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...]
Applying Value Analysis to Expenses
Filed Under: Value Investing by
Having looked at incomes in the last post, I’d like to take this opportunity to dig into the profitability ratios we discussed. Specifically, it’s important to understand how these ratios are impacted by operations, and how it is that an apparent weakness in a given ratio, can … [Read more...]
Inside a Mutual Fund Understanding BPRAX
Filed Under: Fund Analysis by
In an effort to help personal investors better understand what kind of risks and opportunities they are exposed to within their portfolio, I’m going to start dedicating an entire post every week to understanding specific mutual funds. In these posts, I’ll summarize all of the … [Read more...]
How to Combine Asset and Industry Classes into a Portfolio to Minimizes Risk
Filed Under: Risk Analysis by
Having dug into the basics of how it is that we can make sure that we diversifying our investment base throughout a given industry sector to minimize our exposure to unsystemic risks, we can now start combining our positions in these sectors to come up with a full investment portfolio … [Read more...]
Investment Risk, and Understanding when to Sell or Hold
Filed Under: Personal Finance by
When we sell a security, we are doing so with the understanding that we can re-invest the proceeds in a way that will maintain our nominal returns. The logic behind this is fairly simple, in that we wouldn’t sell the security if we didn’t feel as though there was a long-term benefit … [Read more...]
Is that Really a Mutual Fund or Just Diluted Equity Position?
Filed Under: Personal Finance by
Having looked through a batch of tech Funds in preparation for an upcoming post, I came across a startling trend for overexposing a fund towards a very specific security. Funds that claim to act as an index of the tech industry have holding more than 14% of their holdings in companies … [Read more...]
Applying Technical Indicators to Value Investment
Filed Under: Investing Strategies by
In the last article, I described what momentum investing is, and how it can be broadly applied to a personal investment portfolio. By acting as an indicator of when to buy into an opportunity that has already been established as having a strong value proposition, a momentum indicator … [Read more...]
How Video Game Companies Make Money
Filed Under: Business Value by
One of the quietest growth stories over the last few years has come from what is possibly the loudest consumer industry in existence (besides rock and roll I guess). The video game industry has been exploding over the last decade, and investors are starting to see serious returns from … [Read more...]
How a Gold Exit Might Impact Your Real Estate Portfolio
Filed Under: Personal Finance by
When looking at how it is that a gold liquidation would impact a personal investing portfolio, we need to remember how it is that Gold will generally act as a store of value against uncertainty, inflation, and general macroeconomic risk. However, the only real reason why it is that … [Read more...]
Paying Off Debt Fast or Slow Which is Best?
Filed Under: Personal Finance by
The question of paying off debt fast or slow is a no brainer for me personally. Financially speaking it's the obvious best answer because the faster you pay off your debt the less interest you're going to pay. I guess the flip side to this would be paying your debt off slower means … [Read more...]
What is the Gross Debt Service Ratio (GDSR)?
Filed Under: Personal Finance by
Similar to the Total Debt Service Ratio (TDSR), the Gross Debt Service Ratio (GDSR) is a metric that is commonly used by lenders in conjunction with a credit score. As the name suggests, GDSR acts as a metric for specifically representing the amount of an individual’s income that is … [Read more...]
Long Call Market Neutral Positioning
Filed Under: Market Positions by
In the last article, I discussed a simple strategy for hedging out macroeconomic risks in a particularly turbulent market. However, the market neutral equity strategy described has a very serious risk implication on its own. Specifically, a market neutral equity strategy requires a … [Read more...]
American Investment Licences: Series 6 & Series 7
Filed Under: Personal Finance by
The first investment licence that potential advisors pursue is either the Series 6 or the Series 7 certification from FINRA. Between the two options, an individual is able to decide as to whether they want to jump right into the investments industry, or instead work their way in more … [Read more...]
Are You Being Charged Twice at the ATM?
Filed Under: Personal Finance by
We’ve all seen the message before: “An additional service fee of $2 will be charged in order to process this transaction. Do you still want to continue with your withdraw?” It’s annoying, but who cares about a measly $2 when the machine is so convenient! If only that were the case, I … [Read more...]
Part 3 Practical Mutual Funds: Finding Equity Value
Filed Under: Mutual Funds by
Over first and second articles discussing how to implement Mutual Funds, we’ve gone into detail about the obvious rewards, and lesser-known risks associated with fund investment. With these valuable tools under control, I’m now going to share with you some professional tips on how to … [Read more...]
Understanding Earnings Per Share (EPS)
Filed Under: Earnings Per Share by
The earnings per share metric is a valuable tool for investors to use when investigating the profitability of a company against its outstanding equity. From there, the components that come together to make this metric are as useful to investors as the output that they create, because … [Read more...]
Bad Guru Strategies to Make you Millions
Filed Under: Investing Strategies by
As of recent, I’ve been reading up pretty heavily on options strategies. That being said, I think I should take a minute to clarify what I mean by that. I’m not going out to options-trading-mastery.info (not a real site), trying to learn some sort of hidden-guru-secret that will make … [Read more...]
Improving Tangible Net Worth
Filed Under: Personal Finance by
Looking at how it is that the tangible ‘worth’ of an asset is such an arbitrary process from a lender’s perspective, it is important that a borrower take as much of the valuation process into their own hands as possible before submitting a loan application. By professionally … [Read more...]
The Complexity and Risks of Covered Cap Funds
Filed Under: Investing Strategies by
In the final portion of this week’s marathon discussion of the use of options in a personal portfolio, I’m going to describe the risks associated with using covered cap funds in your portfolio to generate yield. Specific to a Covered Cap ETF is the risk of unexpected appreciation. … [Read more...]
2012 Investing Trends: Changing Real Estate Rental Dynamics
Filed Under: Investing Trends by
With the New Year, investors are scurrying to cover their tax losses, and figure out what will be relevant in 2012. Having done the math on a number of option pieces from around the web, I’ve put together a list of my favourite investing trends for 2012. Each day I’ll go into … [Read more...]
