Beginner's Guide | MarketEdge Hub

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Where to start if you're brand new

Start Here

If you've never invested before, the idea of buying stocks or ETFs can feel overwhelming. Don't worry — you don't need to understand everything at once. Here's the simplest path to get started:

1

Open a brokerage account

In Canada: Questrade, Wealthsimple Trade, or your bank's online brokerage. In the US: Fidelity, Charles Schwab, or TD Ameritrade. These are the accounts where you actually buy and hold investments.

2

Start with the ETF page

ETFs are the safest, simplest place to begin. They spread your money across dozens or hundreds of companies automatically — so one bad stock doesn't ruin you.

→ Go to ETF page

3

Filter by what matters to you

Looking for monthly income? Filter by "Monthly" frequency and sort by Yield %. Want low risk? Sort by Risk score (lowest first). Want to know how much $10,000 earns? Look at the $/10K/Mo column.

4

Always check NAV erosion before buying

A high yield sounds great — but if the share price is slowly shrinking every year, you're losing money on one hand while collecting dividends with the other. Read Section 4 of this guide before investing.

5

Use the Income Calculator

Type in how much money you have and which ETFs you're interested in — it tells you exactly how much monthly income you'd receive. No guesswork needed.

→ Try the Income Calculator

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What is an ETF?

Beginner

ETF stands for Exchange-Traded Fund. Think of it like a basket of stocks. Instead of buying one company's shares, you buy a share of the basket — which might hold 20, 50, or even 500 different companies inside it.

Simple example

Imagine you want to invest in Canadian banks. Instead of buying Royal Bank, TD, BMO, Scotiabank, and CIBC separately — you buy ZEB, a Canadian bank ETF. One purchase, five banks inside it. If one bank has a bad year, the others balance it out.

Why this matters: Spreading risk across many companies is called diversification. It's one of the most important principles in investing.

ETFs trade on the stock exchange just like regular stocks — you can buy and sell them any time the market is open. Most ETFs on this site also pay dividends — regular cash payments made to shareholders, usually monthly or quarterly.

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Dividend ETFs are designed specifically to pay you income. Instead of hoping the share price goes up, you collect steady cash payments — great for people who want passive income without constantly watching the market.

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The ETF page — every column explained

Beginner

When you open the ETF page, you'll see a large table with lots of numbers. Here's exactly what each column means — in plain English.

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Every column header is clickable. Click any column name once to sort the table from lowest to highest. Click it again to flip to highest to lowest. This lets you instantly rank ETFs by yield, income, risk, or any other metric you care about.

Column	What it means
★ (Star)	Click the star to save an ETF to your personal Favorites list. It stays saved in your browser so you can find it quickly next time.
Ticker	The ETF's short code — like a nickname used on the stock exchange. For example, HDIV, VDY, or JEPI. You type this into your brokerage app to find and buy it. Click the Ticker column header to sort alphabetically.
Name	The fund's full official name, like "Hamilton Enhanced Multi-Sector Covered Call ETF." The ticker is just a shorter version of this.
Frequency	How often the ETF pays you. Options are: Weekly, Semi-Monthly (twice a month), Monthly, Quarterly (4 times a year), or Annual. Monthly is the most popular for income investors. Click "Frequency ▾" in the header to filter the table — cycle through Weekly → Monthly → Quarterly, etc.
Yield %	The annual percentage return in dividends. A 10% yield on a $20 share means you earn about $2.00 per share per year — paid out in regular installments. Higher yield = more income per dollar invested. ⚠️ Warning: yields above 20% are often a red flag. See Section 4 on NAV Erosion below.
Div/Share ($)	The actual dollar amount paid per share each payment period. If an ETF pays $0.15/share monthly and you own 100 shares, you receive $15 deposited to your account every month — automatically.
Price	The current price to buy one share. Canadian ETFs are priced in CAD; US ETFs in USD. Buying 100 shares of a $20 ETF costs $2,000.
NAV Δ (1Y)	How much the share price changed over the past 12 months — not counting dividends paid. A +5% means the share price grew. A -12% means the share is worth less than it was a year ago — this is NAV erosion. This is one of the most important columns. A high yield with a negative NAV Δ can mean you're losing value faster than you're earning income.
$/10K/Mo	How much monthly income $10,000 invested would generate at today's yield. $83/month means a $10,000 investment produces about $83 every month. Great for quick comparison between ETFs without doing the math yourself.
Risk (1–5)	A risk score assigned to each ETF. 1 = very safe, 5 = very risky. See the breakdown below.
Strategy	The investment approach used by the fund. Main types: Dividend (owns dividend-paying stocks), Covered Call (earns extra income by selling options), Index (tracks a market index), REIT (invests in real estate). Click "Strategy ▾" to filter by type.
Provider	The company that manages the ETF — like BMO, Vanguard, BlackRock (iShares), Hamilton, or Harvest. Bigger providers generally have more resources and stability.
MER %	Management Expense Ratio — the annual fee the fund charges you, taken automatically from the fund's assets. A 0.65% MER on $10,000 costs you $65/year in fees — you never see a bill, it's just built in. Lower is better. Under 0.40% = green (cheap). 0.40–0.75% = yellow (moderate). Over 0.75% = red (expensive).
AUM	Assets Under Management — the total amount of money people have invested in this ETF. Bigger AUM is safer: a fund with $5 billion is very unlikely to be shut down. A fund with $20 million is less established and carries more risk of closure. Aim for at least $100M+ for comfort.

