Investing is hard; here are some basics and things I do...maybe it'll help.

Investing seems to be the hot topic these days, from buying up Pokémon cards to increase the price, to purchasing the “right” stock so you can make it big. I have had some upsides within the stock market and some losses, my largest being Algonquin Power Utilities Corp, AQN on the Canadian TSX, in case you’re curious, where I experienced a 68% loss before giving it up. Through this post, I hope you can apply some of the lessons I have learned to your investing strategies and hopefully avoid any losses as significant as mine or worse. On the flip side, if you’re a new investor and just trying to get started, the tips below are excellent on how to get going and what to look out for, hopefully answering some basic questions you may have, like “how the heck do I even get started?!”. Quick thing: This is not to be considered financial advice or an in-depth way to make money. I am not a certified financial advisor. This is just a post about what I learned in my experiences that I hope can help you on your investing journey, and a couple of things I like to do for my investing strategy :). Also, this information could be applied to whatever accounts you’re using (RRSP, FHSA, TFSA, Regular trading account). Still, I’ll go more in-depth on different account types in another post later with some advice on how I have used/continue to use them daily.

Investing With Your Bank

So there are many different ways you can invest in the stock market or otherwise, crypto, if that floats your boat. The first place that will likely come to mind is your bank; my first trading account was with the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), one of the big five banks in the great frozen north. Many banks and other platforms offer direct and managed investment accounts. If you are A. not knowledgeable at all on the stock market and would rather be a passive investor, then a managed account is the best fit for you. Set and forget! or B. You’re interested in the stock market and are willing to take the time to learn more about it. Then, I would recommend you start a self-directed account.

I previously had a managed account that I opened when I was 18, and I knew I wanted to invest, but whilst I was at university, I didn’t have the time to look at it. At 21, I opened a self-directed investing account and switched to Wealthsimple when I was 22. Every 2 weeks, $100 was placed into the managed account, and by the time I moved platforms, I took out the money to invest in the First Home Savings Account, which scored me about $9,000.00 from my passive investment growth (SWEET!). The aim of the game is that today is just as good a day to start as tomorrow and certainly better than yesterday… so get going! Here are some pros/cons of going with your bank.

Pros:

• Contact support teams are usually better than external platforms and can see an ACTUAL person at your bank if needed.

• Banks have insurance to cover losses, so your money would be covered if the stock market collapsed or the economy went into the bin (private platforms these days have insurance too, so that’s also a plus).

• Usually offer a multi-product rebate or some other incentive to open an account (for example, a discount on your other bank account fees, or your first $100 invested is on them, etc)

• Great research/learning tools and in-depth analysis of stocks

Cons:

• Transaction fees tend to be higher (RBC charged me $10 a buy & sell, which deterred me from investing more frequently)

• Management expenses will be higher as you pay for the convenience of someone else managing your money.

• Not everyone likes to have all of their money with the same institution, which can cause issues if said bank experiences something negative, like a cyber attack, losses, or if they cut back on spending, etc.

I liked my RBC account. However, the most significant drawback for me was the fees. To trade with RBC at the time (2021-2022 or so), I had to pay a $10 fee every time I bought or sold a stock, which ultimately made me WAY more resistant to putting more money into the market. Furthermore, the managed account I had included a steep management expense ratio of 2.1% at the time. This is charged annually for managing your money; for example, the $9,000.00 I had would’ve cost me $189.00 per year for RBC to manage my money. There are two ways you can think about that - WOAH, that’s a steep fee to manage my money, especially as the fund continues to increase, or ya know what, I’m okay with paying that fee for the security of my bank managing it for me. Those are the two considerations you should have when considering whether you should have a managed account at your bank, as they are usually a big reason people take their money elsewhere. Check the bottom lines and the fees included before you choose what account to go for; the pennies will follow the pounds, as my Nana likes to say, which led me to move over to a cheaper platform when I had more free time after school to look at things properly.

Ultimately, it’s up to you if you wish to invest with a bank; many people love to, and I enjoyed the products offered as I started my investing journey. I still use a managed RRSP account now with National Bank. After I gained more experience, I felt more confident about going out on my own with my TFSA and FHSA on the Wealthsimple platform, which I’ll expand on next.

Investing in an online platform

(Wealthsimple, Questrade, Robinhood and more!)

Investing in an online platform can be daunting, but it can save you a lot of money in the long term, even on the previously mentioned fees alone. Platforms like Wealthsimple also offer managed accounts in case you don’t want to go out on your own, the plus side being you don’t have to make an appointment at the bank to open one! It could take about 5 minutes on one of these platforms to create an account, set up auto deposits, and away you go! I have also found that these platforms have come a long way, offering the majority of accounts that banks can offer, such as crypto trading, First Home Savings Accounts for us Canadians, and RRSPS to put towards retirement.

