The Nuts and Bolts of Self-Directed Investing
- Description
- Curriculum
- FAQ
- Reviews
It’s 3 pm on a February afternoon and your bank calls you, “Have you made your RRSP contribution for the year? Mr. Smith, I’d like to help you earn 10 %/year and reduce your taxes by opening a new account. Can I book you in for an appointment next Monday?”
I’ve made that phone call before; I understand your hesitations – maybe you think these returns aren’t realistic, the fees are too high, you wonder if I have a conflict of interest, I can’t possibly understand your situation – and it all seems too complicated.
Forget about the banks managing your money – you can do it better yourself.
That’s where this course comes in.
During this course, we will begin a journey learning all the basics and more about finance from the products (stocks, bonds, mutual funds) to the accounts (TFSA, RRSP, RESP, etc.) to open your first brokerage account and feel confident developing an investment plan and following through on it day in and day out.
What I hope you gain from this course is an excellent understanding of how to invest by yourself, understand the role that finance plays in the world, and develop the confidence to develop a plan and stick with it.
In addition, we’re going to get excited about finance and you will learn how to engage in some intelligent discussions with your friends about stocks, crypto, options trading, gamestop, the 2008 financial crisis, developing an opinion on the Central Bank and the State of the Economy and so forth.
It will be fun, I promise, and the investment you make in continuous learning is the best you will ever make.
Taking this course will also pay you dividends for years to come!
By investing by yourself and not through a bank, you will have access to vast investment opportunities at lower fees, easily amounting to a 2% annual difference, which can translate to tens of thousands of dollars over your lifetime.
If you’ve made it this far, don’t hesitate, sign up today and let’s begin!
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1
An Overview of a Plethora of Asset ClassesWith any great lesson plan, our knowledge must start at the beginning, the fundamentals. During this lecture, we will dive into the basic characteristics of stocks, bonds, currency and commodities and when to hold each of them in your portfolio.
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2
Broadly Diversify into Mutual Funds and Exchange Traded Funds
A discussion of how those assets - the stocks, bonds, currencies, and commodities - are built into mutual funds and ETFs, the pros/cons of each, and the reasons to remain properly diversified
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3
Opening your Own Offshore Tax Haven Account
This is all about tax avoidance, not tax evasion, a discussion of where to house your investments and all the boring finance acronyms - RRSP, RDSP, RESP, and the rebel that is bucking the R_SP trend: the tax free savings account.
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4
Assets, Products and AccountsTest your familiarity and readiness towards understanding asset classes, their risks and returns, appropriateness, diversification, and how to invest them in the right tax-friendly accounts.
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5
Take our your Notepad, We're Creating an Investment Plan!
Take a moment to be refreshed before starting this lecture: this will be the most important lecture over our course. Creating your own investment plan is a self-reflection of your risk tolerance, time horizon and goals and will ultimately determine your asset allocation, the single greatest determinant of your portfolio risk and return.
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6
Straight Execution
We are exploring a wide array of executions from the 1600s Salem Witch Trials through to the proper way of executing your investment plan: fewer hangings and fires, and more annual reviews and dollar-cost-averaging.
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7
Walking onto the New York Stock Exchange Floor
We've created an investment plan and got an attack for execution. Now, it's time to walk onto the New York Stock Exchange and start yelling out orders, "BUY BUY 10 SHARES APPLE $104!".
On this lecture, we are reviewing some brokerage accounts, opening and funding them, and placing trades with an eye on detail.
Some Referral Links:
Questrade - Referral Code is 326711573428612 (Get $50 for a signing up and funding your account)
Wealthsimple - https://wealthsimple.com/invite/1AHRKQ (Get up to $3,000)
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8
Investment Preparation and Execution
Let's dive in to make sure you are feeling prepared for your investment journey. If you can ace this, you can definitely complete an investment plan and excel during the process.
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9
A History of Human Evolution, Obsessed by Greed and Ingenuity
We are going to take a long walk from the Persian Marketplaces through to Bond and Stock Trading and seeing how the way we have invested has changed over time from shouts on the NYSE to electronic executions through to the removal of humans all together, and the emergence of bots.
This is a story of investing becoming more global, accessible, innovative, and cheaper with more opportunities and more dangers created with each iteration.
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10
The Players of the Most Exciting Game on Earth
The game of stock investing is much like the game of hockey: there are the forwards (buyers), the refs (the SEC), the scorekeeper (Credit Rating Agencies), the unruly fans (Occupy Wall Street Protests), and many more. During this lecture, we are going to walk through the IPO process and see who is buying and selling shares, who regulates the industry, and who else is involved in the Wall Street Drama.
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11
The Good, The Bad, and The Damn Ugly
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12
Understanding the Stock Market
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13
How the Stock Market Works like a Drunken Sailor
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14
The Man's Horoscopes: Reading the Charts
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15
So You Think You Found a Good Stock
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16
Sound Smart with Financial Jargon
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17
The Sophisticated Investor
Test your knowledge of the more sophisticated items: valuing stocks, reading charts, and holding your own over an uncomfortable dinner with the token finance bro in your life
