Many mutual fund companies and financial advisors often preach the virtues of long-term investing by citing the “10 best days” scenario. They will show you that if you attempt to time the market, you may potentially miss out on the 10 best days of the stock market and affect your returns. But what are the 10 best days? Does it depend on your perspective?
Perhaps the financial companies have it all backwards. They always show the 10 highest gaining days as the 10 “best” days. I understand why their marketing department …

I’ve always maintained that I am not into day-trading. Nor am I turned on by technical analysis, candles, charts. That doesn’t mean the craft or principles do not have merit; only that I prefer to invest my money in a manner that I can understand! I evoke the following Warren Buffett quotes only as a way to poke fun at myself!
“I realized technical analysis didn’t work when I turned the charts upside down and didn’t get a different answer”
“If past history was all there was to the game, the richest …

No amount of dis-pleasure or protest will stop the goliath from rumbling over the average joes and there’s no David in sight to free us from its shackles. But if you are an Ameritrade Canada account holder with old habits, chances are you will be surprised for a second. You probably forgot that today is your first trading day where you have to start using TD Waterhouse’s platform instead.
I’m anxious to hear from users what their experience logging into their new account was like. Especially users who have never had …

I received a private alpha invitation to check out SocialPicks, a new Web 2.0 / Social Web application seeking to be the new way for people to share stock picks and research. Users can get investment ideas from friends, see who else follow their advices, and see everyone’s performance over time. Members can also recommend stocks, and let your track record speak for themselves.
InvestorGeeks had previously blogged a positive informative preview of the service so I will defer to it rather than rehash all the details. You’ve come here for …

Doesn’t it warm your heart seeing those kids grow up right in front of your eyes? I remember when mutual funds were plain-jane investment vehicles. Then came sector/industry funds, followed by asset-allocation funds, fund-of-funds, life-cycle funds. Each evolution becoming more exotic than the last incarnation — not as a way to provide better returns for investor, but as marketing gimmicks to attract investor capital.
ETFs are now heading down the same path. Arriving first on the scene were boring old index ETFs, then came currency ETFs, fixed income ETFs, and precious …

Hindsight is always 20 / 20. I’m a huge advocate for learning from the past but would like to remind readers that it is not beneficial holding onto past mistakes. Learn from your experience and look forward to the future to become a better investor!
Investorial readers will be familiar with my slant towards value & contrarian investing principles. But I wasn’t always that way. I started out doing what most people just getting into the stock market would do — a speculative trader. My first true value & contrarian decision …

Let me preface the remainder of this article by saying that calling this study inept is indeed generous. Does anybody feel like they are being fattened up for the slaughter like those brokers that screamed “tech stocks forever” in late 2001?
I read a recent Financial Post article that is helping to keep the well oiled financial marketing machine running. What’s selling like hotcakes off the shelves? One only has to look at the artificially propped up TSX composite index to realize that trusts (especially oil income trusts) are the …

Much has been emphasized about the current existence of an inverted yield curve heralding the oncoming of a recession. Does it have merit? What are its counter-arguments?
I won’t pretend to be an expert on the subject matter, nor am I a historian to confirm the truth in the past. However, we always stated that “the past is not a certain indication of the future”. We have to learn to take media information on both sides of the argument with a grain of salt. Draw your own conclusions from what you’ve …