iphone stock adding commodities

Essentially, to add Gold, Silver, or foreign currency to the Stock app on the iPhone you need to put it in the right format.

For example:
To add a new item for Gold in USD, add the following as the stock symbol...
XAUUSD=X

XAU is the symbol for Gold, USD is the symbol for USD.

Others I use are:

Silver - XAGUSD=X
Canadian in USD - CANUSD=X
Euro in USD - EURUSD=X

Also, they can be used in reverse to see the value the other way.

USD in Canadian - USDCAN=x
USD in Euro - USDEUR=x

Hope this helps.

-D

Message was edited by: dvandetta

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If you are looking for a ticker symbol representing light sweet crude oil futures, the most frequently quoted per barrel price of oil, use CLJ08.NYM which represents the current contract on the New York Mercantile Exchange for delivery of light sweet crude in April of this year.

You knew this would not be simple, right? CL represents the commodity, 08 the current year, and the J embedded in it represents April. If you want other delivery months, you should instead use the form CLx08.NYM where the x character is replaced by the following representation for a given month:

F - January
G - February
H - March
J - April
K -May
M - June
N - July
Q - August
U - September
V - October
X - November
Z - December

ING DIRECT - THRiVE Chequing - NOW AVAILABLE FOR EVERYONE - January 14th, 2011

Dear <>,

We've got some great news. THRiVE ChequingTM will be available to everyone on January 14th. Now, here's some even better news: you can open a THRiVE Chequing Account before it becomes available to the public.

You told us that you wanted to preview THRiVE Chequing, and we appreciate your patience while we got the Account ready for you. As a thank you, we wanted you to have advance notice of the launch, with an early opportunity to get on board.

On January 12th, simply log in at ingdirect.ca and go to "Open an account". Click on the new chequing option and follow the prompts to open your new THRiVE Chequing Account!

Get ready to start thriving!

http://www.ingdirect.ca/en/chequing/thrive-chequing-preview/

ING STREETWISE RSP 1% bonus

Invest in The Streetwise Funds^® before March 1st, 2011 and get bonus units equal to 1% of the value of your contributions.

That's an extra $10 for every thousand dollars you invest, up to $100*. Take the straightforward route for your long term investing. The Streetwise Funds are Balanced Index Mutual Funds with a powerful investment strategy that makes them ideal for long-term investing.

I've done my research on streetwise funds with 1% MER and they do track their respective index very well.  Combined with a bonus 1% this makes this limited time deal very good.

Currently they offer 3 Mutual index funds.

Streetwise Fund Performance

Fund Performance as of November 30, 2010	Assets (millions)	1 month	3 month	YTD	1 year	Since Inception*
Balanced Income Fund	$58.70	-1.04%	1.52%	4.54%	3.75%	2.57%
Balanced Fund	$144.26	-0.86%	3.64%	4.05%	4.02%	-0.38%
Balanced Growth Fund	$155.69	-0.83%	4.76%	3.85%	4.31%	-1.68%

* Inception as of January 2, 2008.

So the allowable rent increase in Ontario for 2011 is...0.7%

Take a careful look potential landlords!

The lowest allowable increase in 35 years.


In British Columbia for 2011 it's 2.3%

In Manitoba for 2011 (no new HST) it's 1.5%

In Ontario it's .07%

Good thing prices aren't going up in Ontario, especially electricity and hydro. And it's nice that there hasn't been any new taxes. Oh wait...

Good article in the Toronto Sun: http://www.torontosun.com/news/canad.../16734661.html

The recession has been very hard on many tenants, and unemployment in Toronto continues to hover at about 10%, he said.
”It’s not renting out a movie at Blockbusters — it’s people’s housing,” Dent said. “Any increase right now during this difficult time is hard for any tenant.”
Also, Ontario does not have “real” rent control because the landlord is only obliged to follow the guideline for an existing tenant, he said.
“If you move into a unit, though, a landlord can charge you whatever he wants,” Dent said. “The last tenant could have been paying $500 a month and they can charge you $2,000.”

TD introduced Drivers Rewards Visa Card - no annual fee, 1%+ return

Was just browsing around TD's website and found that they launched a new Visa card to replace the old GM card.


