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Loblaw Companies Ltd., Toronto symbol L, continues to expand its private-label business. That’s because the company earns higher profits selling private-label merchandise than national brands.
In October 2011, Loblaw is launching a new line of gourmet foods under the President’s Choice Black Label brand. These foods include mustards, condiments, dressings and sauces, biscuits, crackers, nuts and desserts. Products like these should …read more »
LOBLAW COMPANIES $36 (Toronto symbol L; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Consumer sector; Shares outstanding: 282.2 million; Market cap: $11.0 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 1.0; Dividend yield: 2.1%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.loblaw.ca) has opened five stand-alone Joe Fresh casual-clothing stores since October 2010. It plans to open five more stores by the end of 2011. It eventually wants to expand the chain …read more »
Loblaw and Metro have cut their costs and upgraded their inventory-management systems. The resulting savings are helping increase their profits, even with higher food costs and rising competition. Loblaw has a higher p/e ratio than Metro, but that reflects its wider geographic reach and expansion into non-food businesses, like clothing. Metro’s subordinate-voting shares also weigh on its p/e.
LOBLAW COMPANIES …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 specific advice on how to make winning stock picks. 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 …read more »
TORSTAR CORP. $12.35 (Toronto symbol TS.B; Shares outstanding: 78.9 million; Market cap: $974.4 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; Dividend yield: 2.7%; target=”_blank”>www.torstar.com) continues to expand its Internet businesses. That’s helping it offset slowing advertising and circulation revenue at its newspapers. However, these investments cut its earnings by 7.0% in the three months ended March 31, 2011, to $15.4 …read more »
TRANSCANADA CORP. $37.42 (Toronto symbol TRP; Shares outstanding: 693 million; Market cap: $25.9 billion; SI Rating: Above Average; Dividend yield: 4.3%; www.transcanada.com) agreed to build a natural-gas-fired electrical-power plant in Oakville, Ontario, in 2008. It also signed a 20-year deal to sell this plant’s electricity to Ontario’s power regulators.
However, the Ontario government now feels that the plant is no …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 »
A few years ago, many investors valued drug stocks the way they value the top software makers, bidding them up to 30 or more times earnings. However, drug stocks are riskier than investors generally realize.
Because of that, while drug stocks can show fantastic profits, it might be more appropriate to value drug makers the way you value companies that are …read more »
