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My kids started back to school on Tuesday. For daughter Sarah, it was her first day in high school, a pretty exciting event. For son A.J., it was old hat. For some of my readers, investor education sites might seem old hat. But many are very sophisticated and include a wealth of information. And some, like the Canadian Securities Institute, are key requirements if you want a career in financial management. So whatever your level of expertise, you'll find some new and useful information here.
There are many resources online, of course. You'll find much useful information at sites like the Insight section of MSN MoneyCentral Investor. Or the Fool's School from those delightful Motley Fools. But for today, we'll take a closer look at five excellent Canadian investor education sites. Though Canadian, they cover many broad topics equally applicable to American or foreign investors.
Dedicated to "financial education and understanding", the Financial Pipeline is an excellent resource with detailed explanations of a wide variety of topics. Bonds, Equities, and Real Estate are just some of the topics.
Each basic explanation is followed by links to more in depth coverage. For example, the Equities page links to four additional topics, What is a Stock?, Equity Basics, Stock Valuations and Equity Management Styles. The latter offers a brief paragraph on several styles followed by links to more detailed information on Stock Pickers, Sector Rotators, Quantitative Managers, and Technical Managers.
Equity Basics includes links to more detailed information on Warrants, Preferred Shares, various styles of analysis and a detailed section on Charting among other things.
Investopedia has two distinct sections - the University and the Dictionary. The University, as you might guess, offers detailed information on such topics as Stock Basics, Mutual Fund Basics, and Online Broker Basics to more complex topics such as Short Selling, Moving Averages, and an excellent section on Ratio Analysis.
The Dictionary, their original focus, is an extensive online glossary of investment terms. Each term includes a definition, a commentary and a link or two to related sites. A very handy resource. If you don't find the term defined here, chances are you won't find it anywhere!
Many brokerages and banks offer online education sections. One is the brokerage arm of Canada's largest bank, the Royal. RBC Dominion Securities offers information on four topics, each explained in clear, easy to understand language with supporting diagrams and charts. They are:
Principles of Equity
Investing
Fundamentals of the
Bond Market
Guide to RSPs
RSP Maturity Options
Investor Learning Centre of Canada
Besides conducting investment seminars across Canada and sponsoring educational programs in high schools, the Investor Learning Centre has enough online resources for you to conduct your own basic investor education with the click of a mouse.
Perhaps the best introductory program is their online Investments 101 course. It consists of five modules - Capital Markets, the Market System, the Bond Market, the Stock Market and Investor Protection. Each consists of 10 to 20 short, clearly written explanations of underlying concepts.
The site also contains regular columns by half a dozen writers including Glorianne Stromberg, a former commissioner on the Ontario Securities Commission and author of a couple of reports on consumer protection in the securities industry. Earlier columns are archived.
You'll also find online seminars done up as slide shows, quizzes, a glossary, FAQs and the opportunity to submit questions.
The live seminars are offered in over fifty communities across Canada. Each of their two courses consists of six 2 1/2 hour seminars. Prices are $175 and $200 respectively for the courses linked below:
Intelligent Investing
Level 1 or
Intelligent Investing
Level 2
These are considered good lay introductory courses to those offered by the:
This is the place to go if you are interested in a career in the financial services industry. Its flagship Canadian Securities Course qualifies one for licensing as a mutual funds sales agent. Further courses can lead to qualification as a stock broker, financial advisor and portfolio manager. All of the courses are self-study programs with online support.
The flagship Canadian Securities Course includes a 480 page textbook and companion workbook, covering a wide range of topics. Price for industry employees is $260. For non-industry parties it's $415. Graduation requires completion of two assignments and a three hour examination.
Other courses include the Financial Management Advisor program, the Canadian Investment Manager program and the Conduct and Practices Handbook Course (mandatory for securities licensing in Canada). Prices range from $64 for their two Prep courses to $582 for the Derivatives, Options and Futures licensing course.
Maybe this brief introduction has whetted your appetite enough to enroll in one or more courses!
Other Links of Interest
My colleagues, Stocks Guide Mike Griffis and Day Trading Guide Rob Rak have written a number of articles on principles of investing, technical analysis and so on. Additionally, there are my own articles on the CANSLIM approach to investing and my recent and continuing series on Selling Strategies. They are linked in the box at the upper right of this article. Do check them out!
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