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In just under two months, on January 1, 2011, you will gain an additional $5,000 of contribution room in your tax free savings account (TFSA). The federal government first made tax free savings accounts (TFSAs) available to investors in January 2009. These accounts let you earn investment income — including interest, dividends and capital gains — tax free. You could contribute $5,000 in 2009 to start your tax free savings account. Every year, you can contribute an additional $5,000 to your TFSA. If you contribute less than $5,000 to your TFSA in any given year, you can carry the difference forward. That means your TFSA contributions for 2009 and 2010 total $10,000, rising to $15,000 in 2011, $20,000 in 2012 and so on....

Labrador Iron Ore Royalty Corp., $59.65, symbol LIF.UN on Toronto (Units outstanding: 32.0 million; Market cap: $1.9 billion), is the new name for Labrador Iron Ore Royalty Income Fund. The company holds a 7% gross overriding royalty (or 7% of the selling price for each iron-ore product produced, sold and shipped) and a 15.1% equity interest in Iron Ore Company of Canada (IOC). On top of that, Labrador Iron Ore gets a $0.10-per-ton commission on all iron-ore products IOC makes, sells and ships. IOC, which has produced iron-ore concentrate and pellets since 1954, is Canada’s largest iron-ore producer, and is among the world’s top-five makers of iron-ore pellets. Rio Tinto (symbol RTP on New York) is IOC’s operator and majority shareholder, with 58.7% of its shares. Mitsubishi Corp. of Japan holds the remaining 26.2%....

ENCANA CORP., $28.26, Toronto symbol ECA, fell 7% this week after the company reported lower-than-expected earnings. In the three months ended September 30, 2010, Encana earned $98 million, or $0.13 a share (all amounts except share price in U.S. dollars). These figures exclude a $331-million gain on hedging contracts that the company uses to lock in selling prices for its natural gas, and a $140-million foreign-exchange gain. On this basis, the latest earnings fell well short of the consensus estimate of $0.19 a share. They were also down 74.1% from the company’s year-earlier earnings of $378 million, or $0.50 a share. Cash flow per share fell 9.4%, to $1.54 from $1.70. (Note: The year-earlier figures assume that the breakup of the old EnCana Corp. into the new Encana and Cenovus Energy Inc. took place at the start of 2009 instead of December 1, 2009.)...

Pacific Fuel Cell now trades under the symbol PFCEQ on the U.S. over-the-counter “pink sheets” market. It trades a few thousand shares every few days. The latest closing price was $0.0011. Pacific Fuel Cell Corp. filed a voluntary petition for liquidation under Chapter 7 in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Central District of California, Santa Ana, on May 20, 2010. The shares are now essentially worthless, even though they continue to trade. If you hold them outside your RRSP, you may want to sell them to lock in a tax loss to offset capital gains....

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. Each Investor Toolkit update gives you a fundamental tip and shows you how you can put it into practice right away. Today’s tip: “Selling your stock market picks costs money, and that’s why successful investors do it as little as possible.” Investors often ask, “When should I sell my stocks? If I sell now, I’ll nail down big profits. But I’ll have to pay heavy capital gains taxes.”...

With interest rates still near historic lows, borrowing money to invest continues to look like an attractive portfolio investing strategy.

Today, you can borrow for as little as 3.5% if you use your home as collateral. Over long periods, the total return on a well-diversified portfolio of high-quality stocks runs to as much as 10%, or around 7.5% after inflation....

Discover how you can make higher profits in gold investing — and minimize your risks Click here to immediately download our new free report, Gold Investing: 7 Profitable Strategies for Investing in Canadian Gold Stocks. When the economy is weak, gold’s popularity rises. As an informed Canadian investor, you’ve likely noticed that this has been the case in the wake of the 2008/09 stock-market crash and recession....

BELL ALIANT REGIONAL COMMUNICATIONS INCOME FUND $26 (Toronto symbol BA.UN, Conservative Growth Portfolio, Utilities sector; Units outstanding: 127.3 million; Market cap: $3.3 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 1.0; Dividend yield: 11.2%; SI Rating: Above Average) will convert to a dividend-paying corporation on January 1, 2011. That’s when Ottawa will start taxing income-trust distributions. Investors will receive one common share of the company for each trust unit they hold. As part of the conversion, the trust will change its name to “Bell Aliant Inc.” It will also change its trading symbol to “BA”. The trust will continue to pay monthly distributions of $0.2417 a unit until just after its conversion. The current annual rate of $2.90 yields 11.2%. Starting in March 2011, Bell Aliant will change the rate and frequency of its payout: It will switch to quarterly dividends of $0.475 a share. The new annual rate of $1.90 would yield a high 7.3%, based on today’s price. As well, investors who hold Bell Aliant outside an RRSP will benefit from the dividend tax credit. Bell Aliant is a buy.

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 portfolio turnover costs money, so buy investments that you might want to hold on to indefinitely.”

Investors often wonder how often they should sell investments they own and buy new ones....

CRESCENT POINT ENERGY CORP. $38.44 (Toronto symbol CPG; Shares outstanding: 211.7 million; Market cap: $8.1 billion; SI Rating: Extra Risk; Dividend yield: 7.2%) produces oil and natural gas in western Canada. Its average daily production of 56,061 barrels of oil equivalent (including natural gas) is weighted 89% toward gas and 11% to oil. The company continues to focus on its light-oil Bakken development in southeastern Saskatchewan. Crescent Point plans to spend at least $750 million on exploration and development this year. As well, the company has agreed to buy the 79% of privately held Shelter Bay Energy that it doesn’t already own for $1.1 billion in shares. Shelter Bay’s production is mostly from the Bakken area, and will Crescent Point’s output by about 10%....