Spending as much time on the internet as we do here, we couldn’t help but come across the biggest craze to hit the internet since that cute Charlie Bit Me video.  If the suspense is killing you, we’re talking about none other than the video for Gangnam Style (OGS).  In a matter of just over […]

JD Power and Associates have just released the results of the 2012 survey of Investor Satisfaction℠ with Canadian discount brokerages. Between June and July of 2012, 2900 Canadian retail investors were surveyed about their level of satisfaction with their discount brokerages. Data was obtained for 12 Canadian discount brokerages, although results for Credential Direct were […]

This event was a presentation by Horizons Exchange Traded Funds, on the basics of exchange traded funds and was held at the TD Waterhouse Investor Centre in downtown Vancouver.   The seminar itself was just over an hour long and provided a great overview on what ETFs are, how they compare to stocks and mutual funds, […]

As a follow up to the article on the “vanishing trader”, we decided to look at the “invisible hand” of the market.  We took a brief look at the recent trading volume data (you can access this data here) published by one of the largest discount brokerage firms in the US, Interactive Brokers (ticker symbol […]

We found this video from Forbes a little too good to keep to ourselves.  Amazingly Jon Bon Jovi sang about “holding on to what we’ve got” in the 80’s and Warren Buffett has been singing that tune well into his 80’s. Go figure they end up doing a duet for a very worthy cause.  

Found this great infographic that explains what a stock is and how stocks work.  Thanks to the folks over at mint.com (which is an awesome personal finance tool website). Enjoy!

Defining a market is as simple as picturing a boxing ring with two opposing opinions representing the fighters.  One of these opinions places a bet on an increasing value of a share price while the opposing side wagers that the share price will decrease in value.  This is the simplest way to visualize the market: […]

As stock markets have continued to flirt with highs not seen since before the great financial crisis of 2008 and the heights of the dot com bubble before that, there has been a recurring discussion of the “light volumes” that have taken markets to these highs.  A lot of airtime has been spent trying to […]

Even though discount brokerages haven’t traditionally portrayed the most “fun and friendly” image, more and more of them are starting to become visible on social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter. While you (hopefully) won’t find those embarrassing pictures of a drunken night gone wild or an angry rant about a horrible boss, plugging […]

Below is a list of “on demand” educational seminars and webinars from a variety of Canadian discount brokerages on a variety of investing-related topics.  To access them, simply click on the video links.  As this list will be constantly reviewed and updated, check back for more links/videos. Title Category Length Company Host url Description Registration […]

The arrival of September is generally when markets shake off the quiet days of summer and start to come back to life.  Across the landscape of discount brokerages, it looks like the major deal offerings that were around in August are standing firm or are being extended out.  For example, Questrade’s 100 free trades offer […]

Learning Objective – Discount Brokerage Education Resources: To understand the different educational resources currently being offered by Canadian discount brokerages Introduction Increasingly, Canadian discount brokerages have begun to recognize that retail investors require tools and resources in order to support them in managing their own trading activities.  Fortunately for retail investors, the quality and diversity […]

Spot the differences in the image below. Answers at the bottom.         Answers: owl hat rays in sunshine 2 blades of grass top window of school bell in tower cloud mirror on bus apple colour of girl direction of second tree

This past August we attended several investor education events put on by TD Waterhouse Discount Brokerage.  These events were aimed at educating retail investors on the concepts, practices and strategies that will better prepare them when trading. The most recent session we attended was about margin and short selling. The session covered a number of […]

Earlier this week, Questrade officially launched their IQ Mobile for Android and iPhone and with that they join the rank of other discount brokerages who’ve created mobile-friendly sites or smartphone apps for trading (to see who else offers mobile trading apps check out our review here). Questrade’s mobile trading app will help investors and traders […]

Making Decisions Using Technical Analysis This lunchtime session was held in the downtown Vancouver TD Waterhouse Investor Centre, and was part of a series of educational seminars for retail investors offered by TD Waterhouse Discount Brokerage.  The focus of this seminar was on technical analysis and covered what technical analysis is, types of trends, support […]

The Active Trading Strategies sessions that I attended took place at lunchtime in the downtown Vancouver investor center. The centre itself is a space for retail investors to directly contact TD Waterhouse representatives as well as catch up on what’s going on in the financial markets via the BNN broadcast or with newspapers provided. Also […]

We picked up this deal on our radar by attending a free educational seminar at the TD Waterhouse Discount Brokerage Investor Centre in downtown Vancouver (check out our review here).  As you can see from the image below, this is an “unadvertised” deal that gives customers who open a new TD Waterhouse Discount Brokerage account […]

As both investors and markets slow down in the tail end of summer, the discount brokerage deals and incentives have also gotten a bit quieter.  Still, for those of you looking for a deal on a discount brokerage account, there are some hefty commission rebate discounts being offered up this August. BMO Investorline has upped […]

Learning Objectives – Facebook IPO: Stock prices reflect expectations about the future What a company says they’re going to do or not do can impact what people expect Quarterly earnings reports allow a company to disclose its activities and its financial situation Introduction This past month, Facebook released their first ever earnings report as a […]