Like a bank, trading with these platforms will provide you with the necessary tax forms at the end of the year, and you can request advice from an advisor on their chat platforms. You can also get customer support, but there is no physical location to go to if you want direct in-person assistance. So don’t walk into the HQ of Questrade looking for investing advice; you’ll probably get escorted out by a security guard and not get much further than before you walked in, but that’s what the internet is for! In this modern era, you can find a lot of walkthroughs and tutorials on YouTube or Google to help you use each platform and become a master of your own money. The plus side of a bank and a private online platform is that you can always move your money back and forth between whichever one you like, so try out a few and see which one you like best!

Types of Investments

There are many types of investments, from the random cryptocurrency your friends see on TikTok to fully established businesses you see daily where you can invest money. Below is the definition of a few stocks/investment types to better understand what you’re looking at:

1. Blue-chip stocks - are well-established, large companies with stable earnings and dividends. (Ex: Apple, RBC, Aliementation Couche-Tard)

2. Growth Stocks - pretty self-explanatory, the company prioritizes growth and aims to provide a greater share price. Not all offer dividends (Constellation Software Inc., Dollarama Inc., Shopify Inc.)

3. Value Stocks - stocks considered undervalued by the market, which could offer some upside potential. (Hard to say examples as it fluctuates, depending on when you read this, but right now some are Bank of Nova Scotia and Suncor)

4. Income Stocks - companies prioritizing maintaining a steady stock price growth and offering a consistent dividend. (Ex: Brookfield Renewable, Fortis)

5. Cyclical Stocks - a company whose stock price performs worse in recessions but better during “the good times”; therefore, it is cyclical with how markets and economies perform. (Ex: Starbucks, Nike)

6. ETFS - Exchange-traded funds offer shareholders a basket of stocks instead of just one company; popular ones include VFV, which follows the American S&P 500, and VCE, which follows the top 20 companies on the Canadian TSX.

7. Bonds - there are a variety of kinds of bonds. However, these are by far the safest investments you could go with. It comes with a fixed term where your money is locked into the bond and provides a % yield in return for doing so. You can still sell these bonds or exchange them, also known in Canada as a Government Investment Certificate (GIC)

8. Crypto-Currencies - one of the more recent types of investments that have emerged, an emerging contender as an investment option that experiences extreme volatility. The most well-known and familiar are Bitcoin and Ethereum, but there are numerous other cryptocurrencies you can invest in as well.

There are other forms of private investments that you can do and different stock types. However, this is a list of the ones you’ll likely see and hear about when researching. They tend to be the most common. Click here for the reference I used for a bit of extra reading 🙂.

What I like to do

I primarily keep my investments between 5 and 6 stocks to diversify my portfolio. I also save a good-sized emergency fund in a high-interest savings account in case something happens in my day-to-day life, or if a good investing opportunity presents itself, I can take advantage of the timing. It takes a lot of financial stress off my shoulders, which I would prefer to keep off me.

I hold 3 ETFS, and leave two to three stock options spare to dabble with because I like to mess around in the market. This is a new strategy due to the uncertainty around tariffs when writing this post, as I explained earlier, ETFS are a great way to remain diversified and are relatively safe to invest in. The ones I hold cover the S&P 500 like VFV, the Canadian market, and a Global iShares ticker. This way, I have covered all my bases, and my money is dipped into most of the world markets and a bit here at home. The remaining two holdings are oil stocks, as I have had recent luck playing within this industry. However, I encourage you to use these two spare options to invest in companies you believe in and like the future of. My final spot is for a company that may appear on my radar, where I see good long-term potential. For example, Manulife, which used to live in that spot, which I turned a nice 38% profit on with dividends! I play about 70 or so % of my funds into the ETF as I like the security and statistical likelihood of me making money over the longer term, which averages to 8.06% year over year for the last 20 years with the S & P index alone! (Ian Webster, 2025). Therefore, the remaining 30% of my funds in my portfolio are for individual stocks, as I am young and can recoup any losses they may incur. As my money grows, this will likely draw back to 20% just to be safe, but it still leaves me a bit to have fun with!

Conclusion

So there you have it. If you’re a new investor, hopefully, you have a better idea of how investing works, the kinds of investments you can go with, and who you can invest your money with. I like managing my own money now, but there was a time when I liked having someone else take care of things for me, so I didn’t have to think about it. For example, I opened an RRSP recently purely for tax purposes. Therefore, I have my bank manage the funds since I don’t want to manage yet another portfolio. It’s a fee I’m willing to pay for peace of mind. Again, this isn’t financial advice, it’s just my opinions and some insight on what I like to do for my investing strategies, but I’m hoping it’ll help you to get started if a lack of easy-to-read, basic info is holding you back.

If you have any questions, reach out and I’ll happily help as best I can. For a basic book recommendation on building wealth and how the magic of compounding can work, I’d recommend “The Richest Man in Babylon” by George Samuel Clason. It has some good lessons in the book, it’s a quick read and easy to follow, and it costs about $8-$12 at your local Indigo/bookstore!

Alex.