Stock Market Investing Mastery

Explains what a stock is, a partial ownership stake in a publicly traded company, and outlines common and preferred stock, voting, dividends, and liquidity on stock exchanges.

Explore how bonds work in a stock portfolio, including face value, coupon rate, maturity, yields, and price fluctuations, and compare corporate, government, and municipal bonds for fixed income strategies.

Explore how exchange traded funds mimic market indexes to provide instant diversification and low fees, with types like market, industry, bond, and currency ETFs.

Understand what a REIT is and how equity REITs provide exposure to real estate, generate rental income, and pay monthly dividends, with metrics like FFO and NOI.

Explore why stock prices fluctuate, driven by supply and demand, qualitative factors like news and investor sentiment, and quantitative factors like revenue and earnings, including market price versus true value.

Explore asset appreciation and dividend income as the two wealth-building fundamentals of long-term stock investing, and see how reinvesting dividends compounds growth through compound interest over time.

Learn how to read a stock quote and interpret key data like market price, bid and ask, volume, range, market cap, dividends, and P/E to gauge a stock's current value.

Explore market capitalization, the current value of a company calculated by share price times outstanding shares, and how large-cap, mid-cap, and small-cap classifications indicate risk and growth potential.

Learn to read an income statement to assess revenues, cost of revenues, gross and operating margins, and net income, using Fortis Inc. and Yahoo Finance as data sources.

Analyze a balance sheet by examining assets, liabilities, and shareholder equity, using Google's example to interpret current and non-current categories, ratios like current ratio, and the balance sheet equation.

Learn to read a cash flow statement by examining operating, investing, and financing activities, calculate free cash flow, and assess impact of depreciation, debt, and stock repurchases on cash.

Explain the price to earnings ratio, including trailing 12 month and forward looking versions, and compare stock price to earnings per share against industry peers.

Apply the price to book ratio to gauge whether a stock is undervalued relative to its book value, using market cap, balance sheet assets minus liabilities, and industry context.

Learn how compound interest grows stock market wealth exponentially by reinvesting returns and regular contributions, and why starting early maximizes your investment horizon.

Diversification spreads investments across assets and classes to minimize risk and smooth long-term returns, using uncorrelated securities to build a portfolio aligned with your investor profile.

Define volatility in investing and measure it with the beta coefficient. Explain beta values of 1, below 1, and above 1 and discuss ways to lower portfolio volatility.

Understand market cycles, including bull and bear markets, and how corrections lower your cost basis. Learn to buy on red days and stay invested for long-term wealth growth.

Learn how dollar cost averaging, combined with patience and recurring deposits, can steadily grow a long-term portfolio while reducing risk and volatility through broad market ETFs.

Explain what dividends are, a distribution of a company’s earnings to shareholders, why they exist, why some firms pay cash dividends while others do not, and introduce dividend yield.

Compare dividend distributions to dividend yield and learn how annual per-share payouts and current price determine yield, with daily fluctuation and a healthy range of 2.5% to 7%.

Explore the life cycle of a dividend by mastering the declaration, ex-dividend, record, and payment dates, and learn how timing affects eligibility and payout.

reinvest dividend income to purchase more shares and unleash exponential portfolio growth over the long term, as compared to not reinvesting and relying on price appreciation.

Explore how dividend-focused exchange traded funds provide diversification, passive exposure to high dividend income, and steady returns compared to selecting individual dividend stocks.

Explore the various fees in self-directed stock investing, including annual, inactivity, research, trading commissions, and currency conversion, and learn how discount brokerages like Queste trade and Wealthsimple trade minimize costs.

Compare the management expense ratios of exchange-traded funds and mutual funds, showing how a 0.08% versus 2.5% fee difference compounds over 25 years to affect the growth of your portfolio.

Learn about the main Canadian investment accounts—tfsa, rrsp, cash and margin—explaining how each works, tax effects, and why starting with tfsa is recommended.

Understand foreign withholding taxes on US dividends and their impact on TFSA, RRSP, and cash accounts, with strategies to minimize tax drag on returns.

Explore how capital gains are taxed differently from income, with a 50 percent inclusion rule, and how day trading may create business income, plus tax-free gains in a tfsa.

Canadian investors face currency exposure when owning U.S. stocks, as CAD/USD fluctuations and conversion fees shape returns; explore dual-listed stocks, currency hedged ETFs, and strategies like the Allbirds Gambit.

Learn how to use Norbert's Gambit to convert canadian dollars to US dollars via currency ETFs, saving on conversion fees, with Quest Trade execution and TFSA or RSP accounts.

Determine your investor profile via a screening questionnaire and tailor asset allocation across fixed income and equities to your goals and risk, then build a stock portfolio within four profiles.

Start investing with the tax free savings account to grow tax free, then add RRSPs and finally a cash margin account, leveraging cumulative contribution room.

Identify your investor profile to tailor asset allocation for a diversified portfolio. Explore aggressive to conservative allocations, such as 85/15 and 50/50, with blue chip dividend stocks for long-term growth.

Build a stock portfolio aligned with your investor profile using a hybrid core satellite strategy, combining low-cost ETFs as the foundation with selective stock discovery and diversification.

Construct a passive ETF portfolio using core ETFs tailored to your investor profile and asset allocation, with model portfolios and a downloadable PDF for practical guidance.

Combine core ETFs for instant diversification with satellite stocks to form a hybrid core satellite portfolio, lowering costs and volatility while aligning with your investor profile and asset allocation.

Rebalance your portfolio to maintain your target asset allocation of equities and fixed income by buying new funds or selling winning positions, while considering taxes and your investor profile.