Tom Hamza is the mentor for the beginner investor contest winner. He is the president of the Investor Education Fund, which helps people make effective use of financial information. The fund was established by the Ontario Securities Commission, the province's securities regulator, and is funded by OSC enforcement settlements.
Mr. Hamza has an MBA from the Richard Ivey School of Business and 12 years of experience in financial services strategy consulting and operations. At Deloitte Consulting and A.T. Kearney Consulting, he developed deep experience advising some of the largest financial services companies in Canada and abroad. His experience with retail investors is extensive; he helped develop KidsFutures (now called Futura) from a concept to a loyalty business with over 300,000 members.
Find out more about our month-long investment mentoring program here:
Here are the online discussions that Mr. Hamza has had with the beginner investor, Lorna:
Here is Mr. Hamza's mentoring program for Lorna:
Week one - Planning
Investing requires consistent behaviour that should be driven by your goals, attitudes and personal situation. You need to clarify what you want your money to do in order to know how much you need to save and how long you have to do this. Primary issues to understand include:
- What is this money ultimately for
- How much do I need
- How long do I have to save
- What tolerance for risk do I have
These are the building blocks of your investing strategy and philosophy. You need to know these answer before you being planning.
Materials
- Financial Priorities Over Your Lifetime
- How Do I Balance Retirement Saving With Other Goals
- Impact of Time on Your Investments
- Quick Risk Tolerance Quiz
Week two - Working with an adviser
Investing can be a time-consuming task that most novices are unable to devote the necessary time to. Working with an adviser is the sensible starting point for most novices because the adviser generally has more experience and resources that you can learn from. They can also help shield you from your mistakes. Despite this, you must take ownership and responsibility to make sure that your money is managed well. You need to be aware of the challenges that your broker faces, and how this can affect their decisions-making. You also need to hold the adviser accountable for how your funds have performed against reasonable benchmarks.
- Choosing an adviser
- Diversification
- Benchmarking - and asking your adviser to measure themselves against the market
- Fees
Materials
- Questions to Ask Before Choosing An Adviser
- Working with Advisers
- How Your Advisor is Paid
- Assessing Your Current Adviser
Week three - Discipline required to accumulate assets and invest them
There are well documented behavioural and attitudinal pitfalls that people fall into. One of the most important lessons is to invest consistently and pay yourself first; the second is to develop a strategy and stick to it. Key topics include:
- Pay yourself first and with every paycheque
- Investing strategies for the layperson
- Emotions and investing
Materials
- Pay Yourself First: Steps to Making It Easy To Save Money
- Prioritizing: How Do I Start Saving For Retirement
- Emotions and Investing: Deaves: How Investment Decisions Are Made (pages 252-263)
- Emotions and Investing: Top Investing Mistakes To Avoid
- Investing Advice for the Layperson: Six Lessons For Investors