With Sears’ crown jewel sold, what is Lampert’s plan? + MORE Oct 30th

This GIC rate is offered by Outlook Financial and was updated on 2013-09-16. Click on the link above to get more details or apply online.

I love trading tech stocks because there are so many ways to view so many of these companies. You can easily find strong opinions both for and against stocks like Apple (AAPL), Google (GOOG), Netflix (NFLX), Microsoft (MSFT) and others. I’d argue though that no stock attracts the level of passion that Amazon (AMZN) is able to generate. No matter how you look at it, the company has been different. It manages its business like no one else, has a unique leader who is buying newspapers, is admired and loved by many (consumers mostly) and feared  by almost every retail business around the world. Today, I won’t try to cover all of those aspects. I’ll stick to the one most interesting to me; is the stock price beyond reach?
Every week I run into interesting analysis and this one was no different. I read the interesting perspective of a short AMZN holder but also a very interesting bullish view: “Amazon and the profitless business model fallacy“. Both have fairly opposite views about Amazon yet it’s difficult to argue with either…

The tax on Employee Stock Purchase Plans (ESPP) has two components: the difference between the offering price and the fair market value (FMV) of the stock is treated as employment income and the difference between the FMV and the selling price is treated as capital gains or losses.
For example, let’s say that shares in your employer ABC Inc. was offered to you at a price of $10 on September 15th and on that day, the stock closed at $12. As you had contributed $5,000 towards the purchase of company stock, 500 shares ($5000/$10 per share) were deposited in your brokerage account. The $1,000 benefit (500 shares x ($12 – $10)) is treated as employment income and will be taxed at your marginal tax rate. Starting in 2011, the Canada Revenue Agency requires employers to withhold and remit income taxes on employee stock benefits. Therefore, ABC Corp. will withhold $460 as income tax and remit it to the CRA. At the end of the financial year, ABC Corp. will include $1,000 in Box 14 (Employment Income) and $460 in Box 22 (Income tax deducted) of your T4 slip…

Every week, I get dozens of press releases from media professionals across the country looking to have their story featured on MoneySense.ca. Some are about new products, others are about upcoming events but the vast majority are findings from some survey or other. I pay most attention to the ones that cast the spotlight on some piece of information that you, dear reader, may find helpful on your personal journey to financial independence. This week however a press release on the topic of love and money caught my eye and entirely for selfish reasons: I’m getting hitched in 6 weeks.
TD Canada Trust surveyed adults in committed relationships and found 79% of Canadian couples have joint finances; no surprise there. But here’s where it gets interesting, well for me anyway. The top three personal finance products that Canadians combine with their partner are a joint bank account (64%), a mortgage (60%) and a joint credit card (50%), the bank found. Looks like my husband-to-be and I are taking the road less travelled…

As real estate selloff claims Eaton Centre gem, turnaround strategy for Canadian division gets harder to see