We recently attended the educational seminar by TD Waterhouse discount brokerage entitled “Everything You Need to Know About Income Investing” at the downtown Vancouver investor centre.

This lunchtime session provided attendees with an overview of different fixed income investment vehicles such as corporate bonds and convertible bonds.  In addition, the session also touched on preferred shares as well as dividend-paying companies.

According to the presenter, when deciding on companies to invest in, self-directed investors should consider the following three points:

• The business model of the company: is it a conservative pipeline company or a more speculative energy company?
• What is the yield that the company pays to its investors: is it healthy and sustainable that historically pays on time?
• What is the dividend growth of the company: has it shown a steady growth over the years?

During the session, some examples were covered in order to provide a better understanding of the power of dividend growth.

Both conservative and growth income portfolio types were also explained and exemplified during the session along with recommendations on what these portfolios should consist of.

Finally, the session offered  the following list of investment planning tips:

• Focus on asset allocation, diversification, investment selection and ongoing monitoring
• Have a strategy in place
• Have a disciplined approach
• Focus on risk-adjusted returns and not ‘performance’
• Rely on cash flow for income, not capital growth
• Focus on tax-efficient income
• Protect against inflation
• Conduct a thorough yearly portfolio assessment
• Have your portfolio managed professionally
• Pay reasonable fees

For newcomers to investing, this TD Waterhouse presentation was full of useful information. The presenter encouraged the audience to ask questions and was well informed in answering them all throughout the presentation. The examples provided during the session were also very useful in order to provide a better idea about the concepts and how they actually work in real life.

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