This video begins by explaining the basic point of investing, which is to make your money make more money. The basic idea behind investing is to buy something now, that will make you money over time. There are many ways to do this, but the broad categories are stocks, bonds, mutual funds, and collectibles, with stocks being the main method. Buying stocks is buying a portion of the company, so as the company grows, so will your investment. Buying stock of a company isn't something you can do through the company itself, but rather you need a middleman known as a broker. Once the stock is purchased it can make you money in two ways: through rising stock prices allowing you to sell the stock for more than you bought it for, and through dividends, which are a small payout to shareholders when the company does well. Stock investing isn't easy for the average person as they will not have the expertise to make stock choices, so the best way is to invest in index funds. Index funds are a collection of various stocks that each have a weight in the index fund, and all contribute to the funds stock price. The most common is the S&P 500, which is a collection of the top 500 US countries. When you buy stock in S&P 500, you are buying a small portion of all 500 companies allowing you to basically hedge your bet. These funds are diverse, and do not require special market insight. The longer you hold your stock the more it rises, even when there is a stock crash it is best practice to hold your shares for the rebound. To start investing, you don't need much money as some brokers and apps require as little as $5 to begin investing. Finally, the video describes one final way to allow your money to make you money: invest in yourself. There are many ways to do this, such as taking a weekend course that will increase your pay. Getting an additional certification that costs you $100, but will increase your weekly pay by $10, will allow you to make back the money spent on the course plus much more. Another way to invest in yourself is to start a business. Although it may not be easy, you could beat the stock market in overall profits.

Overall, this video is a great introduction to investing, and provides a good base to build off as you progress through my Padlet. it provides a great starting point and introduces some basic investing terminology. I chose this video as it is the very basics, and provides insight from an experienced investor. They are great tips to begin with, and allow you to grasp the basics before moving on to more complicated topics. There is much more to learn, but this video is a great starting point.

In this video, Mark Tilbury discusses his strategies to pick individual stocks. His strategy is to focus on the companies fundamentals, such as the brand, leadership, and innovations. Just like the last video, he explains that index funds are the best and safest way to invest, as you can make profit even if one company goes bankrupt. He states research is the key in picking individual stocks, and you should look at information such as: the balance sheet, the income statement, and the statement of cash flow. He explains the qualities of the company which include: Company Recognition, Rumors, the Leadership, Emerging Industries, and Shifts in Sectors. He also explains one strategy to predict if a stock will go up, which is called "Dollar Cost Averaging".

I chose this video as it covers many specific and proven strategies when investing in stocks specifically. Although there is no guarantee it will work, his strategies have made him a successful investor, and that experience is certainly not something to be overlooked. Again for new investor, this advice can help determine your overall success in the long run.

Rob Berger made a video regarding the basics of bond investing. He begins by explaining the basics of investing in bonds; loaning your money to a government or corporation with the promise to pay you back with interest. He explains reselling your bond before its maturity, and how you may not be able to sell it for the same price you bought it at based on a number of different factors. The risk changes based on who the company is with, for example though the government bonds which have almost no risk. If interest rates increase, the value of your bond upon reselling will decrease. There is a lot of math and consideration when deciding to hold your bond until maturity, or reselling your bond early, which this video describes in detail. The next topic he covers is municipal bonds, which do not have federal income tax, and are used to fund local projects such as construction. He also discusses the many different types of bonds, and explains the differences in detail. Finally he covers some tips to buying bonds, which include interest rates effecting your bond, determining the yield, and resources to determine the best bond for you.

Overall, this video is a great resource to understand bonds. It is the perfect introduction to bonds and has a vast amount of information regarding them, resources to help you decide and manage bonds, and tips to succeed in bond investing. This is what made it a good choice for this Padlet.

