Financial Literacy Seminar – Investing 101

A huge part of why I write so many blogs and magazine articles is to help people take better control over their own financial affairs by arming them with the information they need to make this happen. As part of this commitment, I am in the process of setting up a 2 hour intro to investing seminar with a bunch of investment advisor colleagues of mine tentatively set for February 8 or 15^th in Vancouver. My goal is provide anyone who wants to come out with an overview of basic investment topics so they can get better understand their investments, have a better idea of their choices, ask better questions of their advisors and, ultimately, better protect their financial futures. Here are some of the potential topics:

• Taxation of Investments and what is a dividend, ROC, interest and capital gains, benefits of compounding.
• Understanding an investment statement, including book and market values, rates of return, benchmarks.
• What are ETFs, Mutual Funds, Pooled Funds, Wrap Accounts – pros and cons.
• Diversification and how to get it.
• Time horizons, and rebalancing.
• How RRSPs, RESPs and TFSAs work.
• Covered calls, REITs and MICs and other types of high income investments.

I am really excited about the quality of the people who have indicated they are interested in presenting and have tried to pick people who are both really good at what they do who offer different perspectives. I am writing this message at this time to get an idea about how many people would be interested in attending, as well as any feedback anyone might have in terms of topics, so please let me know if you have any interest in attending.

Thanks and Happy New Year,

Colin