Financial JungleFinancial JungleCanadian personal finance on investing, dividends, stocks, mutual funds, will, insurance, real estate, income, and tax. 
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Birthday Goodies Challenge in Vancouver
2008-05-12 07:28:00 A post by my adorable Financial Jungle Gal. This year, my birthday falls adjacent to Mother?s Day. While jostling through Mother?s Day crowd presents its own challenges, I?m happy to have uncovered many birthday freebies with some help rummaging the Internet and our Entertainment Book for tips. Here are my findings: Denny?s ? Free meal. ... More About: Vancouver , Birthday , Challenge , Goodies
Real Professionals Have Skin In The Game, And They Beat The Market Too.
2008-05-07 19:05:00 The Public Be Damned… you may quote me: Screw ‘em. That was the remark from legendary value manager, Marty Whitman, cursing fickle investors for fleeing his Third Avenue fund in favour of the more glamorous technology stocks. The exodus shaved his Third Avenue fund’s assets under management from $50 billion to $38 billion in 1998 and ... More About: Skin , Market , Investing , Mutual Funds , Game
Dividend Increases: Steady Income Without Market Volatility
2008-04-24 20:41:00 This is the sixth post in the Dividend Increases series. I think dividend-investing is one of the few free lunches left in investing. Most people looking for higher returns are often confronted with persistent market volatility, but it doesn’t always have to be that way. The strongest driver behind my investing in dividend-paying stocks ... More About: Market , Income
Carnival Cruising To Dividend Growth Territory
2008-04-24 07:34:00 I used to think that since it was a capital intensive business, Carnival (CCL) wouldn’t qualify as a classical dividend growth story, but I stand corrected. Carnival is the most dominating global cruise company in the world generating revenues in excess of $13 billion; trouncing the $6 billion eked out by distant second place, Royal Caribbean. ... More About: Investing , Growth , Dividend , Territory
Bond Veteran Unveils A Stock-Beating Strategy
2008-04-21 10:40:00 Conventional wisdom jibes with the notion that bonds cannot outperform stocks over a distant horizon unless you’re toying with junk bonds. But there’s much more beneath the surface. I feel very fortunate to have *Bond Guy, a securities broker, who promises to debunk this investment myth, but he’ll first warm us up with some ... More About: Strategy , Mortgage , Stock , Veteran
Canadian Dividend Stocks Are Flexing Muscles Too
2008-04-16 08:06:00 As mentioned in my High Yielding Dividend Stocks Flexing Muscles post, 12 independent studies concluded that investing in high yielding dividend stocks was a winning strategy for much of the previous century. Despite the overwhelming evidence, all the studies were predominantly US and UK based, so I decided to roll up my sleeves and ... More About: Investing , Canadian , Mutual Funds
What Are Your BNN Top 3 Picks?
2008-04-15 09:05:00 Since all BNN guests are having so much fun with their top picks, I don’t see why we can’t have ours. Here are my top 3 picks: Scotiabank (BNS) - Canada’s most international bank is trading at a cheap 11.7 PE and yielding an attractive 4.2%. The market is hurting the bank even ...
CommunityLend To Cut Fat Middlemen With Social Lending
2008-04-11 04:23:00 Today, I was approached by Dave Coleman who is a lead Community Advocate from a new social lending player, CommunityLend. The whole concept of social lending is relatively new to me. In a nutshell, CommunityLend is an online marketplace that brings ordinary lenders and borrowers like us onto an efficient and nimble platform, ... More About: Social , Fixed Income , Lending
High Yielding Dividend Stocks Flexing Muscles
2008-04-10 06:42:00 The Dividend Guy recently touched on a research paper that revealed a surprising result about dividend investing; stocks that generously distribute larger percentages of their earnings to shareholders tend to outperform their stingy counterparts. This is counter-intuitive considering that the more earnings a company distributes to shareholders, the less retained earnings remain to grow ... More About: Stocks , Investing , High
Financial Stocks: Dead Cat Defies Gravity
2008-04-09 06:56:00 The investment saying, “dead cat bounce”, has been thrown around recently to warn investors about the nasty surprises prowling right behind the beguiling recovery of fallen financial stocks. While I don’t know where the financial sector is headed in the short run, as a dividend and long-term investor, I try to block these little ... More About: Stocks , Financial , Investing , Dead
How Much Is Your Blog Worth?