The Risk score is a quick guide to how much volatility and NAV erosion risk you're taking on:

1

Very Low — Stable dividend ETFs (VDY, XDIV)

2

Low — Broad market, moderate yield

3

Medium — Covered call ETFs (HMAX, JEPI)

4

High — Leveraged or sector-focused

5

Extreme — Single-stock leveraged, heavy erosion risk

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Pro tip: You can click any column header to sort the entire table by that number. Click once to sort lowest-to-highest. Click again for highest-to-lowest. Hover over any column header to see a tooltip explanation.

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NAV erosion — the hidden danger of high yields

Important

This is one of the most important concepts for any income investor to understand. NAV stands for Net Asset Value — essentially, the price of one share. NAV erosion is when that price slowly declines over time, even while the ETF is paying you dividends.

Real-world example of NAV erosion

You invest $10,000 in an ETF at $20/share — so you own 500 shares. It pays a 15% annual yield, which sounds amazing — that's $1,500/year in income.

But one year later, the share price has dropped to $17.50. Your 500 shares are now worth only $8,750. You collected $1,500 in dividends, but lost $1,250 in value — so your real gain was only $250, not $1,500.

After 3 years at this rate: share price may be $14 or less. The dividend income doesn't make up for the loss. You'd have been better off in a stable 6% ETF.

Here's a visual of what different NAV change rates look like over 3 years on a $10,000 investment:

$10,000 invested — share value after 3 years (not counting dividends)

+5% / year

Growing ↑

$11,576

0% / year

Flat

$10,000

-5% / year

Mild erosion

$8,574

-12% / year

Severe ↓

$6,815

The ETF page has a dedicated NAV Erosion tab that lets you type in any amount and see how erosion affects your real wealth over time — factoring in the dividends you'd receive. Use it before committing to any high-yield ETF.

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Rule of thumb: Any ETF with a yield above 15–20% almost always has NAV erosion built in. That's not necessarily bad — but you need to know about it. Use the NAV Erosion tab to decide if the income justifies the slow decline in share price.

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What's a good NAV? Look for ETFs where the NAV Δ (1Y) column shows a small negative or positive number — ideally better than -5%. Combined with a healthy yield, that's the sweet spot. ETFs like VDY or XDIV have very low erosion. ETFs like YieldMax single-stock funds can erode 30–50% per year.

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The ETF tools — tabs explained

Beginner

The ETF page has two rows of tabs packed with tools. Here's what each one does:

Main tabs (top row)

📊 ETF Database

💰 Income Calc

⚖️ Compare

📉 NAV Erosion

🏆 Top 10

⭐ Favorites

📊 ETF Database

The main table showing all ETFs with filters and sortable columns. This is your starting point.

