Ellen's Investment Club

Ellen's Investment Club  (Toronto Central Investment Share Club) Guest Speaker Session May 27, 2025, 7:00 – 9:00 P.M By videoconference 1) Are you investing primarily in individual stocks? Most club members seem to use a strategy of buying and holding shares as long as they continue to see the metrics they’re looking for – rising revenues, higher net profit and earnings per share (EPS), annual dividend growth, reasonable debt levels and enough free cash flow to stay afloat in bad times. But despite the eye-popping numbers that hot companies post quarterly, and despite explosive excitement among  business journalists, we have to remember that great stocks often stumble. Not everything going on behind the scenes is reported in the media. Secrets may be kept for years, such as TD Bank’s hiccups in its major expansion to the United States and not training staff well enough in avoiding money launderers – resulting in a $3 billion (U.S.) fine after pleading guilty to multiple charge...

Ellen's Investment Club  (Toronto Central Investment Share Club) Regular Session April 22, 2025, 7:00 – 9:00 P.M By videoconference 1) We originally scheduled a timely guest speaker to kick off the meeting. Ben Kaplan, a Toronto journalist, is a founder and editor of KIND magazine, which is distributed in Canada’s legal weed shops.  He’s also the author of a new book called Catch A Fire:  The Blaze and Bust of the Canadian Cannabis Industry (published  by Dundurn Press in January 2025). Here are a couple of links with some reviews: https://www.dundurn.com/books_/t22117/a9781459754652-catch-a-fire https://www.amazon.ca/Catch-Fire-Canadian-Cannabis-Industry/dp/1459754654 Please note: You can now buy a KIndle ebook version at $9.99 from Amazon.ca. That’s a great price for a 300-page book with a very detailed history of the past six and a half years since former PM Justin Trudeau’s legalization of marijuana in October 2018.  Acting as a cannabis historian, “Ben Kap...

Ellen's Investment Club  (Toronto Central Investment Share Club) Guest Speaker: Ales Eisner March 18, 2025, 7:00 – 9:00 P.M By videoconference We have a guest speaker, a self-taught investor, to kick off the meeting at 7 pm. Ales Eisner is an early retiree, having left his IT job at age 48. He keeps busy with leisure pursuits and writing about investing at his website, https://canadianmoneytalk.ca , as well as acting as a mentor for people who need money advice. He’s not a certified financial planner, so he charges a reasonable fee of $50 an hour to work with them. My background is in IT. I achieved financial independence in my early 40’s, and stopped working in IT at 46. I have a net worth of over six million Canadian dollars, and live off the proceeds of my portfolio more than comfortably. I would like to help you achieve the same time freedom and financial independence that I have. You can find him doing videos on social media at https://canadianmoneytalk.ca/contact , (YouT...

Guest Speaker Session Insurance for Investors: Growing and Safeguarding Your Wealth January 21, 2025, 7:00 – 9:00 P.M By videoconference In our next  meeting, we will talk about insurance. Please don’t yawn. The insurance  industry  has been dominating the news lately, because  of extreme weather episodes that have destroyed all the homes in residential communities, such as  Pacific Palisades in Los Angeles. In Ontario, insurers are facing challenges from auto thieves who steal cars from homeowners’ garages and driveways. Criminals don’t need keys to break into vehicles. Instead, they buy devices to communicate by electronic signals with the car owner’s wireless key fob. There’s also an increase in violent carjackings, where armed robbers attack drivers and passengers to gain control of the car and drive it away before the police give chase.  Some motorists use tracking devices to follow their cars down to the waterfront where thieves are putting the vehicl...