2008-04-08 08:46:00 Yesterday I celebrated Financial Jungle’s first birthday by renewing both the domain and the hosting service for another year. Yes, you have to put up with me for a little longer. And with your support, the blog has earned $170 in advertising revenue and cost $35 in various expenses. While ... More About: Blog , Worth
I?m Officially Retired Today?
2008-04-04 03:02:00 … until I land my next job, that is. Apparently my company has been struggling with ratcheting up their sales amid the US teetering on the official definition of a recession: 2 consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth. It also doesn?t help when a segment of our business relies on the US housing market, which ... More About: General , Today
Dual-Class Shares Unloved But Don?t Write Them Off Too Quickly
2008-04-01 09:45:00 By and large, dual-class shares are unloved by investors and PF bloggers because the structure creates a double standard that gives one class of investors unfair voting power over another. ThickenMyWallet recently wrote a post on dual-class shares titled “You’re a fool if you buy…“: The primary disadvantage of a company with a ... More About: Stocks , Write , Investing , Class , Shares
Put Your Stock Trading Talent On The Test
2008-03-27 07:51:00 So you think you’re a hotshot daytrader? Let’s see if you can walk the talk. My colleague recently forwarded me a link to this cool website called Inspectd, where you can trade real stocks with fake money. While the Internet is already littered with hundreds websites that offer similar features, Inspectd is unique ... More About: Trading , Stock , Test , Talent
TransCanada?s Piping Dividend Juice To Investors
2008-03-23 20:51:00 Just because the financial sector is ruing Bear Sterns’s stunning collapse doesn’t mean all dividend investors are in dire straits. Smart investors who are surviving this bear market are diversifying into sectors that don’t correlate with the financial sector. Something like the largest pipeline operator in the country, TransCanada (TRP), should fit ... More About: Stocks , Investing , Dividends , Investors , Juice
My Top 3 Investing Mistakes
2008-03-18 06:48:00 Dividends4Life recently tagged me to write a post on My Top 3 Investing Mistakes. This series, originally launched by The Dividend Guy, is blasting through the blogosphere. As the saying goes, “when you lose, don’t lose the lesson.” Over Trading - After graduating from university in 1998, I found myself in a position to day ... More About: Behaviour
How Heavy Is Your Portfolio On The Sin Scale?
2008-03-13 04:33:00 One of the greatest investing dilemmas I reckon with is ethical investing. Loading up on sin stocks doesn’t exactly align with my moral conscious. After all, most people like me have issues buying controversial companies like Lockheed Martin that thrive in times of war. But giving up these little devils doesn’t ... More About: Portfolio , Investing , Heavy , Scale
A 20-Year Veteran Reveals His Pragmatic Approach To Real Estate Investing
2008-03-03 08:54:00 In his new book, Retire Rich From Real Estate , Dr. Marc Andersen doesn’t teach you how to flip your way to overnight sensational success. Get-rich-schemes only enrich those authors, who otherwise, couldn’t score big in the tortuous world of real estate investing. Marc is none of that. Rather, he advocates the safe ... More About: Real Estate , Real Estate Investing , Investing , Veteran
Tax Free Saving Account (TFSA)
2008-02-27 09:50:00 The landscape of tax-sheltered investing will forever be changed as the 2008 Canada Federal Budget unleashed the new Tax Free Saving Account (TFSA). When my co-worker, Tony, first mentioned the name “Tax Free Saving Account”, my first guess was a high interest saving account that grows tax-free. To my pleasant surprise, you can ... More About: Taxes , Investing
Dividend Increases: Except For Boralex Power Income Fund
2008-02-26 08:33:00 This is the fifth post on the Dividend Increases series. It has only been 3 weeks since my previous dividend increases post, but I feel compelled to hurry one in as Boralex Power Income Fund just announced a distribution cut from 90 cents to 70 cents, amidst external headwinds from weaker hydrology and the declining US ... More About: Stocks , Investing , Dividends
Is Home Ownership An Investment?
