The Globe and Mail's Smart Money

The Globe and Mail's Smart Money section is dedicated to giving you what you need to manage your personal finances successfully. Smart Money appears every Saturday in The Globe and Mail and on globeinvestor.com.

Valuable lessons from value investing in a tough market

Take what the students learned last year and apply it to your own investments

By JOHN DALY

As with many ordeals in life, surviving a worldwide market tsunami is easier if you're still in your 20s. Sitting in a meeting room in the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management, Edmun Tsang, Douglas Chung, Tisnai Thaitham and Bonnie Chan are all smiles - remarkably happy for a group of second-year MBA students who have lost $170,000 of a $1-million portfolio over eight months in a class stock-picking contest.

Discover the next great, green investment

Canaccord analyst Sara Elford lets us in on some of her methods for picking strong, technology stocks

By DAWN CALLEJA

Sara Elford used to spend two hours a day commuting to and from her office in downtown Vancouver. Then, a few years ago, she and her husband decided to head east - all the way to Halifax. ''It was a life-work balance thing,'' says Ms. Elford, who has won numerous awards as an analyst with Canaccord Adams. Though the move hasn't really helped on the work side - she still crisscrosses the country regularly and clocks long hours at the office - at least she can now ride her bike or walk to work. And for someone who specializes in covering sustainable and clean-tech companies, that's a real bonus.

Stress test your holdings to guard against inflation

With some interest rates on the rise, it's time to probe for weak spots - and the place to start is bonds

By ROB CARRICK

rcarrick@globeandmail.comEven healthy portfolios need a stress test every now and then.This was the case a year ago, when lots of investors were grooving on record-high stock markets and were neglectful of bonds. Now, with some interest rates on the rise, it's once again time to probe for weak spots in your portfolio.

NAV not always an accurate measure of a stock

By FABRICE TAYLOR

Fabrice Taylor is a chartered financial analyst. You wouldn't think twice if someone offered to sell you a thousand dollar bill for 230 bucks. So why would you hesitate to buy shares of, say, Compton Petroleum?

Comfy nest egg needs more feathering

By ANDREW ALLENTUCK

In London, Ont., a successful corporate manager we'll call Vern, 45, grosses $215,000 a year plus bonuses averaging $30,000 a year. His salary supports his wife, whom we'll call Tess, 46, a homemaker, and their 9-year-old child. In spite of their substantial family income, $10,000 a month after taxes and deductions for life insurance premiums and pension contributions, Vern and Tess have only $92,000 in their retirement, education and chequing accounts, and a company pension plan with a value of $66,000. They have lived for the moment in the belief they will die relatively young, as members of their families did.

The best of the money blogs

There's no lack of advice on the Internet. Thousands of blog posts are pounded out daily by an army of bloggers. But, not all of them will help make you money. For that you need to read a financial blog. A good one. To track down the best the Web has to offer, we asked our Globe bloggers, columnists, the Canadian Capitalist and hedge fund manager Howard Lindzon to share their favourites. Our online poll will let you vote for your top picks. And in the comments section, add any name you think we overlooked.

Solid returns in shrinking income trust market

By SHIRLEY WON

swon@globeandmail.comWHAT ARE WE LOOKING FOR?How Canadian income trust funds have fared lately and over the past decade.Ottawa sounded the death knell for trusts on Halloween in 2006 with its plan to tax them like corporations by 2011. More trusts have been converting to common-stock companies as the deadline nears.

Blue-chip preferreds let you sleep at night

By DAVID PARKINSON

WHAT ARE WE LOOKING FOR?In our recurring quest for yield-generating investment ideas, we turn our attention once again to preferred shares - which, for many investors, represent a dark and murky corner of the market, sharing traits with both common shares and corporate bonds while not entirely resembling either. We have once again enlisted our friends at the Preferred Share Desk of Desjardins Securities in Toronto, to help point us to their favourite picks in the preferred share universe, which has been offering both strong yields and rising prices in recent months.

Sizing up risk in Sinopec's play for Addax

By ANDREW WILLIS

It sounds like a mixed message: Long-time shareholders of Addax Petroleum are being told to accept Sinopec's takeover offer and sell their shares, while the hedge-fund crowd is being urged to dive right in to this Nigerian and Iraqi oil play.

Fixed-income gems can still be had if you add a bit of risk

By TOM BRADLEY

tbradley@steadyhand.comTom Bradley is president of Steadyhand Investment Funds Inc.Over the past nine months, I've talked often in this space about risk being cheap. Investors can't let past losses blind them to the opportunities that have emerged from the banking crisis and recession.

• For other past issues, please visit our archive.

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