encyclopedia

An activist investor is a someone who buys many shares in the same company in order to influence how it is managed….

The annual report is a (long, somewhat painful) document published once a year by every company listed on the stock market. It contains…

The Bank of Canada is unlike other banks. As Canada’s central bank, it is literally the only one able to print money….

A Board of Directors is a team of people elected by a company’s shareholders to represent their interests and to ensure that…

A bond is nothing more than a debt. If you have forgotten your lunch and you borrow $20 from your friend, you…

“Buy side” usually refers to financial analysts employed by fund management companies such as investment funds, insurance companies or other institutional investors….

The Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) is a Crown corporation that helps Canadian buy houses even if they don’t have much…

The Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) is an umbrella organization of all the provincial and territorial securities regulators in the country, such as…

The Chairperson of the Board of Directors is the leader of a company’s board of directors. In this role, the Chairperson of…

A chequing account is a bank account that is used on a regular basis. It’s a convenient place to keep money that…

Obviously, you know what an interest rate is. If you borrow $1000 from your fiend for one year and they agree to…

Credit cards are payment cards associated with high interest rates. However, people who pay their credit card balance in full each month…

Cryptocurrencies are decentralized virtual currencies. The best known are without a doubt Bitcoin and Ethereum. Using blockchain, a decentralized database technology, cryptocurrencies…

Day trading is a waste of your time. Day traders are people who buy and sell stocks in the same day to…

Discount brokers are the intermediaries through whom you can buy and sell stocks, bonds, options, parts of mutual funds or other securities (and basically anything…

A dividend is money from the company’s profit that is paid to its stockholders at specific intervals. The dividend can be issued in…

Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) is a measure of a company’s financial health. EBITDA is an indicator of the profitability…

Exchange traded funds (ETFs) are a pool of investments sold as a single product. Remember those cheesy christmas basket, filled with the…

A financial analyst is a professional whose job is to assess companies’ financial situations. They are responsible for carrying out in-depth studies…

Financial statements summarize a company’s performance and financial position over a given period. There are three main financial statements: the balance sheet,…

A Forex Trader specializes in the foreign exchange market. Their job is to buy and/or sell currency at the best price. The…

A futures contract is a contract between two parties who agree to buy or sell an asset at a predetermined price and…

A full service broker is a brokerage firm that, unlike discount brokers, offers financial and investment advice. Like discount brokers, they allow their…

A Guaranteed Investment Certificate (GIC) is an investment product that lets you lend money to a bank at a fixed interest rate…

A hedge fund pools investors’ money and actively invests that money to earn a return. Unlike mutual funds, hedge funds tend to…

Hedge funds pool investor money and actively invest that money with the goal of earning a return. Unlike mutual funds, however, hedge…

Impact investing is an investment strategy that reconciles financial performance and positive spinoffs for society. This investment strategy differs from socially responsible…

An index gives you a snapshot of the overall performance of a particular market sector, for example all of the companies making…

Inflation is a word you often hear economists brandish as a threat. It should not be too high or too low… but…

If your cousin Jimmy who works at Air Canada tells you that the airline’s sales are going through the roof, and no…

An institutional investor is basically an organization that trades stocks and securities in a large enough quantity that they get special treatment that…

For a long time, investment advisors were called “brokers”. They’re the people you see in movies like Oliver Stone’s Wall Street or…

Leverage is a fancy word for debt. A company that owes a lot of other organizations money is considered “highly leveraged”. The…

A fund’s Management Expense Ratio (MER) is the percentage of the fund’s assets that goes up in smoke every year to pay…

Market capitalization is the market value of all the shares of a publicly traded company. So this is the value that stock…

Mortgages are loans used to purchase a property such as a house, a condo or a cottage. Mortgage interest rates are lower…

A mutual fund is a collection or “pool” of stocks and bonds that are sold as a single package. In other words, if a…

Net income is the wealth created by a business. Also known as the bottom line, it is a key indicator of a…

An option is a financial product belonging to the category of derivatives. An option gives you the right to buy or sell…

An over-the-counter forward contract is a contract between two parties who agree to buy or sell an asset at a predetermined price…

Passive investing is an investing strategy that involves speculating on the long term value of stocks and limiting fees by buying and selling as…

The policy interest rate is a rate established by central banks. Since 2000, the Bank of Canada has been setting the policy…

A portfolio is the sum of all your investments put together. For example, if you own two apartment buildings, your real estate…

A portfolio manager is responsible for investing their clients’ money. Also known as a wealth manager, they work for high net worth…

A reverse stock split occurs to decrease the total number of outstanding shares of a company. Since this strategy does not change…

Robo-advisors are online portfolio management services that do not require interaction between the client and the portfolio manager. In Canada, robo-advisors (or…

A saving account is a bank account into which you deposit money that you don’t necessarily need to use right now. Generally,…

The “sell side” generally refers to financial analysts employed by brokers and investment banks. The work of analysts employed by these firms…

Short selling is the act of selling stocks that you don’t actually own. As a general rule, an investor would only short…

Spin-off is the term used to describe the creation of a new company from an existing company. When it occurs, shares of…

If a company was an apple pie, a stock would be a slice of the pie. In short, a stock is a…

The stock market encompasses all the people, companies and institutions buying and selling slices of publicly-owned companies and other securities. When someone says that…

If a share is a piece of a pie, then a stock split means dividing one piece of the pie into smaller pieces. If…

A swap is an exchange of financial flows between two companies or financial institutions. Money is not directly exchanged, but financial instruments…

Technical analysis is a way of valuing a stock based on its price history and other market indicators. Those who perform technical…

Technical analysis is a way to assess a stock security based on its price history and other market indicators. Those doing technical…