Canadian Wealth Advisor

To serve you better We are now including company web sites for each investment we cover.

Company web sites can give you further information on stocks we recommend, including press releases, newspaper articles, financial reports and shareholder information, plus dividend reinvestment plan details.

Of course, our in-house investment experts thoroughly research each company we recommend.

However, maintaining an attitude of …read more »

Given their attractiveness, it’s a wonder why brokers so rarely recommend closed end mutual funds. However, there’s a simple reason for this: while closed ends benefit individual investors, brokers benefit more by putting their clients in conventional, open-ended funds.

Closed end funds are a lot like conventional, open-ended funds. They hold a diversified portfolio of stocks, chosen by a fund manager …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 »

Right now, Canadian income trusts pay out a high percentage of their cash flows to their unitholders. This lets them avoid paying corporate taxes. It also gives many of them significantly higher yields than a lot of dividend-paying common stocks.

Canadian income trusts face tax changes in 2011

In 2011, the Canadian government will begin taxing income trusts (with the exception of …read more »

We continue to recommend that all investors own at least two of Canada’s big-five banks – Bank of Montreal, Royal Bank, CIBC, TD Bank and Bank of Nova Scotia. These are key safe investments for a portfolio. But these should not be the extent of your financial holdings. It is also essential to diversity within each economic sector. Other types …read more »

Aggressive investing is an investing strategy that can yield high returns – but also entails taking on a lot of risk. An investment strategy that involves aggressive investing is only suitable for investors who can accept substantial risk, and the chance of losses.
The most common form of aggressive investing is to put a large part of your portfolio in …read more »

Bond funds are mutual funds that specifically invest in different government and corporate bond offerings.

Many bond funds posted strong results in the past, with yields of 6%, 8% or 10% over five or 10 years. This, though, was a function of the trend in interest rates; at the start of those periods, the funds were buying bonds with …read more »

Bond funds are mutual funds that invest specifically in different government and corporate bond offerings.

Many bond funds built great performance records in the last decade. You can find lots of bond funds that have yielded 6% or 8% or 10% over the past five or 10 years. This, though, was a function of the trend in interest rates; …read more »

IVY ENTERPRISE FUND $4.23 invests in small and medium-sized companies. The $139.9 million fund has an MER of 2.38%.

The fund’s overall choice of stocks doesn’t inspire our confidence. Its top holdings are Richie Brothers Auctioneers, National Instruments, CH Robinson Worldwide, Idexx Laboratories, Hibbett Sports, Astral Media, Canadian Western Bank, Daktronics Inc., Henry Schein and Stratasys Inc. The fund has lost …read more »

At one time, mutual funds within a particular ‘fund family’ often shared some key investment characteristic, such as a conservative or aggressive investment approach, or a stress on value as opposed to growth.

However, due to corporate mergers and takeovers in the mutual-funds industry, and more aggressive marketing, a fund’s membership in a fund family now has little bearing on its …read more »