We begin by describing what a mutal fund, which is when you pool your money into a fund managed by a professional which contains a variety of stocks. It is diversified portfolio managed by someone else, with low risk of losing your money if a company goes bankrupt. They are best suited for anybody, as they are cheap and diversified. These can be stock mutual funds, or bond mutual funds. There are hundreds of different funds, so it can be hard to choose one, so to choose one suited to you, you need to choose if you want stocks, bonds, or something in between. It really depends on personal preference and strategy. Fees are another thing to consider, as that will determine how much you actually make. Company size also matters. Mutual funds can require a minimum investment depending on the exact fund, some have no minimum, while others may have a minimum of over $10,000. Fees involved with mutual funds can include brokerage fees, whereas some funds require a commission to buy into or leave the fund, and some have no fees. Finally, mutual funds are streamlined, easy, and reliable investments.

I chose this video to explain mutual funds for beginners. There is a lot of information to take in, and it can be confusing for first timers; this video helps clear the water. Again, with the advice from an experienced investor, investing can be made easy, and can be explained in simple terms that anyone can understand, as demonstrated in this video.

There are a number of different choices available which makes the decision daunting to choose one. This website outlines a few options as well as the pros and cons of each to help make the decision easier for those starting their investing journey.

Questrade: good customer service, transparency on fees, ease of use of both app and website, but high fees, with commission upon selling stock, lacks market notifications

TD Direct Investing: self-directed brokerage, cater to investors of any level, good market data, but lack of educational content, high fees, poor customer service.

Qtrade direct investing: Very good customer service, market information is detailed, and has young investor pricing, but fees are fairly high, slow to update the platform, and limited user resources.

I chose this website to demonstrate some option when choosing a brokerage. This is a good site as it includes the pros and cons of each platform in an unbiased manner. It is a good resource to check out when initially choosing a platform to invest on, and it is a good read with lots of details on each platform.

Wealthsimple is another online trading platform that has been gaining popularity over the past few years. The main driving factor for this is the low fees. Wealthsimple has created some of the lowest investing fees on the market, which has made it have a high draw to new investors. The first choice when investing with them is what they call "Wealthsimple Invest". How this works is you answer questions about your goals and your risk tolerance, and they build a portfolio for you. The fees are quite low, at 0.5% for accounts with less than $100,000, and 0.4% for account above that, plus your money is insured by the Canadian Investor Protection Fund (CIPF). The next is a commision free trading platform called "Wealthsimple Trade". It isn't all good though, as they charge currency conversion fees. Finally, Wealthsimple has a section know as "Wealthsimple Crypto" for those who want to invest in cryptocurrency.

Overall I chose this website as I wanted to learn more about the Wealthsimple platform as I have heard a lot about it through various different sources. Upon further research, when looking at the total fees it is not much better than any other platform, and has its pros and cons just like any other platform. Also, this website is biased as it comes directly from the company.

A stock is part ownership in the company that you buy stock of. As the business succeeds, the stock price will go up, and if the company does not the stock price will decrease. Once you buy a share, the idea is that you will hold it until the stock price goes up, and sell it at a profit. Stocks have more risk as it is not guaranteed that the stock will increase.

A bond is basically a loan you are giving to a corporation or government. You give them money in exchange for a bond that will pay a percentage at a set interval, then once the bond has "matured", or reached its set deadline, you will receive all of your initial investment back. It is a fixed income investment that is very safe, unless the company goes bankrupt.

A mutual fund is a pooled investment vehicle, which means it is a collection of individual stocks that make up a percentage of the fund. The advantages are it is a method to achieve instant diversification, and the mutual fund is managed by a financial corporation, rather than being self managed like stocks are. The major downside is there will be fees attached to mutual funds so the corporation who create the fund can maintain the services they provide.

This is a great resource for beginners to get unbiased information on the different types of investing. It provides good detail about the three major types of investing to help develop a new investors understanding.

We know the basics of bonds from video 3, so I will skip ahead and cover the different types of bonds.

