Week in Review: May 13, 2013 - May 17, 2013

This Week’s Reports

Rising pet ownership has sparked big gains for this stock

Suncor set to prosper even with lower oil prices

Investor Toolkit: What you need to know about share splits—and consolidations

Two Canadian ETFs that profit from rising markets

Junior Canadian financial stock looks to build on share price rebound

As the markets keep moving, more opportunities are opening up with undervalued stocks that are due to surge. Now is the time to act. Pat McKeough’s conservative approach to aggressive investing uncovers stocks that have produced enormous gains even in volatile markets. That’s a …read more »

Pat McKeough responds to many requests for specific advice on stock tips and other questions on investment and the economy from the members of his Inner Circle. Every week, his comments and recommendations on the most intriguing questions of the past week go out to all Inner Circle members. And each week, we offer you one of the highlights from these Q&A sessions. While we reserve our buy-hold-sell advice for Inner Circle members, these excerpts provide a great deal of information and analysis on stocks we’ve covered for members of …read more »

Most U.S. markets have risen lately, while Canada’s resource-heavy Toronto Stock Exchange has lagged. But as always, both remain subject to unexpected downturns.

One way to profit from rising markets is to add exchange traded funds (ETFs) that track major stock indexes to your portfolio. ETFs trade on stock exchanges, just like stocks. Prices are quoted in newspaper stock tables and online. You must pay brokerage commissions to buy and sell ETFs, but their low management fees still give them a cost advantage over most mutual funds.

As well, shares are …read more »

Every Wednesday, we publish our “Investor Toolkit” series on TSI Network. Whether you’re a beginning or experienced investor, these weekly updates are designed to give you investment advice, including specific stock investing tips. Each Investor Toolkit update gives you a fundamental piece of investing strategy, and shows you how you can put it into practice right away.

Today’s tip: “A share split may make a stock more attractive to many investors, but it’s far from the most important reason to buy a stock.”

When a company splits its shares, it …read more »

Slowing industrial activity in North America and China has pushed down oil demand. At the same time, rising shale oil production from North Dakota’s Bakken region has increased inventories. Both of these factors have weighed on prices.

However, low prices are a mixed blessing for integrated oil companies like Suncor Energy. They earn less profit by producing crude, but their refineries also pay less for the oil they use.

SUNCOR ENERGY INC. (Toronto symbol SU; www.suncor.com) recently agreed to sell its conventional natural gas operations in Alberta, northeastern British Columbia and southern …read more »

More Americans own pets than ever before, and the trend looks set to keep rising. That should continue to increase the earnings of leading companies in the business. Today we examine whether PetSmart can continue the success it has enjoyed in recent years.

PETSMART INC. (Nasdaq symbol PETM; www.petm.com) operates 1,269 pet stores in the U.S. and Canada. It also has 195 in-store PetsHotels, which look after pets while their owners are away.

In its 2013 fiscal year, which ended February 3, 2013, PetSmart’s earnings rose 34.2%, to $389.5 million from …read more »