💰 Income Calc

Type in how much you want to invest and pick your ETFs — it calculates your exact monthly income. You can also work backwards: enter your income goal and it tells you how much capital you need.

⚖️ Compare

Pick 2–3 ETFs and see them side by side. Useful when you're deciding between similar options and want to compare yield, MER, AUM, and risk in one view.

📉 NAV Erosion

Enter an ETF and your investment amount — it models how NAV erosion affects your real wealth over 1, 3, 5, and 10 years, factoring in the income you collect along the way.

🏆 Top 10

A curated leaderboard of the top-performing ETFs across different categories — best yield, lowest MER, highest AUM, best total return. Good for discovering ETFs you might not have heard of.

⭐ Favorites

Your personal saved list. Any ETF you starred with the ★ button appears here for quick access.

Advanced tools (second row)

🌡️ Heat Map

📅 Div Calendar

⚠️ Div Cuts

🎯 Best Combo

📈 DRIP Sim

🎯 Retire Goal

🔗 Correlation

⚔️ Scenarios

🧾 Tax Calc

🌡️ Heat Map

A colour-coded grid showing all ETFs ranked by yield and performance at a glance. Green = strong, Red = weak. Great for spotting patterns quickly.

📅 Div Calendar

Shows upcoming dividend payment dates across your selected ETFs. Useful for planning your cash flow — knowing when income hits your account.

⚠️ Div Cuts

Flags ETFs that have recently cut or reduced their dividend payments. A dividend cut is a warning sign — the fund is paying you less than it used to.

🎯 Best Combo

Suggests combinations of ETFs that work well together — balancing high yield, low erosion, and different payment frequencies so you receive income more evenly throughout the month.

📈 DRIP Sim

DRIP = Dividend Re-Investment Plan. Instead of taking your dividends as cash, you reinvest them to buy more shares. This simulator shows how your investment grows over time using compounding — the "snowball" effect.

🎯 Retire Goal

Enter your retirement income target — say $3,000/month — and it calculates how much capital you'd need and which ETFs could get you there.

🔗 Correlation

Shows how different ETFs move together. If two ETFs always go up and down at the same time, they're highly correlated — and holding both doesn't give you much extra protection. Low correlation = better diversification.

⚔️ Scenarios

Test your portfolio against different market conditions — what happens if markets drop 20%? What if interest rates rise? Helps you understand your risk before it happens.

🧾 Tax Calc

Estimates the tax you'd owe on your dividend income based on your province/state and income bracket. Dividend income is taxed differently than employment income in Canada — this tool helps you understand the real after-tax return.

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Dividend Stocks page

Intermediate

While ETFs are baskets of stocks, the Dividend Stocks page shows individual companies that pay regular dividends — like Royal Bank, Enbridge, or Coca-Cola. Buying individual stocks is riskier than ETFs because your money is in one company, not spread across many.

ETF vs. Individual Stock

An ETF like VDY holds 40+ Canadian dividend stocks. If one company cuts its dividend, the ETF barely notices. If you own just Enbridge and they cut their dividend, your income drops immediately.

Best approach for beginners: Start with ETFs. Add individual stocks later once you understand what you're buying and why.

The Dividend Stocks page is a good place to research specific companies if you already have one in mind — checking their yield history, payout ratio, and consistency of payments over time.

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Recovery Radar — spotting market dips

Speculative

Recovery Radar is a signal tool. It watches the S&P 500 (SPY) and NASDAQ (QQQ) — the two biggest US stock market indexes — and alerts you when the market has pulled back enough that historically, stocks tend to recover and bounce back.

What is a market pullback?

Markets don't go straight up. Every few weeks or months, prices dip — sometimes 3%, sometimes 10% or more. These dips are called pullbacks. After most pullbacks, the market eventually recovers. Recovery Radar tries to identify when we're in one of those dips.

Analogy: Imagine a stock normally sells for $50. It dips to $44 for a few weeks, then bounces back to $52. Recovery Radar tries to alert you during that $44 window — when buying is potentially more attractive.

Layer 1 vs Layer 2 signals

Layer 1 is a mild signal — the market has pulled back a little. It's a heads-up, not a buy alarm.