1. Corporate Bonds: A bond issued by a corporation which they use for operation or expansion of their facilities. When you buy a corporate bond, you will receive fixed interest payments plus your initial money back once the bond matures.

2. Treasury Bonds: These are long term bonds ranging from 10-30 years before they reach maturity. They offer lower yields than other bonds, but they are backed by the treasury you are investing in which makes them highly safe investments. The only downside is that as interest rates rise your bond may lose value due to them being such low yielding bonds, but they are considered extremely safe.

3. International Government Bonds: Bonds issued by foreign governments. These bonds some with higher yields, but they are riskier based on the political security of the government and exchange rates.

4. Municipal Bonds: These bonds are issued by cities or provinces/states. The main advantage of these bonds are that they are exempt from federal taxation.

5. Agency Bond: These are issued by government sponsored agencies. They are relatively safe investments as they are backed by the government (but not directly associated with). They typically have higher yield rates, but they may be paid out before maturity, meaning if it is a 5 year bond, they may pay you back and terminate the bond after only 3 years, making it less profitable for you.

6. Green Bonds: Used to fund projects such as renewable energy or pollution reduction. They are a responsible investment, so long as the funds are actually being used for environmentally friendly projects.

7. Bond ETF's: These are essentially Mutual Funds for Bonds. You invest in a variety of bond, and they allow you to only invest in a portion of the ETF rather than buying a whole bond. They are slightly riskier, as they are susceptible to credit and interest rate risk.

   I chose this site as after the video 3 I was still confused about the different types of bonds and how they are different. This website made it much easier to understand the differences when it comes to investing in bonds.

In the image above we see a great comparison between costs involved with a number of different brokers.

When looking at the overall picture, it looks like InteractiveBrokers have the least amount of charges when investing with them. They have no flat stock cost, no options base fee, and no option/exercise assignment fee. But when looking at the overall costs, they are higher than some of the other options, so although you may not have to pay for the previously mentioned areas, the overall cost is quite high.

If we look at overall costs, ETrade and TraderZone have the best rates.

This is interesting to see, as some companies may boast about having "free" trading costs, but they may have higher fees in other areas making it less valuable in the long run.

I included this picture as it really shows the truth behind companies that may say they have the lowest fees, but when looking at the overall costs it may not be as good as it seems. As a new investor, this information is very important as it teaches me that I must look at ALL the costs associated with one broker before making a choice.

In this image we can see the top performing mutual funds (as of 2018).

It seems regardless of what you look at there was a dip in 2013, but the rebound off the dip was significant. Some of these funds have increase in value by over 10 times from their 2013 value, which shows how effective mutual fund investments can be.

I chose this image as it is a fantastic chart that show some of the most profitable mutual funds, and how they rebounded significantly. I think for a new investor it shows not only the power of mutual funds, but the power of buying low and selling high. If someone had purchased a large quantity of any of these mutual funds at their low, they would have significantly profited from their investment.

I cannot over state how much I learned. The research I did on this topic allowed me to explore many different resources, and allowed me to get information on both a basic and in-depth level. I feel very confident in my ability to begin my investing journey. In terms of surprising, I think the vast amount of different choices really surprised me. Every step of the process there are a number of decisions you have to make, such as broker, investment type, how you plan to diversify, and so much more. Each and all of these decisions will impact your portfolio.

2. Provide a real-life example of how this topic is relevant or interesting for you.

This is extremely relevant to me. I will be finishing school in April and will be beginning work soon after. I want to start investing as soon as I am done school, so I can start building wealth as soon I begin my career. I will use what I learned as well as what I learn along the way to financial success.

3. If you could pass on your knowledge to a family member or friend, what do you think is the most important thing to pass on?

I will share a large majority of what I learn with both family and friends. I believe understanding the basics is the secret to being successful with investing. There is more to it, but without that fundamental knowledge it is very easy to get lost. With that being said, I will pass on the very basics of investing and will share knowledge on the different types of investments, and terminology.