As we move past the 2013 RRSP season, many of the promotions offered last month are either expired or will be expiring at the end of this month.  It seems like several discount brokerages are going to pass altogether on offering up any promotions for March whereas others are just extending out the deadlines of […]

Contrarian investing is no easy feat.  You have to be willing to disagree with popular opinion and be willing to jump into a company or market that others have either shunned or abandoned outright.  Yet value investors as famous as Benjamin Graham and his star student Warren Buffet have both taken contrarian approaches, being ‘greedy […]

Introduction As part of our special series on social media and investing, we take a look at the discovery engine and social network, StumbleUpon. What is StumbleUpon? StumbleUpon, founded in 2001, is primarily a discovery engine.  Unlike search-based engines (such as Google), discovery engines are useful for when you don’t know exactly what you’re looking […]

Introduction Whether you are Warren Buffet or an ordinary do-it-yourself investor, doing your homework is vital to managing your investments successfully.  Almost all of the experts we’ve talked to have consistently told us the same thing: investors need to do their due diligence before making investment decisions.  Given the risks associated with investing, the advice […]

At the 2013 Cambridge House Vancouver Resource Investment Conference (VRIC), Sid Rajeev, the head of research at Fundamental Research Corporation, presented his outlook on 2013 and why mergers and acquisitions (M&A) might be something investors want to put on their radar for the upcoming year.  In particular, Rajeev focused on the mining and exploration sectors […]

Introduction There are various resources one can use when researching investing information or investment opportunities. Social media is increasingly becoming one of those channels. We continue our series on using social media tools to discover or learn about investment opportunities, strategies or resources, by focusing on the microblogging platform and social network Tumblr. What is it? […]

In chapter 8 of The Mindless Investor, the spotlight is on a popular approach to investing – fundamental analysis and why, according to Tyler Bollhorn, it is an inefficient approach for most small investors/traders to take when evaluating opportunities to invest in. The apparent popularity of fundamental analysis might not be driven by whether or […]

Pin-vesting Social media is increasingly becoming a channel that people are turning to online in order to learn and research when investing. As part of our series on using  social media tools to discover or learn about investment opportunities, strategies or resources, we start by focusing on the third largest social network known as Pinterest. […]

Investors are always on the hunt for information that will put them one step ahead of everyone else in the market. In the past, the sources of information for investors included newspapers and television news programs, company annual reports, investment advisors and brokers, the stock exchange itself as well as investor conferences and tradeshows just […]

In search of Canada’s best discount brokerage Getting to the bottom of who’s on top in the Canadian discount brokerage market is a lot trickier than it seems.  After all, one would assume that winning the crown of “best discount brokerage” is fairly difficult to do and also when a discount brokerage gets that award, […]

Desjardins Group invests in Qtrade for the long-term Desjardins Group, parent to discount brokerage Disnat, announced earlier this week that they are taking a significant ownership stake in Qtrade Financial Group.  Desjardins has committed to purchasing between 25 to 40% of Qtrade’s outstanding shares initially with the option to acquire the remaining shares within six […]

This one hour webinar organized by Scotia iTrade covered quite a bit of ground on how exchange-traded funds (ETFs) can be used as part of a number of different portfolio and investment strategies.  The presenter for this session was Steve Eng, an associate at iShares, who did a great job of leading attendees through how […]

Chapter 7 of The Mindless Investor focuses on the idea that aiming to be average is only going to get you average results.  In order to outperform the market, individual investors have to be willing to use tools and strategies that are different from “conventional” approaches.  It is important to remember that trading involves one […]

Commission Free ETFs – The New Normal? Earlier this month, Questrade made a major announcement that impacts the commission fees associated with trading or investing in exchange traded funds (ETFs).   Specifically, Questrade has eliminated the commission fees associated with purchasing ETFs so that now any Canadian or American listed ETF is available for purchase commission […]

This February will be the busiest month for football, love and RRSP deals.  Winning new business is clearly on the minds of big and small discount brokerages with a number of promotions aimed squarely at Canadian investors looking to open RRSP accounts. Kicking off the RRSP-specific deals are a couple transfer deals from the usually […]

If there’s one truth about a mercenary – it’s that they mean business. In a resource conference filled with stories, opinions and “potential”, it’s a challenge for professionals and novices alike to identify real opportunities from the pipe dreams.  Enter a mercenary geologist. We had a chance to speak to Mickey Fulp, otherwise known as […]

In another discount brokerage survey confirming that Canadian do it yourself investors are turning to online resources to help manage their financial futures, TD Direct Investing recently released results of a survey it commissioned in December 2012 that explored the online habits of Canadians.   According to the TD Direct Investing survey, convenience, control and content […]

Continuing in its tradition of providing a forum for investors to connect with resource and exploration companies, great speakers and one another, the 2013 edition of the Vancouver Resource Investment Conference by Cambridge House International was by many accounts, a successful event. The official numbers reported over 10,000 individuals in attendance over the two days, […]

We have analyzed the twitter usage of companies who attended VRIC 2013 in Vancouver and put together a highlight of their numbers. See who tweeted the most and when the most tweets were sent. This is social mining at its finest.

In part one of this series, we looked at the background of the Globe and Mail discount brokerage rankings as well as how they’re structured and who they’re targeted towards. In this next part, we take a detailed look at what the discount brokerage rankings are actually measuring and some interesting observations we made about […]