Do you guys have any investments outside of the farm?

[SASKFARMER3]

Property, I won't buy any in Mexico on this trip,
but interesting info. Real estate always does well
if purchased right.

[cottonpicken]

Good think,my understanding is you can't own
property in mexico,just lease it,like an indian
reserve,except in a third world country.

[LEP]

I have an account with Questrade and I would
warn anyone away from them. I absolutely hate
their customer service. I have some Canadian
controlled private corporation stocks in an rrsp or I
would be gone yesterday.

If you look around several banks have discount
brokerage houses that are very competitive.

[stonepicker]

Daylate, i'm with qtrade also, its pretty good, all the
major banks have good online trading accounts also .
i'm in the process of setting one up with CIBC. With
qtrade if you want to buy otc stocks ( over the counter
u.s. penny stocks ) you have to phone the order in,
also some extra fees for trades, it adds up over time. (
qtrade is BC based, different rules in that province )
We're the only modern country in the world that
doesn't have a single national regulatory commission.

[stonepicker]

Cottonpicken, you don't think cramer offers good
investment and strategic advice? I like listening to
him,it's too bad he only talks about US stocks. Always
interested in hearing another opinion though.

[malta]

Have usually had some Canadian stock. Over the years have done the best on solid Can. companies like TD Bank, RBC, Encana, Atco, Potash Corp and almost sadly Bombardier(If govt, cuts off the money that one will tank). On average these companies have returned about triple bank rates.

[rhoff]

Farmgal I invest in the stock market so I don't
have to rely totally on the farm. I also do it
because I enjoy it and I spend a lot of my free
time looking at companies,financials,conference
calls and other analysts. If you aren't as
interested in stocks as iam then you should just
invest in index funds.
Index funds will basically give you the average
return of the index ie(sp 500,dow30,tsx,etc).
However you won't have a management fee so
you will beat 98% of mutual funds on a given
year.

[SASKFARMER3]

Cotton your right it's allot like a reserve and one
day the drug lord wants your home your done!

[Hopperbin]

I have use RBC they helped my dad years back get started and then helped all us kids. We have only ever used RBC and am happy with them. Our trades are 9.95 per trade and have always worked perfectly, so have no reason to look elsewhere. You can also log onto their website and create what is called a practice account with 100 grand of pretend money. Works as if it is real money. My practice account is kicking ass. :-)

[Hopperbin]

I guess you can make them practice accounts on any trading platform so try it and see how it works. I feel its adicting then again if all them guys that spend money on bingo and the slot machines and cigarretes would be investors our country would also be much better off.

[SASKFARMER3]

Cotton your right it's allot like a reserve and one
day the drug lord wants your home your done!

[wd9]

Farmland in AB has gone up 7% every year on average since 1964. Keep farming in AB but buying land in sask. Condos are great too, simple with some good renters.

[RidgeRunner]

Cool topic. Love off farm investing as I really
believe in not putting all your eggs in one basket.
Have a stock trading account, as others like
Canadian nat resource companies and related
businesses. Had a commodity trading account but
with my luck it was MF global. Would like to get
back into that as it was a great way to hedge your
pricing risk and take double advantage of rallies
or falls in the market. If anyone has a
recommendation of a replacment for MF left me
know. Cotten, your comment on shorting
VAncover ...reminds me of that fellow from Texas
that made a couple bucks on over-inflated
markets.

[cottonpicken]

That is also something,i think it was Furrow,brought
up a while back that reivesting in yourself and farm is
a very good investment,which i agree with.

Especially since times are so good now.

Food for thought,in your lifetime you would have only
had to made 4 trades over the 4 asset classes in your
life to have been horribly successful.

commodities in the 70's
bonds in the early 80's
stock market 90's
relestate market late 90's early 00's

We are now back to commodities,and should be
cycling back to bonds but current forces,which is a
whole other story,are at work.

Personally i'm in ultra risky weird stuff which most
haven't heard of so i don't bother bringing it up
much,but my problem is that it is an addiction that
eats up considerable amounts of time.

[LEP]

Cotton you are absolutely right on about the
cycles of various sectors over the years.

But it isn't as simple as investing in a sector and
being successful. Hindsight is 20 - 20.

You talk about the bond market and the forces at
work right . It has always been tough to know
exactly where an investment should be made.

If it was easy everyone would be rich.