canadian banks

Retirement investments can easily be made to boost your long-term returns with a focus on registered retirement plans and a long-term approach

Buying the best fast food stocks can add steady growth to your stock holdings. Find out what to look for in these stocks and discover one of our recommendations.

There is no “one-size-fits-all” ideal investment portfolio mix. But there are some key portfolio diversification tips that every investor should follow.

Finding the best low-risk stocks includes zeroing in on factors like hidden assets, as well as a history of profits, dividends, and industry dominance

The best way to diversify your portfolio is to use a key part of our Successful Investor approach and spread your holdings out across most if not all of the five main economic sectors

Finding top stocks that give dividends will be a lot easier when you follow our three-part Successful Investor approach. Here’s our advice:

With today’s still-low interest rates, there are few, if any, high return, lower-risk fixed-income investments available to investors.


But if you must hold cash, and are looking for an alternative to bank savings accounts or holding it with your broker, these four ETFs can give you an edge....

Learn how to develop the best conservative portfolio for years of long-term investment growth. We even include a top blue-chip stock pick for you.

Including the best stocks for conservative investors in your diversified portfolio will help you make superior gains over time. Learn more here.

The profitability of banks is determined by a variety of factors including their business mix, lending profit-margins, loan and deposit growth, bad debts, and cost management. The top-performing banks consistently find the right balance between these factors, leading to strong results and stock market performance.


Lending margins drive profits


A key driver of bank profits is their net interest margins—that’s the difference between the interest rate that a bank charges on loans it issues and the interest rate that it pays to depositors and other providers of funds to the bank.


In a rising interest rates environment, banks normally manage to increase their net interest margins—as long as the increase in the cost of funding lags the higher pricing of their loans to customers.


Banks that derive a large portion of their revenues from their lending activities benefit relatively more from improving their lending margins....