Fundamentals of Investing, Canadian Edition, 2nd edition

Published by Pearson Canada (April 25, 2025) © 2026
  • Scott B. Smart
  • Chad J. Zutter
  • Vijay K. Vishwakarma
  • Ayse Yuce

Title overview

For undergraduate investment courses.

The core concepts and tools students need to make informed investment decisions

Fundamentals of Investing uses practical, hands-on applications and examples to introduce the topics and techniques used by both personal investors and money managers. The text focuses on both individual securities and portfolios, teaching students to consider the risk and return of different types of investments and how to use this knowledge to achieve financial goals. A consistent framework centered around learning objectives keeps readers focused in each chapter while a conversational tone makes the language, concepts, and strategies accessible to students. 

Content Features

  • Each chapter has questions that students can use StockTrak to answer. As users of this text, students are entitled to discounted access to StockTrak’s Global Portfolio Simulations. When a StockTrak account is established, each student will receive a virtual $500,000 to manage a portfolio of global stocks, options, bonds, futures, mutual funds, commodities, and currencies. Once a link is set up for the course, students may use the following coupon to receive their discount.
  • Each chapter in the book includes Investor Facts boxes containing interesting statistics and unconventional investment experiences. These facts provide a real-world perspective on the concepts discussed. Some examples covered in these boxes include the art market as an investment, the caution needed when reading analysts’ recommendations and media coverage of stocks, and the varying interpretations of financial return and risk across different cultures. The section also highlights the evolving landscape of finance and investment due to technological advancements and the emergence of new services like robo-advisors. Additionally, it addresses the challenges in obtaining accurate measures of stock return and emphasizes the importance of investor vigilance in detecting fraudulent activities. In one place, it sheds light on the unique investor behaviour observed among Canadian investors and the shifting global market correlations following the COVID-19 pandemic.
  • For many end-of-chapter problems, Excel templates are available. These templates do not solve problems for students; rather, they help students reach a solution faster by inputting data for them or by organizing facts presented in problems in a logical way. We also provide electronic Excel-based versions of many in-text tables, so students can see how the calculations in the tables work. They can also alter the baseline assumption in the tables to see how changing the assumptions affects the main results of each table.
  • Two Case Problems in each chapter encourage students to use higher-level critical thinking skills: to apply techniques presented in the chapter, to evaluate alternatives, and to recommend how an investor might solve a specific problem. Again, these problems are keyed to the Learning Objectives to point out the chapter topics that each problem illustrates.

New GenAI Study Tool

We’ve heard how important it is for students to use reliable AI tools in responsible and productive ways. To that end, Pearson is focused on creating tools that combine the power of generative AI with trusted Pearson content to provide students with a simplified study experience, delivering on-demand and personalised support that compliments your teaching and aligns with the text you’ve chosen. The Study Tool is available to students who access the Pearson eText on its own or through MyLab.

What can the AI Study Tool do?

  • Generate simplified explanations of challenging sections
  • Summarize material to help learners focus on key topics and ideas
  • Students can ask for multiple choice or short answer questions related to a specific chapter or section to help fill knowledge gaps
  • For extra practice, students can also generate flashcards and notes based on their chat interaction with the tool

New and updated features of this title

  • Current events, changing regulations, and other factors constantly reshape financial markets and investments in the Canadian market. This resource considers the effect of COVID-19 on all the investment concepts in different chapters. Virtually all topics in this text consider changes in the Canadian investment environment and incorporate diversity and Indigenous knowledge in financial concepts wherever possible.
  • For this edition we partnered with Justin Molander, CPA, CMA, and member of the Sapotaweyak Cree Nation, to provide insights on the Indigenous aspects of finance discussed in the text.

Key features

Important Digital Assets in MyLab Finance

  • New GenAI Study Tool. We’ve heard how important it is for students to use reliable AI tools in responsible and productive ways. To that end, Pearson is focused on creating tools that combine the power of generative AI with trusted Pearson content to provide students with a simplified study experience, delivering on-demand and personalised support that compliments your teaching and aligns with the text you’ve chosen.
  • Dynamic Study Modules: Using a highly personalized, algorithmically driven process, Dynamic Study Modules continuously assess student performance and provide additional practice in the areas where they struggle the most. Each Dynamic Study Module, accessed by computer, smartphone, or tablet, promotes fast learning and long-term retention
  • Excel Templates: Select Exercises and Problems in the textbook come with Excel spreadsheet templates that are set up so you can answer the question using Excel.
  • Translation Support. The new text translation tool provided in Pearson eTextbooks lets your students see on-screen translations of any word or section in the text. Available to support over 100 different languages, this innovative translation tool can reduce the risk of students’ comprehension being lost in translation—increasing their chances of success and ensuring greater inclusivity.
  • Video Lessons: Brief two to three-minute instructional videos that cover key definitions and concepts that are embedded within the eTextbook. They reinforce the content by expanding on examples and explaining key graphs and figures, which help students understand essential and difficult concepts. The videos appear in the eTextbook and can be assigned through the multimedia library of MyLab.
  • Three Sample CFA Exams. Each of these exams is patterned after the CFA Level I exam and comes with detailed answer guideline. The exams deal only with topics that are actually covered in the Canadian edition of Fundamentals of Investing and are meant to replicate as closely as possible the types of questions that appear on the standard Level I Exam. The Sample CFA Exams come in three lengths: 30 questions, 40 questions, and 50 questions. Each exam is unique and consists of a different set of questions, so students can take any one of the exams, or all of them, without running into any duplicate questions. Answers are included for immediate reinforcement.
  • Geogebra Animations for select figures allow students to manipulate key model inputs to illustrate concepts and reinforce learning.

