My wife and I just completed a vacation of several southern US cities. The biggest travel cost that you incur is accommodation. I decided to use Priceline to book our hotels for this vacation. I’m glad I did. I believe Priceline offers tremendous savings over other booking websites (like Expedia, hotels.com, etc.) Our hotel needs […]
[Last update: Feb 2013] Real Estate Investment Trusts, with their nice income yields, continue to be popular with investors. Avrex Money has compiled and ranked a complete list of all the Canadian REITs on the Toronto stock exchange (TSX). Avrex Price/ Payout Rank Company Ticker Yield AFFO Ratio REIT Sector 1 Artis REIT AX.UN 6.82% […]
10
Feb
Feb
We’re running in a rat-race. While there’s still a long way to go, we can see financial independence on the horizon. Many of us don’t want to work until we’re 65 years old. We want the race to end earlier. Perhaps at age 55. Perhaps sooner. We want to achieve financial freedom! Are you doing […]
Since a portion of my portfolio is active stock selections, I thought it might be fun to compare the stock selections, that I’ve been investigating, against other investors. Financial Uproar has included me in his annual stock picking contest. Now because we are following the returns of only four stocks over the course of a […]
In Canada, our REIT ETF choices have been limited. The iShares REIT product is ‘the gorilla’ in this arena with Assets under management (AUM) of approximately 1.4 billion dollars. The younger BMO REIT ETF has been steadily growing, but only has about a quarter of the assets that the iShares product has. These two companies […]
[November is “Financial Literacy month”. Bloggers are participating in the “Blog for Financial Literacy” campaign by sharing their ‘best financial tip’ with their readers.] Many investors don’t realize it, but the high Management Expense Ratios (MER) of Mutual Funds are slowly eroding their personal life savings. Let’s compare the characteristics of the two main investment […]
19
Oct
Oct
[Update 2012-10-26: This trade was successful. The price of AMZN fell for most of the week, recovering on Friday, and finishing at 238.24. This was well below my strike price of 260. Result: I collected $969 in premium. :)] Besides my regular portfolio of options, I will occasionally dabble into Weekly options. I don’t usually […]
How many of us have been caught in a “value trap”? Prior to making stock selections, I pour over lots of fundamental variables. I’m a value investor. I’m looking for undervalued stocks, or stocks that have fallen out of favour. Back in 2011, I purchased Research in Motion (RIMM, RIM.TO), with the conviction that it […]
Which Canadian Dividend ETF should I add to my portfolio? Here are the three biggest Dividend ETFs in Canada. Canadian Dividend ETF Name Symbol MER Yield BMO Canadian Dividend ETF ZDV 0.35 % 5.20 % iShares Dow Jones Canada Select Dividend Index Fund XDV 0.55 % 3.85 % iShares S&P/TSX Canadian Dividend Aristocrats Index Fund […]
Thus far, I have only traded options on the US markets. I was recently wondering, if there were suitable option candidates on our Canadian TMX exchange. By suitable, I refer to the option of a security having enough volume to keep the bid-ask spread reasonable. Earlier this year, I grabbed a snapshot of the TMX […]