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How to pick top stocks
So, you're ready to buy some stocks, are you? As an investor, it's easy to fall into the trap of believing that there are tricks to picking the best stocks. The fact is that the market changes every minute and can be nearly impossible to predict. While not a get-rich-quick scheme, it can be more rewarding to focus on due diligence and research. Plus, the best stocks for you depend on your investor profile and risk appetite. Read on to see how you can find the most popular Canadian stocks to invest in right now.
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The importance of curating your sources
If you're just starting out, you may find that researching stocks can be quite overwhelming, with an abundance of complex information available. There are, however, several straightforward tools that you can use for informed decision making. Picking the right sources of information is important, here are two sources to help you get started.
Direct Investing Index
Do you ever wonder how other self-directed investors are feeling about the market? At TD, there's a tool for that. The TD Direct Investing Index can help reveal the overall attitude of investors. It provides data and insights relating to historical self-directed investor activity, can help you reliably gauge market sentiment and see whether investors are optimistic or pessimistic regarding market conditions. The index measures the behaviour and attitude of self-directed investors over a month, it then presents this information in a way that's easy to read and understand.
Monthly sentiment is measured by examining four distinct investor behaviors:
- Did investors buy or sell more?
- Did they buy more as the market went up?
- Did they buy more at the top of the market or during a dip?
- Did they pivot towards less risky investments?
These results are then compiled and averaged in order to quantify investor sentiment. It can range from very bullish to very bearish or somewhere in between.
Top traded stocks right now as per the TD Direct Investing Index
The TD Direct Investing Index displays leading stocks across different sectors. Here are top stocks bought and sold in September 2022.
|
Security Bought |
Trend (since previous month) |
Security Sold |
Trend (since previous month) |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
1 |
SHOP SHOPIFY INC CL-A SVS |
No change from #1 |
SHOP SHOPIFY INC CL-A SVS |
No change from #1 |
|
2 |
BNS BANK OF NOVA SCOTIA |
Up from #5 |
TSLA TESLA INC |
No change from #2 |
|
3 |
TSLA TESLA INC |
Down from #2 |
TD TORONTO DOMINION BANK |
Up from #6 |
|
4 |
AAPL APPLE INC |
Up from #14 |
SU SUNCOR ENERGY INC NEW |
No change from #4 |
|
5 |
ENB ENBRIDGE INC |
Up from #9 |
AAPL APPLE INC |
No change from #5 |
|
6 |
TD TORONTO DOMINION BANK |
Down from #4 |
AC AIR CANADA VTG & VAR VTG |
Up from #7 |
|
7 |
SU SUNCOR ENERGY INC NEW |
Down from #6 |
NVDA NVIDIA CORP |
Up from #9 |
|
8 |
AC AIR CANADA VTG & VAR VTG |
Up from #11 |
BNS BANK OF NOVA SCOTIA |
Up from #22 |
|
9 |
CM CDN IMPERIAL BK COMMERCE |
Up from #10 |
ENB ENBRIDGE INC |
Up from #17 |
|
10 |
NVDA NVIDIA CORP |
Up from #13 |
AMZN AMAZON COM INC |
No change from #10 |
The TD Direct Investing Index is updated mid-month with information from the previous month. It also includes several interactive filters that can help you refine the results according to criteria that is important to you.
For each month you will see:
- The monthly sentiment score
- An editorial video that highlights various aspects of the score
- A one-page summary discussing information from the previous month
- Filters which enable site visitors to look at activity (the most popular securities bought, sold, and held) by investor age, province (region), trading segment, and trading style.
The TD Direct Investing Index is free to use and easily accessible. You can access it here.
Stock Screeners
Stock screeners are customizable tools that help traders and investors sort through a large number of individual securities to identify potential investments. With the Screeners tool in WebBroker, you can filter Canadian and U.S. stocks based on technical and fundamental indicators. It's a simple way to identify the top performing stocks based on popular investing themes and categories.
You can also build custom screens or choose from a selection of featured screens designed by industry experts. Once you've selected your criteria, the Screeners tool will instantly show you a list of securities. You then simply pick stocks that align with your values or objectives.
Here's how you can access the Screeners tool
- Log in to WebBroker and click on the Research tab. Select Screeners under Tools
- Select a screener from Featured Screens or select Build your own strategy
- Select the Criteria to begin screening and see the results under Result Summary
On a final note
Whether you have short-term goals or long-term ones, you can increase your chances of success by grounding investment decisions in research – and to do so, it can be helpful to lean on tools and resources to help you understand what matters – and what doesn't. Through research, you can begin to understand different indicators and explore fundamental and technical analysis. If you're ready to get started, you can open a TD Direct Investing account, here.
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