecaster Hotline every week (44 or more times per year) …read more »

Many investors think of a ’stock of the year’ as a sure-fire pick that supposedly is bound to be among the year’s biggest winners. Some of our past selections have lived up to that billing, but that’s not what I expect of them. Instead, I look for the best current example of my favourite type of investment, which I call …read more »

While telephone companies already have learned to live with long-distance competition, they now face local competition as well. New technologies such as Voice-over- Internet Protocol (VoIP) are a threat to BCE and Manitoba Tel in both long-distance and local service.

We think both companies will prosper despite the competitive threats. Still, to lower risk, income-seekers should spread their utility-sector investments out …read more »