How to Invest in Canada: Investing in Stocks for Beginners

Are you looking to start investing in Canada? This is the ultimate guide for getting started. This video covers everything you need to know to start investing in Canada for beginners.

My intention with this video was to create the guide that I wish I had when I was first starting out. There are so many pitfalls and false promises when it comes to investing and I want to do my best to help you avoid those by teaching you how to invest in Canada.

There are four main components of the guide that I have created and those are determining your goals, establishing an appropriate level of risk, choosing an investment account, and then finally making investments.

1. Determine Goals

Why are you seeking to invest your money? Answering this question is the essential first step when getting started out. This is because different goals have different lengths of time associate with them as well as other components such as quantity of money required. Determining our goals correctly helps ensure that we are properly planning our investments. Goals can be broadly divided into three different categories based on the length of time associated with them. Short term goals can be classified as 1-5 years, medium term goals as 6-20 years, and long term goals as 20+ years.

2 - Evaluating Risk

Based off of our goal determination we can evaluate what level of risk is appropriate for us to take on to achieve our investment goals. Risk and investment time length have a relationship that is integral to this process. The longer time horizon you have, the more risk you can responsibly take on. Therefore, short term goals should be accomplished using a very low level of risk - ideally by using a high interest savings account. Medium and long term goals can be accomplished by using a moderate to high level of risk by investing in a diversified mix of stocks and bonds.

3 - Opening an Investment Account

There are two main accounts to consider when beginning your investment career. Those are the TFSA and the RRSP. Each account provides specific benefits that enable you to retain more of the money that you invest. Determining which account is most appropriate for you right now is based off of various factors like income level and the length of time your investment goal has. Because this discussion deserves its own video, I will be making beginner's guides to the TFSA, RRSP, and a video on how to determine which is most appropriate for you at this time.

4 - Making Investments

After we have determined our goals, evaluated an acceptable level of risk, and opened an investment account it is now time to make an investment. The most sensible investment for the vast majority of individuals is an index fund. An index fund is essentially a basket of stocks that represent a portion of the overall stock market - and you can purchase the index fund itself to effectively own all of these stocks. Investing in index funds is supported by mountains of academic research and expert consensus. In the video I recommend three funds to get started with.

Helpful links:

Average Retirement Spending:

https://retirehappy.ca/how-much-money...

Index Fund Data:

https://us.spindices.com/spiva/#/
https://www.morningstar.com/lp/active...

Vanguard Index Funds:

https://www.vanguardcanada.ca/individ...

Risk Assessment Questionnaire:

https://www.vanguardcanada.ca/individ...

Compound Interest Calculator:

https://www.getsmarteraboutmoney.ca/c...