Mutual Funds

BMO DIVIDEND FUND $37.58 (BMO Mutual Funds, 77 King Street West, Suite 4200, Royal Trust Tower, Toronto, Ont., M5K 1J5, 1-800-665-7700; Web site: www.bmo.com. No load — deal directly with the bank) (CWA Rating: Conservative) currently holds about 43.3% of its portfolio in the Financial services industry. Its next-largest holding is Energy at 23.1%.

The $3.7 billion BMO Dividend Fund’s largest …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 »

Simply put, a well-constructed stock portfolio will make your life easier and maximize your gains.
Early in their investing careers, many investors have only a vague idea of the value of a planned portfolio when investing in the stock market.
When you try to pick a handful of stocks that will all beat the market, you are asking a lot of yourself. …read more »

We’ve got four key Successful Investor investing for beginners tips that will help you profit from stock investing with less risk.

No matter how widely or narrowly you cast your information net, some of your investments will disappoint you. But that won’t matter if you apply these three tips. That’s because your near-inevitable gains will overwhelm your all-but-unavoidable losses.

Successful Investor …read more »

Exchange Traded Funds, or ETFs, don’t load you up with heavy management fees, nor do they tie you down with heavy redemption charges if you decide to get out before six years have passed. Instead, they give you a lower-cost and more flexible and convenient alternative to mutual funds.
The problem is that ETFs are just as helpful for facilitating smart …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 »

Ottawa’s new Tax-Free Savings Accounts (or TFSAs) let you earn investment income — including interest, dividends and capital gains — tax free.

A tax-free savings account can generally hold the same investments as an RRSP. This includes cash, mutual funds, publicly traded stocks, GICs and bonds.

However, you are best to hold lower-risk investments in your TFSA. That’s because you don’t want …read more »

We still think high-quality mutual funds with a long-term focus will beat stock-market indexes over time. If funds invest as we advise — sticking with well-established companies and spreading their assets across the five main economic sectors — they will likely lose a lot less than the indexes during a significant market downturn.

That’s because big market slides are particularly hard …read more »

With the unpredictability of the stock market and mutual funds’ performance, it’s getting harder to make the right investment choices. However, as with stock trading, mutual fund investing should be done with the long term in mind. You need to find a solid fund and stick with it.

There are, of course, thousands of choices available at any time. Most funds …read more »

Asset allocation funds are mutual funds that distribute their assets in accordance with all investors’ goals (consistent returns, diversified investments, etc.). Unlike balanced funds, they can shift their portfolio allocations between stocks, bonds and cash in order to capitalize on perceived investment opportunities in any one of those classes.

If a fund’s name includes the term “asset allocation,” it means …read more »