Blog #1: Welcome to my Blog

February 24, 2021 | Sheila Whitehead


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Sheila gives an introduction to her career as a Portfolio Manager with RBC Dominion Securities. The weekly blogs will share what she has learned about the market & investing, with the goal of empowering you to contribute to the discussion.

I can’t pinpoint exactly what led me to this moment in time. I have never considered blogging before but I had never considered a career as an Investment Advisor when I was younger either. Back then, they were called stockbrokers and I thought that all they did was buy and sell stock. Very risky, very transactional, and very, very dull. Not for me! Now I am a Portfolio Manager who buys and sells stock, but the job is so much more than that! I think correcting this misunderstanding is one of my drivers.

There are so many misconceptions out there about the market and investing and I hear them all the time from clients and in the rare discussion with my friends. I say rare because my experience of female companionship doesn’t include conversations about the market and investing! We don’t discuss our latest purchase of Tesla or Google and how much money we made on Amazon. We are much more likely to discuss how much gas money we can save driving a Tesla or what we are buying on Amazon! And this is no slight to the intelligence or capabilities of my friends who, among other professions, are engineers, judges, and doctors! Sadly, the stereotype lives on in my own family! I have two daughters, Natalie who is 23, Abi who is 19 and a son Brad who is 21. Brad has a small portfolio and will call me with either praise or sheer condemnation about one of his holdings while Natalie and Abi until recently were still completely unsure of what I did during the day!

It is time to take the mystery and confusion out and explain the market and investing in very simple terms, without all the jargon and acronyms. It’s the perfect time to begin because Natalie has recently come to work with me and is starting at ground zero in terms of her knowledge. I can share her journey with you. It may not lead you to want to manage your own portfolio but I’m hoping it will empower you to at least “take a seat at the table” and contribute to the discussion. And if you have kids and you find the blogs helpful and informative then please share them with them. Let’s get them started early and see what abundant lives they can create!

My plan is to blog weekly and post the little capsules of our financial journey to our website every Tuesday. In case you miss one, we will make sure they are all archived on the site. I will start off with some basics and progress from there with my goal being to share some of what I have learned about the markets and investing. There is a lot to cover and no doubt you will have questions so please fill out the contact form on this page if you don’t understand something or have a topic you would like covered.

Let the journey begin!