When people think about building wealth, stock investing often comes to mind. But it doesn't have to be some complex, high-stakes game reserved for Wall Street pros. For those looking into investing as a side hustle, dividend stocks offer a surprisingly straightforward path to earn passive income.
The doctor’s words hung in the air, quiet but heavy. “I’m going to give you a few minutes to say your goodbyes. When you’re ready, I’ll come back in the room and turn off the ventilator.”
Every day, the financial world bombards you with reasons to actively trade stocks. You’re told that with the right mutual fund or the cleverest strategy, you can beat the market. As Gregory Baer and Gary Gensler put it, investors are pushed into high-cost funds and portfolio churning because they’re told to do so, explicitly or implicitly, by the very media that claims to inform them. But what if the secret to successful isn't about being more active, but less?
If you're serious about , sometimes the most compelling stories come from markets that have weathered incredible storms. A perfect example is Indonesia's journey from the late 90s to today. Back in 1997-98, the Asian economic crisis hit the country hard. Its currency, the rupiah, plummeted by nearly 70% against the dollar, forcing the government to seek help from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Canada has long been one of the world's top ten largest economies, a position built on a solid foundation of natural resources and key trade relationships, especially with the United States. Its banking sector is famously stable, having weathered the 2008 financial crisis with remarkable strength. This economic resilience is reflected in its stock market, the TSX index, which has shown a steady, upward climb over the years. This makes it an interesting subject for anyone interested in .
Even Benjamin Graham, the father of value investing, admitted back in 1934 that he had little faith in the ability of most people—even professional analysts—to consistently pick winning stocks. His solution was a simpler, more standardized approach: just try to match the market's performance. This very idea laid the groundwork for what we now know as Exchange-Traded Funds, or ETFs.
Back in 1993, while writing my book , I explored the countless asset allocation strategies available to investors. It struck me then that sometimes, “less is more.” I had a hunch that a simple, mainstream balanced fund—60% in U.S. stocks and 40% in U.S. bonds, all in a low-cost index format—could offer the same functional benefit as hiring a high-priced investment advisory firm.
When you think of Benjamin Graham, the author of the 1949 classic , you probably think of value investing—the meticulous art of finding bargain stocks. But what many don't realize is that Graham had a very different message for the vast majority of people, one that feels surprisingly modern and is essential for anyone interested in .
When it comes to investing, most of the attention goes to the stock market. But the simple, straightforward math that governs investing success applies even more powerfully to bond funds. While countless factors can sway an individual stock, the bond market dances to the rhythm of a single dominant force: the prevailing level of interest rates. Fund managers can’t do much to change those rates, making their job fundamentally different from that of stock pickers. This is a core concept in .