Layer 2 is a stronger signal — the market is down more significantly and historically this has been a better buying opportunity.

The page also shows Stock Picks — specific stocks that look attractive during the current pullback — plus a Signal Backtest showing how the signals performed historically over the past 12 months.

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Important: No signal is right 100% of the time. Recovery Radar is a tool to help you think — not a guarantee. Always do your own research before buying anything.

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Rocket Picks, Swing Watch, Top Pick & more

Advanced

These pages are designed for more active investors who want shorter-term trade ideas — not long-term buy-and-hold strategies. They're best used once you're comfortable with the basics.

🚀 Rocket Picks

Stocks with strong momentum — meaning their price has been rising faster than average and shows signs of continuing. These are higher-risk, higher-potential-reward ideas.

⚡ Swing Watch

Short-term trade ideas — stocks that may move up or down over days or weeks. Swing trading means you're not holding forever — you buy, wait for a specific price move, then sell. Higher skill and attention required.

⭐ Swing Pick & 🏆 Top Pick

The single best short-term idea for the week (Swing Pick) and the month (Top Pick) — hand-selected based on current market conditions, technicals, and momentum. One focused idea rather than a long list.

📊 Track Record

Full transparency — every past pick, whether it worked or didn't, with the actual return. This is how you judge whether to trust any signal tool: look at its history honestly.

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For beginners: Skip these pages until you have at least 6–12 months of investing experience. Short-term trading is significantly harder than long-term investing and most beginners lose money doing it. Start with ETFs and dividend income first.

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Squeeze Radar, Analyst Upside & Earnings Radar

Advanced

These three pages are short-term, idea-finding screens. They don't tell you what to buy — they surface stocks worth a closer look, for a specific reason. Each page has a “How to read this list” box at the top; this guide explains, in plain terms, what each one is and how to actually use it.

🎯 Squeeze Radar — the most heavily bet-against stocks

What it is. A “short squeeze” starts with short selling — people betting a stock will fall (they borrow shares, sell them, and hope to buy back cheaper). When too many people bet against a stock and it starts going up instead, those bettors panic and rush to buy shares back to stop their losses — and all that sudden buying shoves the price up even harder. That’s the “squeeze.” This page lists the stocks that are the most heavily bet against right now — the ones that could squeeze if buyers show up.

How to read the columns.
• Short % — how much of the stock is bet against. Higher = more fuel for a squeeze.
• Days to Cover — how many days it would take those bettors to buy back. Higher = they’re more trapped.
• Change (▲/▼) — is betting-against rising (▲, pressure building) or falling (▼, people bailing out).
• Turning Up? — badges showing whether the squeeze may be igniting (explained next).
• Squeeze Score — a simple 0–100 blend of the fuel (Short %, Days to Cover, change), so the hottest setups sort to the top.

Fuel vs. spark — the key idea. High short interest is only the fuel. A squeeze needs a spark — the stock actually starting to rise. The Turning Up? column flags signs that spark may be happening (hover any badge on the page for the same note):
• ⚡ Popping — up 3%+ today; the move may be starting.
• 🩳 Covering — short interest fell vs last month, meaning the bettors are buying back — often the squeeze itself beginning.
• 🔥 Volume — trading on unusually heavy volume; squeezes ignite on volume.
• 📈 Momentum — price back above its 50-day average (short-term trend turning up).
• 🔼 Uptrend — price above its 200-day average (in a longer uptrend).

How to use it. The strongest setup is lots of fuel (high Short % + Days to Cover) plus ignition clues lighting up in the Turning Up? column — the bomb is loaded and the fuse is lit. You can click the Turning Up? header to sort by how many clues each stock shows. A blank (—) means it’s loaded with fuel but hasn’t sparked yet. Always check the news and chart before doing anything — this is a “dig deeper” list, not a buy list.

Updates: This list refreshes on its own about every two weeks (that’s how often the official short-selling data comes out) — you don’t have to update it.

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Double-edged sword: the same stocks that can squeeze up are heavily bet against for a reason — they can also keep falling. Squeezes are unpredictable and fast. This is the highest-risk page on the site.

