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 fundamental tip and shows you how you can put it into practice right away.

Today’s tip: “Stock market software …read more »

Online stock investing can look like a great way to build wealth, but it has many hidden dangers.

Trading too frequently: The main risk is that the lower costs and higher speeds of online stock investing can quickly lead otherwise conservative investors to trade too frequently. That can lead you to sell your best picks when they are just getting started. …read more »

The online brokerage industry has recently been getting a lot of attention and goodwill by offering “practice accounts.” We recently addressed the pros and cons of practice accounts in our Inner Circle service.

Practice accounts are supposed to be identical to real accounts in all but one respect: you buy stocks online in them with imaginary or “play” money, rather …read more »

An Inner Circle member once asked us about “after-hours trading,” and specifically how a stock can rise (or fall) by a large amount overnight when the stock exchanges are closed.

Online stock investing boosted the popularity of after-hours trading

Most stock trading takes place during the regular business hours of major stock exchanges. For the Toronto and New York exchanges, …read more »

A few weeks ago, we asked TSI Network visitors whether they trade stocks online. A full 88% answered that they did.

Why choose Internet stock trading?

Some investors have made the switch from a full-service broker to Internet stock trading through a discount broker because it offers lower commission fees. Others have switched because they examined their results and discovered that their …read more »

Trading stocks online can look like a great way to build wealth. But it’s fraught with risks, and only really works when stock prices are rising steadily. Investors who see early success in a bull market can face devastating losses when markets retreat.
Today, you often see references to trading stocks online in the media, as if there’s something magical about …read more »

RBC CANADIAN EQUITY FUND $19.69 (CWA Rating: Conservative) (RBC Mutual Funds, P.O. Box 7500, Station A, Toronto, Ontario. M5W 1P9. 1-800-463-3863; Web site: www.royalbank.com. No load — deal directly with the bank) invests mostly in larger-capitalization stocks, but also looks for opportunities in small- and mid-cap stocks.

The fund’s 10 largest holdings are Royal Bank, Manulife, EnCana, TD Bank, Potash Corp., …read more »

BANK OF NOVA SCOTIA $49.36 (Toronto symbol BNS: SI Rating: Above average) has agreed to acquire the Canadian operations of E*Trade, a leading online discount broker. The bank will pay $444 million in cash. That’s equal to 45% of the $980 million or $0.97 a share that it earned in the latest quarter.

The new operations should directly add just $0.02 …read more »

RBC CANADIAN EQUITY FUND $29.08 (CWA Rating: Conservative) (RBC Mutual Funds, P.O. Box 7500, Station A, Toronto, Ontario. M5W 1P9. 1-800-463-3863; Web site: www.royalbank.com. No load — deal directly with the bank) mainly invests in larger-capitalization stocks, but also looks for opportunities in small- and mid-cap stocks.

The fund’s 10 largest holdings are EnCana, Potash Corp., Research in Motion, Manulife, Royal …read more »

RBC CANADIAN DIVIDEND FUND $44.84 (RBC Mutual Funds, P.O. Box 7500, Station A, Toronto, Ontario. M5W 1P9. 1-800-463-3863; Web site: www.royalbank.com. No load — deal directly with the bank) has 38.1% of its portfolio in financial-services stocks. It has a further 14.4% in energy stocks and 8.5% in consumer discretionary.

The $9.6-billion RBC Canadian Dividend Fund’s top stock holdings are Royal …read more »