Table of contents

  1. The Investment Environment
  2. Securities Markets and Transactions
  3. Investment Information and Securities Transactions
  4. Return and Risk
  5. Modern Portfolio Concepts
  6. Common Stocks
  7. Analyzing Common Stocks
  8. Stock Valuation
  9. Market Efficiency and Behavioural Finance
  10. Fixed-Income Securities
  11. Bond Valuation
  12. Mutual Funds and Exchange -Traded Funds
  13. Managing Your Own Portfolio
  14. Options: Puts and Calls
  15. Futures Marketsand Securities

Author bios

Scott B. Smart is a finance professor and the Whirlpool Finance Faculty Fellow at the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University. Dr. Smart received his BBA from Baylor University and his MA and PhD from Stanford University. His research focuses primarily on applied corporate finance topics and has been published in journals such as the Journal of Finance, the Journal of Financial Economics, the Journal of Corporate Finance, Financial Management, and others. His articles have been cited by business publications including The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, and Business Week. Winner of more than a dozen teaching awards, Dr. Smart has been listed multiple times as a top business school teacher by Business Week. He has held Visiting Professor positions at the University of Otago and Stanford University, and he worked as a Visiting Scholar for Intel Corporation, focusing on that company's mergers and acquisitions activity during the ‘‘Dot-com'' boom in the late 1990s. As a volunteer, Dr. Smart currently serves on the boards of the Indiana University Credit Union and Habitat for Humanity. In his spare time he enjoys outdoor pursuits such as hiking and fly fishing.

Chad J. Zutter is a finance professor and the Dean's Excellence Faculty Fellow at the Katz Graduate School of Business at the University of Pittsburgh. Dr. Zutter received his BBA from the University of Texas at Arlington and his PhD from Indiana University. His research has a practical, applied focus and has been the subject of feature stories in, among other prominent outlets, The Economist and CFO Magazine. His papers have been cited in arguments before the US Supreme Court and in consultation with companies such as Google and Intel. Dr. Zutter won the prestigious Jensen Prize for the best paper published in the Journal of Financial Economics and a best paper award from the Journal of Corporate Finance, where he is currently an Associate Editor. He has won teaching awards at the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University and the Katz Graduate School of Business at the University of Pittsburgh. Dr. Zutter also serves on the board of Lutheran SeniorLife and, prior to his career in academics, he was a submariner in the US Navy. Dr. Zutter and his wife have 4 children and live in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In his free time he enjoys horseback riding and downhill skiing.

Vijay Kumar Vishwakarma is an associate professor of finance at the Gerald Schwartz School of Business, St. Francis Xavier University. He received his Ph.D. and M.S. in Financial Economics from the University of New Orleans (New Orleans, USA). He has also earned an M.B.A., B.Sc. (Hons)—Physics, and M.Sc. (Hons)—Physics from India. He has taught finance, investments, derivatives, and financial statement analysis courses over the years at all levels at the University of New Orleans and St. Francis Xavier University. He has been honoured for his research and received a nomination for teaching excellence award for multiple years. His main research interests revolve around real estate, financial econometrics, and corporate finance, and he has published numerous research articles on global real estate and these issues.

Ayşe Yüce is a professor in the finance department at the Ted Rogers School of Management, Ryerson University. Professor Ayşe Yüce got her Ph.D. in finance from Louisiana State University, completing work for an M.B.A. degree and a B.S. in chemical engineering. She has taught various corporate finance, and investment courses for both graduate and undergraduate students. Her research focuses primarily on investments, international financial markets, investor behaviour in emerging markets, and liberalization and privatization in emerging markets. She has presented various papers at international conferences about emerging stock exchanges and investment opportunities and risk attitudes of the investors. She was awarded an SSHRC grant for her work on foreign direct investments. She has published many papers and books\ and has contributed chapters to many compilations.

Loading...Loading...Loading...