📈 Analyst Upside — where Wall Street sees room to run

What it is. Professional analysts at banks and research firms publish a price target for a stock — where they think it’ll be in about a year. “Upside” is simply how far the stock sits below that target today. This page ranks stocks by the biggest upside, but only ones that analysts actually rate a Buy or better, so it’s where the pros are genuinely optimistic.

How to read the columns.
• Upside % — how much higher the average analyst target is than today’s price. +30% means the average target is 30% above the current price.
• Consensus — the overall rating: Strong Buy or Buy.
• # Analysts — how many pros cover it. More analysts = a more trustworthy crowd, not one lone voice. (This page only shows stocks with at least 5.)
• Signals — small badges showing the clues our scan already sees that could help the upside actually happen. Think of them as supporting evidence, not guarantees.

What the Signal badges mean. (Hover any badge on the page for the same explanation.)
• 📅 Earnings — a report is coming soon, the biggest scheduled catalyst (can move it either way).
• 🎯 Squeeze — heavily shorted; could pop if it starts climbing.
• 🚀 Breakout — pushing to new highs on the chart.
• 👤 Insider buys — the company’s own executives have been buying shares.
• 🔥 Volume — trading on unusually heavy volume right now.
• 📊 Accumulation — the volume pattern shows steady buying over time.
• 📈 Uptrend — already trending up / stronger than the overall market.
• 📰 Buzz — elevated news and social-media attention.

How to use it. Look for a mix of high upside, lots of analysts, AND several signals stacked up — that’s the strongest combination: the pros are optimistic and the stock is already showing real momentum behind it. You can click the Signals column header to sort the most-confirmed stocks to the top. Treat the biggest upside numbers with suspicion (a huge number often means a stock that already crashed), and remember a blank (—) just means no signals are flashing right now — not that the stock is bad. Use it as a starting shortlist, then research each name yourself.

Updates: This list — signals included — refreshes whenever you run your regular stock scan, the same moment as Rocket Picks, so you don’t manage it separately.

📅 Earnings Radar — what’s reporting soon

What it is. Four times a year, every company reports its results (its “earnings”). It’s the single biggest scheduled event for a stock — the price often makes its largest move of the quarter that day, up or down. This page shows the upcoming earnings dates for the stocks you already track (your Rocket Picks and Swing names), so nothing catches you off guard.

How to read the columns.
• Countdown (“Today”, “In 3 days”) — how soon it reports. It’s always accurate because it’s calculated live.
• bmo / amc — reports before market open, or after market close.
• EPS Estimate — the profit-per-share Wall Street expects. Beating or missing this number is usually what moves the stock.
• Flags — 🚀 it’s a Rocket pick, ⚡ a current Swing setup, 🎯 also a squeeze candidate.

How to use it. Check it before you buy or sell anything on the site — if a stock reports in the next day or two, its price can swing hard, so many people wait until after earnings rather than gamble on the result. It’s an awareness tool: know what’s coming.

Updates: Refreshes automatically — you don’t touch it. The countdown always stays correct and past earnings drop off on their own.

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Remember: all three are starting points for research, not recommendations. They point you at stocks worth a look — the homework is still yours.

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BTC Cycle Tracker

Speculative

The Bitcoin Cycle Tracker is based on an observed historical pattern: over 3 complete Bitcoin cycles since 2015, bull phases (price rising) have lasted about 1,064 days and bear phases (price falling) have lasted about 364 days.

⚠️ This is a theory — not a proven fact

Three cycles is a very small sample size. This pattern may not repeat. Bitcoin is highly speculative and could drop to zero or rise 10x — no one knows. This page is for research and curiosity, not financial advice.

The page also shows BTC-correlated stocks — companies like MicroStrategy (MSTR), Coinbase (COIN), and Bitcoin miners (MARA, RIOT) that tend to move with Bitcoin. If you believe in the cycle theory, these stocks could potentially benefit when the next bull phase begins.

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Cryptocurrency warning: Bitcoin and crypto-related stocks are among the most volatile assets that exist. Never invest money you can't afford to lose completely. This is not suitable for beginners or for money you need in the near future.