Official link: http://www.tdcanadatrust.com/tdvisa/drivers_rewards.jsp


Annual fee: 0


Earn:

- 1 TD Drivers Rewards Point on every $1 in purchases made to the Card
- 2 TD Drivers Rewards Points for every $1 spent on gas, on the first $700 per statement period
- 1.25 TD Drivers Rewards Points on every $1 spent on automotive parts or services


Redeem:

redeem in increments of 2,500 points ($25 value)

- redeem toward the purchase or lease of any new or used vehicle
- redeem for automotive parts or service purchases made with your Card, such as windshield wipers, tires, spark plugs, car mats, GPS system, car radio, seat covers and more - they are identified by the MCC code of the merchant.


That's the first time the big 5 bank offers something free with 1%+ return, which in my mind is pretty decent, especially considering that some of the Canadian Tire stores carry grocery now. Buy food there and they are still considered "automotive parts or services". Pay for them with points. Easy as that.

The Commander couch potato

The Commander Couch Potato

I would like to introduce the Commander couch potato strategy.  This strategy is for investors who seek to command their own investments while not having to think about them a whole lot.  It has all the benefits of the standard couch potato but takes charge where it counts to achieve lower risk and higher returns.  It does this by using the power of long term investing, where returns are compounded year after year and much more.  It offers a very low expense ratio so your returns grow faster!

This strategy is aimed at investors who have a long term horizon as well as a high risk tolerance.  This portfolio which I shall introduce is composed of 30% Bonds and 70% Equities.  It is also comprised 50% US ETFs and 50% Canadian ETFs.  This results in a lower expense ratio and a perfect balance between the US dollar and Canadian dollar.  What many investors may not know is that 70% equities or more is considered aggressive.  So it is highly recommended to have a timeframe of over 5+ years when considering a portfolio which such asset allocations.  The equity is further split into areas.  There is a Canadian equity portion, an equal American equity portion and a significant fixed income portion.  That is the standard couch potato and what follows is the addition of European and Pacific equity, emerging markets equity, real estate investment trusts and gold as well as a fixed system for bonds.  With this system you maintain 10% corporate bonds, 10% government bonds and 10% inflation protected bonds.

Asset Allocations

Canadian equity 15% iShares &P/TSX Capped Composite (XIC)

US equity 15% Vanguard Total Stock Market (VTI)

European/Pacific equity 20% Vanguard Europe Pacific (VEA)

Emerging markets equity 10% Vanguard Emerging Markets (VWO)

Inflation protected bonds 10% iShares DEX Real-Return Bond (XRB)

Corporate bonds 10% iShares DEX All Corporate Bond (XCB)

Government bonds 10% iShares DEX All Government Bond (XGB)

Real estate investment trusts 5%  iShares S&P TSX Capped REIT Index Fund (XRE)

Gold 5% iShares Gold Trust (IAU)

The advantages of this portfolio over the standard couch potato are increased diversity and complexity while maintaining a low 0.31% MER (Management Expense Ratio).

For the past 3 Years, this portfolio if rebalanced correctly would have had a better annual return in 2008, 2009 and 2010 compared to the SP 500 and S&P TSX composite.  You may be asking yourself what I mean by rebalancing.  And I’ll explain.  Rebalancing is done once or twice a year.  The strategy is to sell funds that have been doing really well and buying the funds that have not been doing well.  It really forces you to buy low and sell high.  With a more complex couch potato the results are more magnificent.  So once or twice a year you buy and sell your funds in order to modify your asset allocations back to what they were originally.

As with any investment there are risks and when investing in equities return is never guaranteed.  Past performance is not an indication of future performance however the couch potato strategy has a very good record of consistently beating the index.

As some keen investors can tell having the gold portion really boosted returns over the past few years.  But I’ll tell you now that’s only the tip of the barrel.  I personally think this is a really good strategy however it doesn’t make sense to some people.  If you don’t have a lot of money to start investing then the commissions will cut away at your returns so mutual funds would be preferable.  However that’s the whole point of the Commander.  It offers more diversity than mutual funds because ETFs have grown massively over the decade.

I’m not an expert at currency hedging but some may be considering adding a little currency hedge to this strategy and there’s nothing wrong to that.  However in my experience having that hedge seems to only increase fees.

As a final note, if you started this early 2010 and did not rebalance the return of this portfolio was over 16% whereas the SP/TSX returned 14% and the SP 500 returned 11%.  I think most investors would be happy with the results and I’m glad to share the Commander Couch Potato strategy to any investor.  Set up the right allocations and rebalancing once or twice a year, that’s all the work you need to do, so what are you waiting for?