Since we’re primarily interested in the Canadian investment horizon we’d like to focus on books primarily targeted at Canadians. Here are my top 5 books that you need to read as an investor in Canada:

The Wealthy Barber Returns by David Chilton – The original version of this book was probably my first foray into personal finance and is a great start for anyone starting out trying to get a grasp on their finances.  It doesn’t talk in detail about how to invest in Canadian stocks, but instills the importance of spending less than you make and setting yourself for success in the long term.  Hint: it doesn’t mean sacrificing for today either (all about mindset).  Sound interesting, it is!

The Lazy Investor by Derek Foster – I enjoyed this quick read.  Derek Foster is a bit of a controversial author amongst some personal finance blogging circles.  While most advice talks about buying and holding, Derek sold off his entire long term portfolio in 2009.  This book in particular by the author focuses on how to build wealth on auto-pilot.  Again focusing on stocks as the primary investment vehicle, however taking the approach of buying automatically.  Great for those starting with small amounts of money looking to grow over time.  Dollar-cost averaging is an important concept to learn for those seeking success in investing.

Investing for Canadians for Dummies by Eric Tyson and Tony Martin – Over 400 pages for under $20?  This book does cover more of the specifics about stocks, bonds, ETF and mutual funds.  So once you’ve put yourself in the mindset that you want to be investing this is the book you’ll need to learn about your investing options.  It also covers asset allocation which is such a critical component of building your investment portfolio.  Don’t forget about RRSPs and how best to use them as part of your retirement investment strategy.  This book covers this in detail.

The Naked Investor by John Lawrence Reynolds – I consider this to be another *Must Read* book on investing in Canada and I think the reason why is clear with the sub-title “Why Almost Everybody But You Gets Rich on Your RRSP”.  Take the information you learn from this book and apply to your investing approach before you lose anymore of your money!

Stock Investing for Canadians for Dummies by Andrew Dagys and Paul Mladjenovic – Another dummies book, but if you’re reading this list you’re no dummy!  While the previous dummies book on this list was about investing in general this one is targeted at investing in stocks in Canada.  Since this blog is primarily about investing in Canadian stocks, the book is a natural fit.  It covers a lot of good basics in how to select stocks that fit the criteria for your portfolio.   It discusses the financial research you need to be doing before you put your hard earned dollars on the line.

The Four Pillars of Investing by William Bernstein – This is not a Canadian oriented book but is so packed with critical information about investing that it is a great read.  I wouldn’t recommend that you start out with this one as it can be a bit heavy at times, but what a wealth of knowledge contained within.  The basic premise of the book is that any investor (like you or me) can build a portfolio of outperforming stocks by learning about the four pillars: The Theory of Investing, The History of Investing, The Psychology of Investing, and the Business of Investing.

With reference to the Business of Investing I enjoy the quote “The stockbroker services his clients in the same way that Bonnie and Clyde serviced banks.”   Get this book to keep as a reference once you’ve gone through it.

This wraps up the Top 5 Books I wanted to showcase on Canadian Investing.  There’s no one book that will ever be the definitive guide to everything investing in Canada but there are countless numbers of books worthy of an investment in time (in hopes of return of investment in $$ form).  The critical thing to do is to make sure you are informed.  Informed people make better decision and make more money.  It’s just that easy.

I’m sure there are more out there that are worthy of another “Top 5″ list.  What do you think should have made the list?  Are we spot on with the choices made here.

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News Sites

Globe Investor -  This is my number one go to site for the overview of the day’s activities. It’s a wealth of information and keeps me up to date on how the market will be behaving on a day to day basis.

Canadian News Wire – Once you’re following companies, it’s important to know what is happening with them, as it happens. With the News Wire service you will get the information you need immediately as it happens. I generally only use this service when I am looking for a specific company. There’s just too much information to effectively decipher the important from the non.

BNN TV – I’m tuned to this channel every chance I get. But when not in front of a TV you can always use their companion site to view past programs and listen to current commentary. I has a small appearance on Market Call once a few years ago and was sure to send the link around to all my friends to the archived video

Google Finance – This is a great news service that combines the curated news like that of GlobeInvestor, along with customized news filters. For example, if you’re interested in the mining sector you can setup specific news filters to show you the latest news relating to that search criteria. Very important for sifting through information quickly.