2008-02-23 09:39:00 This has been a hot topic among bloggers, so I’ll throw in my 2-cents. Every asset you own can be classified into 3 broad categories: necessities, luxuries and investments. Examples include: Necessities: electricity, gasoline, food, water, clothing, banking, medicine and *shelters*. Luxuries: Tag Heuer watches, iPods, Coach bags, Ferraris and sailboats. Investment s: stocks, bonds and rental properties. No. That’s not a typo. I did place “shelter” as one of the necessities, but I believe the crux of the misunderstanding centers around what exactly do we consume: is it the warmth provided by the shelter, or the ownership of the shelter itself? Let’s clarify by drawing parallels from my dividend-paying stocks. I consume electricity, but also consider my ownership of Fortis as an investment. Similarly, I’m a part-owner of Saputo, Canadian Oil Sand, Reitmans, Royal Bank and Johnson & Johnson, which all provide essential products and ser... More About: Home
Jungle Bulletins: Spending Habits, Buffett, Vancouver Real Estate, And More
2008-02-19 07:01:00 Jeffrey Strain concocts 10 reasons why we aren’t rich. In particular, I like number 7, You Rely on Others to Take Care of Your Money. Unfortunately, most people want to make money themselves, and this is their primary objective when they tell you how to invest your money. And number 8, You ... More About: Estate , Real Estate , Vancouver , Buffett , Habits
What Ryan Thinks Of Walmart
2008-02-15 10:51:00 Recently, I had the pleasure to get to know one of my blog’s readers, Ryan . Like me, he is a cheapskate who likes to sniff around for dominating businesses that are selling at reasonable prices. One of the stocks on his radar screen is the US retail mammoth, Walmart . He thinks a ...
4 Reasons Why Our Portfolio Has No Bonds
2008-02-12 19:25:00 80% of our net worth is our ability to earn income - Our investment portfolios extend well beyond just the securities in our brokerage accounts; our greatest asset is the ability to learn new skills and to become productive citizens of the sociaty. In my opinion, the ability to earn salaries is simply bonds ... More About: Portfolio , Investing , Fixed Income , Bonds , Reasons
Dividend Increases: Even When Markets Are Down
2008-02-06 08:47:00 This is the fourth post on the Dividend Increases series. First, let’s get the sore thumb out of the way. My portfolio suffered a minor set-back as CI Financial Income Fund, a non-core holding, is cutting distribution by about 10%, likely due to market jitter. Dividend Increases Canadian Oil Sand - 36% (150% from last ... More About: Markets
Great Scott! Say Hello To My Dividend Investing Mentor.
2008-02-04 08:11:00 I received a few emails from readers singing the dividend investing tune and craving for more out of this blog. As much as I enjoy these praises, most of the ideas don’t originate from me. I certainly don’t live long enough to survive all the experimental mistakes and live to tell about them. ... More About: Mentor , Great , Investing , Scott , Dividend
Keynote Systems: Buy One Dollar For 74 Cents?
2008-01-31 10:00:00 This post is a continuation of my original analysis on Keynote Systems . The wait is over. I finally scooped up a few shares of Keynote Systems this morning after a stunning 25% tumble — courtesy of a downgrade by Ferris Baker Watts from buy to neutral. * Their latest quarterly results are out and they ... More About: Dollar , Cents , Investing
Meet The Retired Dividend Investor Next Door
2008-01-28 06:36:00 Sometimes, we just need a hero. This is even more so in the universe of dividend investing, which by nature is a contrarian style. Let’s face it. Dividend investors are always pooh-poohed in a cocktail party because they never share your misery in a market slide, nor your pizzaz in a market ... More About: Investing , Investor , Meet , Next Door , Door
H&R REIT Looks Cheap
2008-01-23 08:17:00 Sure, you can invest in this 3-bedroom Vancouver old timer yielding a meager 3.5% to 4% CAP, but why torment yourself? Instead, you can indulge yourself with an 8.2% yield by owning these sexy office towers within H&R REIT ’s portfolio: As you may recall, the market has been punishing the Real Estate Income ... More About: Investing , Cheap , Looks
A Diversified 4.69% Yielding Portfolio
More articles from this author:2008-01-21 09:09:00 Telly recently left a comment on my Top 5 Reasons Why Dividend Investing Over ETF post expressing her skepticism that anyone can build a diversified portfolio yielding over 4% “without loading up on some income trusts which are not favourably taxed or becoming less diversified by owning only high yielding dividend companies.” I figure it would ... More About: Portfolio 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 |
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