Know the odds.Master the market.

Two ways to invest on your own

• Self-directed. You pick the funds or stocks and place the trades. The lowest cost; the decisions, and sticking with them, are yours.
• Robo-advisor. An app picks a model portfolio from a questionnaire and rebalances it for you, for a small yearly fee.

It's also where people trade

• The same account is where you'd day trade or swing trade: stocks and ETFs, and with approval, options and margin.
• Day-trading rules and taxes differ by country: see Trading vs. Investing.

What it costs

• Many large online brokers charge little or nothing to buy ETFs. Check yours.
• Every fund still charges its own small yearly fee (expense ratio or MER), taken from the fund. Pinpoint's model portfolios show it for each one.

What you can buy

• ETFs and index funds, like the ones in Pinpoint's model portfolios, plus individual stocks and bonds.
• One all-in-one fund can be a whole portfolio on its own.

Accounts you can open yourself

• U.S.: Roth or Traditional IRA, HSA and a taxable brokerage account (a 401(k) comes through your employer).
• Canada: TFSA, RRSP, FHSA and a non-registered account.
• Australia: a brokerage account in your name; super is held by a fund, and some funds let you choose the investments.

Getting started

1. Open an account with an online broker and add money.
2. Pick a mix on the Investing page and buy the funds it lists.
3. Set up automatic monthly deposits.
4. Rebalance about once a year.

Good for

• Convenience: banking and investing in one place.
• Smaller balances and people who want someone to talk to.

Watch for

• Cost: actively managed mutual funds usually charge more each year than index ETFs, and the advisor's pay is often built into that fee.
• A short shelf: many bank advisors can only offer the bank's own funds, and some are licensed to sell only mutual funds.
• Sales or advice: ask whether they must act in your best interest.

Questions to ask

• What do I pay in total each year, in dollars?
• Are these the bank's own funds? Can I hold low-cost index ETFs?
• What does it cost to move my money elsewhere?

How they're paid

• A yearly fee as a percentage of the money they manage.
• Commissions on trades or products.
• A flat or hourly fee (fee-only planners).

Ask which applies, and what it adds up to in dollars each year.

What you get

• A financial plan, tax-aware investing and help with retirement and estate decisions.
• Access to bonds, new issues and other products a basic account may not offer. Minimum balances are common.
• Someone to call when markets fall.

When it's worth paying

• Complicated taxes, a business or an estate.
• Big life changes, like retiring or an inheritance.
• If you know you'd sell in a crash and want someone to talk you out of it.

Two halves

• Primary market: new shares (IPOs) and new bonds are sold to raise money.
• Secondary market: investors trade existing securities with each other on exchanges like the NYSE, Nasdaq, TSX and ASX. Nearly all trading, and every price on Pinpoint, happens here.

When it trades

• U.S. and Canadian stock exchanges: 9:30 am–4:00 pm New York time. The ASX: 10:00 am–4:00 pm Sydney time.
• Before and after hours, trading is thinner and prices can jump.
• Gold, silver, oil and currencies trade almost around the clock on weekdays; crypto never closes.
• Trades settle one business day later in the U.S. and Canada, two in Australia.

Worth knowing

• An ETF's price stays close to the value of what it holds because large firms can create or redeem its shares.
• Pinpoint tracks SPY, QQQ and IWM (U.S. ETFs), gold, silver and oil, and bitcoin and ether. For the round-the-clock markets, session setups use a 9:30 am–4:00 pm New York window.

Common strategies

• Long/short equity: own some stocks, bet against others.
• Global macro: trade rates, currencies and commodities on economic views.
• Event-driven: trade mergers, spin-offs and restructurings.
• Quantitative: computer models and systematic rules.

How they move markets

• Leverage: borrowed money magnifies positions. When losses force them to cut back, selling can snowball.
• Crowding: when many funds hold the same trade, they can all exit at once.
• Short squeezes: a heavily shorted stock can jump as short sellers rush to buy it back.

Worth knowing

• They usually charge a yearly management fee plus a share of profits.
• In the U.S., large managers report their U.S. stock holdings each quarter (Form 13F) up to 45 days after the quarter ends, so the news is old by the time it's public.

How they invest

• A long-term mix of stocks, bonds, private equity, real estate and infrastructure, rebalanced on a schedule.
• Pensions and insurers often match their investments to the payments they'll owe in the future.

How they move prices

• Rebalancing: after a big move they sell what rose and buy what fell, often around month and quarter ends.
• Steady bond demand: insurers and pensions buy long-term bonds to match long-term promises.
• Index money: passive funds buy whatever joins an index and sell whatever leaves it.

Names you may know

• CPP Investments (Canada), Australia's big super funds, Norway's sovereign wealth fund and U.S. state pensions such as CalPERS.

The ones that matter here

• Federal Reserve (U.S.): its rate committee, the FOMC, meets 8 times a year.
• Bank of Canada: 8 scheduled rate decisions a year.
• Reserve Bank of Australia: meets 8 times a year.

Their tools

• The policy interest rate.
• Buying or selling bonds (quantitative easing or tightening).
• Guidance about where rates are heading.

How they move prices

• Markets move on surprises: a decision that matches expectations often does little, while a surprise in the rate or the tone moves stocks, bonds and currencies.
• Higher rates raise borrowing costs and the return on cash, which tends to weigh on stock prices; lower rates do the opposite.
• The 2-year Treasury yield closely tracks where markets expect the Fed to go.

What they do

• Market makers earn the gap between the bid and the ask, and keep markets liquid in return.
• Algorithms split big orders into small pieces, close price gaps between markets and react to news instantly.

What it means for you

• The spread is a cost. It's tiny on SPY or QQQ, wider on thinly traded stocks and ETFs, at the open and after hours.
• Use limit orders to control your price, especially near the open and close.
• The open is the busiest stretch. High & Low Timing shows how often the day's high or low is set in the first hour.
• Payment for order flow: in the U.S., many zero-commission brokers are paid by market makers to send them your orders.
• Flash moves: when algorithms pull their quotes at once, prices can lurch for seconds or minutes.