MarketWatch Canada – I use the MarketWatch site daily to keep a pulse on the American markets and they’ve release a Canadian version as well. It doesn’t provide the breadth of coverage I am looking for in terms on Canadian news, however the American, and global macro level report is bang on. I also enjoy reading the editorials for individual perspectives.

Forums

Canadian Money Forum – I consider this to be the best Canadian Investing Forum you can find. I’ve linked to the specific forum on individual stocks which is where I often lurk about.

With Forums you need to pay special attention that you’re not spending too much on forum with little activity. Often times those are the ones susceptible to spamming and stock promoters trying to drum up business is scam stocks. It’s buyer beware in forums, but don’t worry about Canadian Money Forum. They are bringing the goods.

Silicon Investor – A lot of American stocks listed in here but still a few Canadian large caps in the mix. Good commentary though.

Hot Stock Market – There are a lot of small cap (aka: penny stocks) in the mix here. Don’t be too scared away though. There are a lot of good members of this community. Just remember to always do your due diligence and be aware of the level of risk you’re willing to take on.

Financial Web Ring – The FWF is a heavy hitter in the Canadian Financial Forum world. There are lot of members and a lot of good quality investing discussions on a lot of good topics. Retirements, income funds, ETFs, bonds and more.

Portal Sites

Stock House – Stock House is another juggernaut of online investing information. They have a large community and support a diverse range of platforms like forums, blogs and news feeds. They coverage the full spectrum of Canadian investment opportunities so again, if you’re not interested in high risk stocks pay very careful attention. But of course you will, due diligence is your middle name.

Vantage Wire – Especially useful site if you’re interested in Canadian resources investments. They provide a healthy dose of forums, blogs, and news article. Again these are typical relating to mining and mineral resources companies.

TMX.com – This is not the site for the latest in celebrity gossip (tmz). No, this is the site operated by the TMX group which coincidentally operates the major Canadian Stock exchanges. It turns out that their site is an excellent portal for stock news, the latest events relating to the stock market and another jumping off point for further research into Canadian stocks.

Yahoo! Finance Canada – Without trying to editorialize too much, Yahoo! is really a great portal company and they should stick to their strengths; being a portal. In this case I use this finance portal primarily for additional news gathering. While the site does offer additional resources, I find them to be very tailored toward American stocks. All well, but if you spend most of your investing in Canadian stocks you’ll need to look elsewhere (globeinvestor has some good portfolio management features)

Stock Screeners

These services are great for finding stocks meeting specific criteria that you are looking for in an investment. If you’re trying to find a discounted stock based P/E ratio, that type of filter is avialable. These screeners are useful, but I tend to use the globeinvestor screener out of habit.

http://tmx.quotemedia.com/screener.php?locale=EN

http://www.globeinvestor.com/v5/content/filters/

http://www2.morningstar.ca/tools/screener/ca/Stockscreener_b.aspx?region=CAN&culture=en-CA

An important element of screening I look at is volume. I want to make sure that I can comfortably build a position in a stock without having to worry about the really high bid-ask spreads that can occur with low volume stocks. I’ll save more details on this for another time.

LinkedIn Groups

This is a LinkedIn Group that you could consider joining on stocks and investing. But than that, I basically just wanted to highlight the fact that when you are researching companies or sectors, be sure to check out their social media presence as well. Most have them these days and it will allow you to see how other people are engaging with the comapnies in these locales. There are also Facebook groups you could consider joining.

LinkedIn

Not Directly Canadian but…

Elite Trader Forums – I like reading the elite trader forums for the perspective of professional traders. There are many career investors on this site sharing their insights. My philosophy is that if you can get into the minds of people making a living from this business day in and out, you can likely gleam some useful insights to apply to your own investing philosophy.

Seeking Alpha – This site is almost a portal of sorts too. Lots of op ed here too but from a lot of professional perspectives as well. In this site you will need to be conscious of people promoting stocks they have a vested interest in, but you’ll be smart and perform the due diligence required anyway…right?

StockRageous – This isn’t the nicest looking site out there but it does give a quick tabular view of active Canadian stocks by sector. So if you’re looking for a very quick way to see what’s active by sector you can use this service.

