About Steven Johnson

(Posts|Bio|Google+) Steve Johnson is an up-and-coming investment professional. Combining his passion for practical savings with experience as an investor-relations analyst, he is currently working his way into full fledged investment banking with a major Canadian credit union.

Where Does Linkedin’s Value Come From

personal finance

The first major social media company to go public this year was LinkedIn. This offering was a major event in the stock market, because it created a reference point against which other social media companies to could be valued. Specifically, people are always interested in trying to … [Read more...]

Being Paid to Receive a Dividend, Covered Call

personal finance

This post is going to describe for you one of my favourite equity positions, the covered call. A well executed covered call position can be a cash-flow generating machine that increases the yield of a position by a complete handful of percentage points. Here’s how it works. When … [Read more...]

How an Online Business Creates Value for an Investor

personal finance

A fascinating new trend from the last three years has been the emergence of social media. Having created value through serving advertisements on a scale comparable to Google (sort of), companies like Facebook have created all sorts of amazing business opportunities for aggressive … [Read more...]

An Alternative to Options Strangles

personal finance

In the last post I outlined all the theoretical benefits of a position known as an ‘Options Strangle’. Don’t get me wrong, this is an excellent position to enter, but only under very specific circumstances. From the perspective of costs and rewards, it’s extremely effective in … [Read more...]

Equity Dilution’s Impact on Value

personal finance

Keeping in mind the theme of value investing, I’d like to dedicate the next two posts to the discussion of equity dilution, and how its impacts can be worked into a value-based portfolio. For our purposes, equity dilution is going to refer to situations in which the values of an … [Read more...]

Part 4 Practical Mutual Funds: Finding Fixed Income

personal finance

I’ve saved the best for last in this ongoing series describing the practical fundamentals of investing in Mutual Funds. You can check out my first three articles in this series here (1, 2, 3). By taking the time to understand how it is that Income-Oriented Mutual Funds create value … [Read more...]

Earning Income Through Purchase Transactions

personal finance

One of the most difficult parts of investing is making the decision to buy or sell a position. It’s not so much even a question of whether or not we have the technical/fundamental understanding required to make such a decision, as much as it is an issue of emotion. Have you ever … [Read more...]

How Do Patent Companies Create Value?

personal finance

One of the hottest sectors to invest in over the last decade has been the technology space. However, technology securities are also notoriously volatile, and dangerous. It takes a sophisticated investor, capable of quickly dealing with new information as it arrives, and interpreting … [Read more...]

Software as a Service for Consistency

personal finance

The continuing theme of this column is to discuss the value of cash flows and income. From my perspective, personal investors should focus on scaling down their exposure to risk in a way that allows them to maintain exposure to predictable cash flows over time. Be these cash flows be … [Read more...]

Why Computer Chip Manufacturers are Traded Like Commodity Producers

personal finance

Something that’s always intrigued me about the technology sector is the cyclical nature of chip products. These are the companies that manufacture the highly complex computer chips that go into the hardware into our phones and computers, and yet they are treated by the market like … [Read more...]

Investing In Real Estate Income Trusts: Commercial

personal finance

In the last article I went through a couple of reasons why it is that Apartment REITs showed some fantastic returns after the 2009 recession. However, moving forward, we might have seen the best of times already. While this doesn’t necessarily exclude them from future inclusion in … [Read more...]

Investing in Real Estate Income Trusts: Apartments

personal finance

If you look back as far as immediately after the crash of 2009, one of the best investments you could have possibly made would have been into undervalued hard-assets. Between foreclosed homes being bought, renovated, and flipped for 360% returns over a year, and gold sky-rocketing by … [Read more...]

Portfolio Balancing Part 2 – Making The Best Use of Asset Classes

personal finance

In the first article, we discussed what the four main elements of your personal investment portfolio will generally consist of. With that understanding in mind, let’s continue on to discuss how each of these asset classes is practically applied towards building our financial … [Read more...]

Why Pipeline Infrastructure Matters More for Monster Caps

personal finance

Over the year, we’ve seen a great deal of debate occurring over the environmental feasibility of the Keystone pipeline project. This project proposes to build a massive new pipeline from Canada, which will transport petroleum products all the way throughout the USA. While … [Read more...]

How Pipeline Infrastructure Creates Value

personal finance

Throughout this year, the political implications of building new pipeline infrastructure throughout North America will have some serious consequences on market movements. Between the Keystone XL pipeline running from Canada across the USA, and the ever growing demand from developing … [Read more...]

Corporate Bonds and High Yield Bonds

personal finance

The next major investment trend that I want to point out surrounds debt, but in a different way than previously discussed. Granted, most of us don’t even want to think about debt after such a terrible decade for mortgages and credit cards, but it is important to remember the … [Read more...]

Comparative Analysis of WPFRX and FSDAX Mutual Funds

personal finance

Having provided an overview of two funds (WPFRX and FSDAX from Westport and SunAmerica respectively) that focus on providing broad market exposure to stable investments and value opportunities. Using the previous article as a framework, we can now compare the funds, and make a … [Read more...]

Broad Market Mutual Fund Returns of WPFRX & FDSAX

personal finance

Funds Name: Westport Funds: Westport Fund; Class R Shares Symbol: WPFRX Nav: $24.18 Name: Sunamerica Focused Series, Inc: Focused Dividend Strategy Portfolio; Class A Shares  Symbol: FDSAX Nav: $11.77 Objective & Strategy WPFRX: Westport funds pursues capital … [Read more...]

Increased Demand for Energy Infrastructure

personal finance

So far, all of the major trends we’ve discussed have revolved around expanding consumer demand, as a result of population growth and changes in income dynamics. However, this kind of growth has some implications for growth of the economy as a whole. Specifically, as consumer … [Read more...]

Maintaining Market Exposure through Traditionally Ultra Safe Asset Classes

personal finance

I find I can’t bring myself to watch the business news anymore in the mornings. Everywhere I look, panelists and pundits alike seem to be lamenting over the increasing complexity required to maintain a portfolio in the modern market. Whereas statistical and technical alchemy … [Read more...]