Investing in Canada is a resource site where you can find information to get you started investing on your own and to point you in the right direction to where and how to continue your own research.
Understand that all investments carry an element of risk and only you can gauge your own risk tolerance and how much you are willing to risk.
Here we can show you ways we found to invest as little or as much time and money, so that you can decide how it can fit into your life and risk tolerances.
We are not a financial advisors and none of the information on this site is financial advice. Everything you will find on this site is for educational and entertainment purposes only.
You will find resources to get you started in both traditional (stock) markets and crypto markets.
This site is constantly evolving and updating, check back often for more and in-depth content and fill out a form with what you want to see on this site.
Stock - A stock is a security that represents ownership of a fraction of a company or corporation.
Shares - A unit of stocks.
ETF - A grouping of securities that is represented and traded by a single ticker or symbol.
Buy/Selling Stocks vs ETFs - Buy and Selling an individual stock exposes you to the ups and downs of that one company/corporation. If that company does well you will experience the entire upside. But inversely if the company experiences any type a drawback, your investment will drop right along with the price of the stock. ETFs on the other hand, have diversity built right into them as they tend to carry a collection of securities, from different corporations or even different industries, this allows the upsides and downsides to be less volatile. Understanding less volatility means smaller short term downsides, but also smaller short term upsides.
Getting started
Do you want to invest with as little effort on your part or do you want to be in control of which stocks/ETFs and when to trade?
Wealthsimple offers 2 great products that fits either one of these preferences.
Wealthsimple's original product allows your investments to be put on Auto-Pilot. It is a Robo-Advisor that puts your money in several ETFs across several markets, industries and risk levels for complete diversification and will adjust the allocation according to your specific risk tolerance. The app makes regular contribution easy with several tools like auto-deposit where you set an amount to be withdrawn from your bank account at any interval of your choosing, or with a round up feature where it will actually round up your purchases of your linked debit or credit card and automatically deposit into your investment account. You can also open a new or transfer your existing TFSA or RRSP to give your long term savings plans a boost. Keep in mind you cannot select your stocks/ETFs and there is a management fee - but this fee is a fraction of what other institutions charge.
Wealthsimple Trade on the other hand, is where you can pick and choose specific stocks and ETF to buy all commission free. It's mobile interface is user friendly and comes with very basic charting tools. Wealthsimple Trade gives you access to trade 1000s of Canadian and US stocks and ETFs. TFSA and RRSP accounts are also available for holding your Stocks and ETFs. USD exchange rates to buy and sell US Stocks on Wealthsimple Trade is quite unfavourable and definitely a deterrent for trading US Stocks on the platform.
Find both of these options and receive bonuses for signing up with the links here.
**Note : WealthSimple Trade also offer Bitcoin, Ethereum and several other cryptocurrencies but this product is not real Cryptocurrency. This product is a representation or an "IOU" of the cryptocurrency's value as you are not able to move or transfer these assets, as it is locked into WealthSimple. If you are interested in Cryptocurrency check out the crypto market section below.
To continue your investing journey, understand why you should be investing and learn different investment strategies .
Cryptocurrency - Coins (or Tokens) used to represent a fraction of the total market cap of a Network or Project.
Stable Coins - Cryptocurrencies (or Digital Assets) that stay pegged to a Fiat currency.
Blockchain - Network of a digital ledger that stores the transactions of a cryptocurrency.
Exchange - Place (website or app) that you can buy, sell, and trade cryptocurrencies, stable coins and/or fiat. Note that the supported assets available to exchange can differ between exchanges.
On ramp - the term used to describe the converting of regular Fiat money/ currency to cryptocurrency.
Off ramp - Term used to describe the converting of Cryptocurrency to Fiat money.
Spread - The difference between the actual price of the asset and the buy or sell price you will be transacting at. i.e. The buy price will be slightly higher than the actual price when you purchase and your sell price will be slightly lower than the actual when you sell.
Stake - To park or lock up your crypto for a set period of time in order to gain rewards through supporting the blockchain network.
Getting started
How do I start?
On-Ramping
To convert your Canadian (Fiat) dollars to a cryptocurrency you need to transfer your money to an exchange. Both Shakepay and Newton are products offering this service and are very user friendly with e-transfer options to transfer your money to these exchanges. Go with Shakepay if you like the idea of converting your Fiat money quickly and will only be dabbling in the 2 most "secure" crypto's in the market (namely Bitcoin and Ethereum). Reasons for choosing Newton over Shakepay would be to save on the cost of exchanging, and/or you want to start with more options of other crypto currencies including stable coins. But Newton's mobile app is not as user friendly as their desktop web experience. So we found it best to use Newton via their desktop web app. Both advertise "No-Fees" and that is in a sense true as some exchanges will charge a set % fee for buy, sell or transfer transactions. Although neither of these 2 platforms charge a transaction fee, they do add a spread, and we have found the Newton spread to be smaller than the Shakepay spread.
Make your digital assets work for you and take full advantage of what crypto has to offer.
Using your crypto
If you are looking to use/spend your crypto the best place to do that is with crypto.com. They offer up to 8% Cash Back VISA debit cards that you can load and spend with both fiat and crypto. To get the cards you will need to stake your crypto for 6 months and depending on how much you stake will unlock you cash back reward tiers.
Find all of these tools to get you started and receive bonuses for signing up with the links here.
To continue your crypto journey, understand why crypto is a great investment, learn different investment strategies and keep up-to-date with the market(s).
If there is further information you were not able to find, be sure to look in our Crypto FAQ or send us a message.