StockTwits – This site is a huge success. StockTwits is a financial communications platform for the financial and investing community. StockTwits created the $TICKER tag to enable and organize “streams” of information around stocks and markets across the web and social media. It’s like putting an investing lens on top of social media.

Research

InvestorsGuide – The InvestorsGuide site provides a lot of information for your researching needs. It is especially useful for American stocks, but does provide coverage for popular Canadian stocks as well. There is a sentiment analysis feature with is great to have a gauge of what the website audience is thinking about the specific stocks (bullish or bearish).

Morning Star – If you’ve ever been a mutual fund investor you’ve probably heard of Morning Star ratings. You can get individual stock information from the company as well. They are a wealth of information. Some of it is premium paid information. Whether you feel it’s a worthwhile investment is totally up to you but they do offer a free trial too.

Canadian Insider – The Canadian Insider is great site to get to exactly what company insiders are filing. This information is required to be public and can sometimes hint towards future moves in stock prices. By having this information you can use it to your advantage and will help you move towards an informed investment decision.

SEDAR – If you want access to ALL of the Canadian filings this is the site. It is the official site that provides access to most public securities documents and information filed by public companies and investment funds.

Blogs worth reading

There are so many great Canadian personal finance blogs out there that they deserve their own post! For now here is just a small sampling of a few that talk about investing along with other financial topics.

Million Dollar Journey – This site is probably the one that turned me on to the idea of blogging about investing. It’s a great honest approach to the subject of money and has added additional guest bloggers that share other perspectives on the subject as well.

Retire Happy Blog – The name says it all doesn’t it? Many people use investing as the primary vehicle to fund their retirement. Which is why this site is included on the list. Enjoy reading the detailed information on the site tuned to retirement related strategies.

Canadian Dream Free at 45 – This is another blog about retirement, but with the goal of retiring much earlier than the average. It’s a great exploration about investing, but has a healthy dose of mindset framing to allow yourself to think in terms of achieving the grand goal of early retirement. What early retirement means to you will be different than for anyone else, but this site will help you think in those terms and sort out what your goal should be.

The Dividend Guy Blog – A blog about investing in dividend stocks. Many large cap stocks pay out dividends. This will have an impact on the strategies you use to pick your stocks. The blog provides a wealth of information on specific dividend stocks along with the process the author uses to pick stocks to add to a portfolio.

The Financial Blogger – Another blog not just about investing but a great account of making money, what to do with, and how to make more.

If you have any more resources that need to be on the list please comment below! You can never have too much information when you’re investing. The problem is only what information you choose to listen to. By providing a jumping off point here, hopefully you will find some resources that you will find valuable in your investment journey.

PS:

…Ok so I was going to stop at 28 but here are 4 more that I needed to include. As I mentioned, there are some many great blogs out there that I wanted to share them with you:

Intelligent Speculator

Dividend Growth Investor

Where Does All My Money Go

The Wild Investor

What Is A Large Cap Stock?
The term large cap is used by many in the investing world to indicate a company that has a market capitalization over $5 billion.  This number is calculated by multiplying the number of outstanding shares in the company by the share price.  Although you don’t necessarily need to worry about that, sufficed to say that large caps are generally large well established companies that trade publicly on the stock market.

Why Large Cap Stocks?
Large cap stocks have two significant factors that make them appealing to investors.  Safety and liquidity.  Since most large companies are well established and well funded, they are at less of a risk of going under.  Your money is more likely to be safe investing in a large cap company than in a small cap company or penny stocks.  Of course, with decreased risk there is a decrease in reward but if you’re in it for the long run you’re likely to still make a good return on your investment.

The other main factor of Large Cap stocks is their liquidty.  This is a great feature for traders more so than long term investors but it basically means that there is a lot of exchanging in most large cap stocks.  With a lot of liquidity you have a better chance of getting the price you want either when you’re selling or buy a stock.  It also means that the spread between the bid and ask is usually very close together since there will usually be many people being able to come to agreement on a price.

What You’ll See On This Blog
This blog will present some general investing ideas and economic fundamentals as well as many specific investing strategies.  Further to this will be stock profiles that will present fundamental and technical analysis of a specific company and where we think it might be going.  This site will never suggest that you buy or sell any stock.  You should always contact an investment professional before investing any money.

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