Wealth Management

If you’re new to investing, a good place to start managing your wealth is to consult your tax preparer or accountant. They may be able to provide you with financial planning services. They may also be able to refer you to somebody who can.

There are three types of professional wealth management services you can use.

  1. A full service stock broker - A good stock broker is one who understands investing and who has the integrity to settle conflicts of interest in the client’s favour. Good stock brokers can provide an effective and economical way to manage your investments. But if you are going to use a full-service broker, take the time to find a broker you can trust.
  2. A discount stock broker - A discount stock broker will simply carry out buy and sell orders for their clients, and charge lower commission rates than full-service brokers. You pay even lower commissions if you trade stocks online, instead of placing orders over the phone.
  3. Portfolio managers - A portfolio manager is someone who fully manages your wealth portfolio and has a fiduciary responsibility to make sound investment decisions on your behalf. Portfolio managers are more stringently regulated than full-service or discount brokers.

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Retirement Planning
Compass and canadian dollar close up shot
Every Wednesday, we publish our “Investor Toolkit” series on TSI Network. Whether you’re a beginning or experienced investor, these weekly updates are designed to give you specific investment tips and stock market advice. Each Investor Toolkit update gives you a fundamental piece of investment advice, and shows you how you can put it into practice right away.

Today’s tip: “Despite their promise to ease your tax burden on withdrawals, RRSP meltdown strategies are usually more lucrative for brokers than for investors.”

Investors sometimes ask us what we think of the so-called “RRSP meltdown.” This is a strategy that would let them make withdrawals from their RRSPs without paying income tax.

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Investment Advice
Every Thursday we bring you one of our best U.S. stock picks. You get our specific recommendation on the stocks we profile, with a full explanation of how we arrived at our opinion. You will read about stocks making moves you should know about, most often from coverage in our newsletter on U.S. investing, Wall Street Stock Forecaster. This week’s U.S. pick comes from our advisory for more aggressive investors, Stock Pickers Digest.

BROADRIDGE FINANCIAL SOLUTIONS (New York symbol BR; www.broadridge.com) serves the investment industry in three main areas: investor communications, securities processing and transaction clearing. The company processes 90% of all proxy votes in the U.S. and Canada.

Broadridge began trading on April 2, 2007, after former parent Automatic Data Processing handed out Broadridge stock to its own investors as a special dividend.

Without one-time items, Broadridge earned $37.0 million, or $0.30 a share, in its fiscal 2015 first quarter, which ended September 30, 2014. That’s down 22.9% from $48.0 million, or $0.39 a share, a year earlier.

The company paid employees higher commissions on new sales and performance bonuses. It also expanded its sales and marketing capabilities.


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

Today’s tip: “If you’re going to dip into your RRSP to raise cash, you can make it a positive transaction that actually strengthens the portfolio within your RRSP.”

Two weeks ago, we wrote about how to achieve a double win—and avoid a double loss—in Registered Retirement Savings Plans (RRSPs). View the post here. Last week, we discussed making the right retirement calculations. View the post here.

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Investment Counsellor
Every Monday we feature “A Stock to Sell” as our daily post. With every stock or investment we recommend as a sell, we give you a full explanation of why we advise against investing in it at this time.

Westport Innovations (symbol WPT on Toronto; www.westport.com) develops technology that lets engines operate on gaseous fuels, such as natural gas or hydrogen.

The company also has a 50/50 joint venture with Cummins Inc. (symbol CMI on New York) called Cummins Westport Inc. The partnership sells a range of low-emission alternative-fuel engines for medium-duty trucks.

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Retirement Planning
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 successful investing, and on successful retirement planning. Each Investor Toolkit update gives you a fundamental tip and shows you how you can put it into practice right away.

Tip of the week: “When you work out a plan for your retirement, make sure that you aren’t basing your future income on over-optimistic calculations that will end up leaving you short.”

As the deadline for RRSP contributions approaches, many investors are confident they are taking concrete steps toward a secure retirement. But are those steps based on realistic calculations?

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Investment Counsellor
Every Monday we feature “A Stock to Sell” as our daily post. With every stock or investment we recommend as a sell, we give you a full explanation of why we advise against investing in it at this time.

