BA

BELL ALIANT INC. $26.70 (Toronto symbol BA: Shares outstanding: 127.4 million; Market cap: $3.4 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; Yield: 10.9%; www.aliant.ca) is the new name of Bell Aliant Regional Income Fund after its conversion to a dividend-paying corporation on January 1, 2011.

Bell Aliant has over 3.1 million telephone customers in Atlantic Canada and rural parts of Ontario and Quebec. …read more »

The proposed “cap-and-trade” bill making its way through the U.S. Congress aims to limit the amount of greenhouse gases (particularly carbon dioxide) that companies can emit. This will almost certainly drive up their costs. However, many businesses stand to profit as consumers look for ways to cut their energy use. We’ve examined three below. While all are leaders in “green” …read more »

THE BOEING CO. $43 (New York symbol BA; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Manufacturing & Industry sector; Shares outstanding: 726.4 million; Market cap: $31.2 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 0.5; WSSF Rating: Above Average) is focusing on improving the fuel-efficiency of its passenger jets. That should help it increase sales to cost-conscious airlines.

Boeing’s new 787 Dreamliner plane uses lightweight materials, like titanium and carbon …read more »

Green stocks have a lot of conceptual and emotional appeal, but may offer limited investment potential. Investments in environmental or green stocks may need a long time to move from the research or concept stage to profitability in the face of high initial costs and uncertain government subsidies. So they may not be profitable for investors.

It’s hard to set …read more »

The Successful Investor value investing approach follows the basic model set by the old-fashioned Graham/Dodd approach. Basically, it tries to identify well-financed companies that are well-established in their businesses and have a history of earnings and dividends. They are likely to survive any economic setback that comes along, and thrive anew when prosperity returns, as it inevitably does.
When we recommend …read more »

Wind power stocks include companies that make components for wind turbines and those that use wind turbines to generate power.
Although publicly traded wind companies are considered green stocks, wind power does draw some objections from environmental groups. It also faces some challenging technical problems.
Concept has appeal, but wind power is imperfect
One of the key problems with wind power is that …read more »

We’ve got four key Successful Investor investing for beginners tips that will help you profit from stock investing with less risk.

No matter how widely or narrowly you cast your information net, some of your investments will disappoint you. But that won’t matter if you apply these three tips. That’s because your near-inevitable gains will overwhelm your all-but-unavoidable losses.

Successful Investor …read more »

Bombardier makes most of its money from its airplane operations. This is a highly cyclical industry, and the recession has hurt demand for new planes. That’s mainly why Bombardier’s shares are down over 50% from last June’s peak of around $9.

However, Bombardier’s passenger-railcar business, while not as profitable, adds stability. The long-term outlook for this division remains bright, particularly as …read more »

BOMBARDIER INC. (Toronto symbols BBD.A $3.78 and BBD.B $3.65, Aggressive Growth Portfolio, Manufacturing & Industry sector; Shares outstanding: 1.7 billion; Market cap: $6.4 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 0.3; SI Rating: Extra Risk) is the world’s third-largest maker of commercial aircraft, after Boeing and Airbus. Bombardier’s aerospace division supplies about half of its revenue and two-thirds of its profits.
The remaining revenue and …read more »

Investor response to bad economic news often seems like an allergic reaction to a bee sting. Many investors take each new tidbit of economic news as the sure sign of an ominous new trend. But in fact, there’s a large random element in the economic news.

Economic statistics vary between one reporting period and the next, due to a variety of …read more »