Pat McKeough

A professional investment analyst for more than 30 years, Pat has developed a stock-selection technique that has proven reliable in both bull and bear markets. His proprietary ValuVesting System™ focuses on stocks that provide exceptional quality at relatively low prices. Many savvy investors and industry leaders consider it the most powerful stock-picking method ever created.

As early as 1980, Pat was recognized as #1 in the world of published investment advice by the Washington, DC–based Newsletter Publishers Association, and he was the first multi-year winner of The Globe and Mail’s stock picking contest.

Both CBS MarketWatch and The Hulbert Financial Digest recognized Pat as one of North America’s top stock analysts. The Wall Street Journal called him “one of only four investment newsletter advisors who have managed to serve their readers well over the long haul.”

A best-selling Canadian author, he wrote Riding the Bull, his 1993 book that predicted the stock-market boom of the last half of that decade. Through his many television appearances, he is well-known to investors for his insightful analysis and his candid, unpretentious style.

Bottom line: Pat’s conservative, reduced-risk strategy is a proven approach to safe investing.

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If you want to find out how to hire a stock broker who meets your needs, you need to watch out above all for conflicts of interest
BONAVISTA ENERGY $8.02 (Toronto symbol BNP; Shares outstanding: 203.8 million; Market cap: $1.7 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Extra Risk; Dividend yield: 5.2%; www.bonavistaenergy.com) explores for oil and natural gas in Alberta, Saskatchewan and British Columbia. Its production is 70% gas and 30% oil.

In the three months ended December 31, 2014, Bonavista’s cash flow per share rose 1.6%, to $0.63 from $0.62 a year earlier.

The company’s output gained 14.3%, to 85,810 barrels of oil equivalent a day from 75,072. However, lower oil prices mostly offset the production increase and higher realized gas prices.

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LOBLAW COMPANIES $62.05 (Toronto symbol L; Shares outstanding: 412.5 million; Market cap: $25.8 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; Dividend yield: 1.6%; www.loblaw.ca) is testing a new home-delivery service with San Francisco-based Uber Technologies, which offers users rides from private drivers in 300 cities.

Users of Loblaw’s Click & Collect online service can order groceries from three of the company’s Toronto supermarkets. They can then pick up their goods at their local store and get a free ride home from Uber.

This is a limited-time promotion, but if it’s successful, Uber may offer Loblaw customers a discounted fare. That could prompt them to buy more groceries than they normally would.

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MARKET VECTORS VIETNAM ETF $18.22 (New York symbol VNM; buy or sell through brokers) holds Vietnamese companies or foreign firms that get a significant amount of their revenue from Vietnam.

The ETF’s top holdings are Vincom Corp. (real estate), 8.2%; Masan Group (a food, resources and banking conglomerate), 7.6%; Bank for Foreign Trade of Vietnam, 7.2%; Saigon Thuong Tin Commercial Bank, 6.4%; Hansae Co. (a South Korean clothing maker), 5.6%; Charoen Pokphand Foods (a Thailand-based food conglomerate), 5.1%; Hoang Anh Gia Lai Group (conglomerate), 4.7%; and Premier Oil (a U.K.-based producer with stakes in the huge Cuu Long basin off southern Vietnam), 4.6%.

The Market Vectors Vietnam ETF’s industry breakdown is as follows: Financials, 42.5%; Consumer Staples, 16.8%; Energy, 15.7%; Consumer Discretionary, 11.1%; Industrials, 6.6%; Materials, 4.6%; and Utilities, 2.6%. Its MER is 0.76%.

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ISHARES CHINA LARGE-CAP ETF $51.98 (New York symbol FXI; buy or sell through brokers) is an exchange traded fund that aims to track the Financial Times Stock Exchange (FTSE) China 50 Index, which is made up of the 50 largest, most liquid Chinese stocks. All of the companies in the index trade on the Hong Kong exchange. Some also trade as American depositary receipts (ADRs) on New York.

The fund’s top holdings are Tencent Holdings, 8.8%; China Mobile, 8.0%; China Construction Bank, 7.5%; Industrial & Commercial Bank, 6.8%; Bank of China, 5.9%; Ping An Insurance, 4.5%; China Life, 4.4%; CNOOC Ltd., 3.9%; PetroChina, 3.8%; China Petroleum and Chemical, 3.4%; and China Overseas Land & Investment, 2.5%.

The fund’s holdings give it the following industry breakdown: Financials, 48.1%; Telecommunications, 11.7%; Oil and Gas, 11.6%; Technology, 11.1%; Industrials, 6.2%; Consumer Goods, 6.4%; and Utilities, 2.1%. Its expense ratio is 0.74%.

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MANULIFE FINANCIAL $22.18 (Toronto symbol MFC; Shares outstanding: 2.0 billion; Market cap: $43.7 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; Dividend yield: 2.8%; www.manulife.ca) now gets about a third of its insurance premiums from Asia—but that’s about to rise sharply.

The company has just entered into a 15-year “bancassurance” partnership with Singapore-based banker DBS Group Holdings. The deal will let Manulife sell life and health insurance through DBS’s Asian branch network.

Manulife won the deal over a group of companies that included Aviva plc, Prudential and AIA Group. It will pay DBS $1.2 billion to replace Aviva in its branches.

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BCE INC. $54.15 (Toronto symbol BCE; Shares outstanding: 841.9 million; Market cap: $45.6 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; Dividend yield: 4.8%; www.bce.ca) is Canada’s largest provider of telephone, Internet and wireless services. It also offers satellite and Internet TV across the country.

In the three months ended March 31, 2015, BCE’s earnings per share rose 3.7%, to $0.84 from $0.81 a year earlier. Revenue increased 2.8%, to $5.2 billion from $5.1 billion.

Revenue from wireless services (30% of the total) rose 9.7% as the company’s network upgrades continue to attract new subscribers. It’s also gaining from rising use of smartphones, for which it charges higher service fees than regular cellphones.

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When investors get in the habit of using one investment measure to buy stocks, they often find that it can be dangerously misleading.
Focusing on one region can be risky for bank stocks and falling oil prices have compounded that risk for Canadian Western Bank.
H&R REIT $23.32 (Toronto symbol HR.UN; Units outstanding: 275.3 million; Market cap: $6.5 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Extra Risk; Dividend yield: 5.8%; www.hr-reit.com) owns stakes in 45 office buildings, 114 industrial properties and 340 shopping malls in Canada and the U.S. In December 2014, the REIT sold part ownership of 101 industrial properties in Canada and the U.S. for $731 million. In all, these buildings comprise 19.5 million square feet. The buyers include the Canadian Public Sector Pension Investment Board. H&R will keep a 50% interest in the Canadian properties and a 49.5% stake in the U.S. portfolio. It will also keep managing these assets and will receive fees for doing so. H&R will retain full ownership of 14 other industrial properties....