A recent question on “robotics stocks for aggressive investing” from a member of our Inner Circle led to this examination of three different companies involved in this growing field. One is a sell, one is a hold and one is a buy.

ReWalk Robotics (symbol RWLK on Nasdaq; www.rewalk.com) is an Israeli company that makes robotic exoskeletons for helping people with spinal cord injuries walk again. The FDA cleared this technology for use in the U.S. in June 2014. It has been marketed in Europe since 2012.

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Income Investing
Black Coffee, Pen and Newspaper
Jieyu Lai
Every Wednesday, we publish our “Investor Toolkit” series on TSI Network. Whether you’re a beginning or experienced investor, these weekly updates are designed to give you specific investment advice. Each Investor Toolkit update gives you a fundamental piece of investing strategy, and shows you how you can put it into practice right away.

Today’s tip: “Your investments gain doubly in your RRSP, but if you lose you take a double loss, so don’t use it as a place to find out if you have a talent for stock trading.”

Registered Retirement Savings Plans or RRSPs are a little like other investment accounts, except for their tax treatment. You can put up to 18% of the previous year’s earned income, maximum $24,930 for 2015, into an RRSP, and deduct it from your taxable income. (The limit is lower for pension plan members.) You only pay taxes on your RRSP investment, and the investment income it earns, when you make withdrawals from your RRSP.

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Investment Counsellor
Every Monday we feature “A Stock to Sell” as our daily post. With every stock or investment we recommend as a sell, we give you a full explanation of why we advise against investing in it at this time.

Currency Exchange International Corp. (symbol CXI on Toronto; www.ceifx.com), exchanges currency and offers other financial products and services in North America.

The company first sold shares to the public at $6.65 each and began trading on Toronto in March 2012.

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Investment Counsellor
Pat McKeough responds to many requests from Members of his Inner Circle for specific stock advice as well as questions on investment strategy and the economy. Every week, his comments and recommendations on the most intriguing questions of the past week go out to all Inner Circle Members. And each week we offer you a report on one of the stocks profiled in these Q&A sessions. We give you Pat’s buy-hold-sell recommendation as well as his analysis of the stock. This is part of the specific buy, hold and sell advice we offer you in our daily posts. Every week you get “A Stock to Sell” on Monday, “Best Canadian Stocks” on Tuesday, and “U.S. Stock Picks” on Thursday.

Recently we had a question from an Inner Circle member about one of America’s best-known venture capital firms, KKR &Co. Previously known as Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co., the company earned notoriety when its leveraged buyout of Nabisco in the 1980s became the subject of a best-selling book and TV movie, Barbarians at the Gate. Pat looks at the company’s varied activities in the public, private and capital markets. He also assesses the strategies it is pursuing as it makes a flurry of deals aided by low borrowing rates.

Q: Pat: I was wondering if you could give me any information about KKR & Co. Your thoughts on it would be appreciated.

A: KKR & Co. LP (formerly Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. LP; symbol KKR on New York; www.kkr.com) is an asset manager with 14 offices across North America, Europe, the Middle East, Asia and Australia.

The company serves three main markets: private (investment funds); public (leveraged loans, high-yield bonds, special situation assets, distressed assets and rescue, debtor-in-possession and exit financings); and capital (debt/equity financing).

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Investment Counsellor
Pat McKeough responds to many requests from Members of his Inner Circle for specific stock investment advice as well as questions on investment strategy and the economy. Every week, his comments and recommendations on the most intriguing questions of the past week go out to all Inner Circle Members. And each week we offer you a report on one of the stocks profiled in these Q&A sessions. We give you Pat’s buy-hold-sell recommendation as well as his analysis of the stock. This is part of the specific buy, hold and sell advice we offer you in our daily posts. Every week you get “A Stock to Sell” on Monday, “Best Canadian Stocks” on Tuesday, and “U.S. Stock Picks” on Thursday.

Recently an Inner Circle Member asked us about online travel specialists Priceline. The company offers online reservations for airline tickets, hotels and other vacation essentials and successfully raised its profile with commercials featuring Canadian actor William Shatner. Priceline has made several key acquisitions in the past two years and expects to make more. Pat looks at the company’s financial situation and assesses its ability to maintain a strong market share as it expands its international operations.

Q: What do you think about Priceline as a stock? Thanks.

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