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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Stock investment clubs can help new investors find quality stocks and develop their own investing style. But watch out for the drawbacks.
DIAGEO PLC ADRs $126 (New York symbol DEO; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Consumer sector; ADRs outstanding: 627.8 million; Market cap: $79.1 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 4.2; Dividend yield: 2.6%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.diageo.com) is the world’s largest premium alcoholic beverage company. Its major brands include Guinness stout, Smirnoff vodka, Johnnie Walker whisky and Captain Morgan rum.

The company recently offered to buy a further 26% of United Spirits, India’s largest distiller. This publicly traded business also imports and distributes alcoholic drinks made by companies outside of India.

Diageo’s offer is worth $1.9 billion. If successful, its stake would rise to 54.8%.

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PEPSICO INC. $87 (New York symbol PEP; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Consumer sector; Shares outstanding: 1.5 billion; Market cap: $130.5 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 2.0; Dividend yield: 3.0%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.pepsico.com) is the world’s second-largest soft drink maker after Coca-Cola. It also makes other products, such as Frito-Lay snack foods, Gatorade sports drinks, Tropicana fruit juices and Quaker Oats cereals.

Consumers are becoming increasingly concerned about the health effects of soft drinks, as well as potato chips and other snacks. The company continues to develop more nutritious alternatives in response.

For example, it owns the exclusive soft drink rights to a new type of sweetener called Sweetmyx, which lets food makers use less sugar in their products. At the same time, PepsiCo is cutting salt and fat from its foods.

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NVIDIA CORP. $19 (Nasdaq symbol NVDA; Aggressive Growth Portfolio, Manufacturing & Industry sector; Shares outstanding: 558.0 million; Market cap: $10.6 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 2.6; Yield: 1.8%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.nvidia.com) earned $166.1 million in the quarter ended April 27, 2014. That’s up 45.9% from $113.8 million a year ago. Per-share earnings jumped 61.1%, to $0.29 from $0.18, on fewer shares outstanding.

Sales rose 15.5%, to $1.1 billion from $954.7 million, thanks to strong demand for Nvidia’s new high-end video chips. However, it faces strong competition from larger chip makers as it expands into new markets, like mobile devices and data centres.

Nvidia is a hold.

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ADOBE SYSTEMS INC. $65 (Nasdaq symbol ADBE; Aggressive Growth Portfolio, Manufacturing & Industry sector; Shares outstanding: 497.7 million; Market cap: $32.4 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 8.3; No dividends paid since June 2005; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.adobe.com) earned $151.3 million, or $0.30 a share, in its fiscal 2014 first quarter, which ended February 28, 2014. That’s down 14.9% from $177.9 million, or $0.35, a year ago. Revenue fell 0.8%, to $1.00 billion from $1.01 billion.

The declines are mainly because Adobe is now selling its Creative Cloud package of photo-editing and desktop-publishing programs as a subscription instead of a one-time purchase. That hurts the company’s short-term growth, but it should provide stable revenue streams as more users switch over. Subscriptions now supply over half of Adobe’s revenue.

The company spends 21% of its revenue on research, which hurts its earnings. That’s partly why the stock trades at a high 59.1 times the $1.10 a share that Adobe will likely earn in fiscal 2014. A high p/e increases the risk of a sudden price drop if its growth stalls. As well, Adobe mainly serves customers in cyclical businesses, like publishing.

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GOOGLE INC. $562 (Nasdaq symbol GOOG; Aggressive Growth Portfolio, Manufacturing & Industry sector; Shares outstanding: 674.5 million; Market cap: $379.1 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 6.1; No dividends paid; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.google.com) recently handed out its new class C non-voting shares to its class A (one vote per share) and class B (10 votes per share) shareholders. Investors received one class C share for each stock held, for an effective 2-for-1 split.

The new class C shares trade on Nasdaq under the GOOG symbol, while the class A shares ($570), now trade under the new GOOGL symbol.

If voting and non-voting shares trade for roughly the same price, you are better off buying the voting shares. That’s because the voting shares sometimes go on to trade at a premium, possibly due to buying by a shareholder who is only seeking to acquire a control position, or because institutions refuse to buy non-voters.

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MICROSOFT CORP. $40 (Nasdaq symbol MSFT; Aggressive Growth Portfolio, Manufacturing & Industry sector; Shares outstanding: 8.3 billion; Market cap: $332.0 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 4.1; Dividend yield: 2.8%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.microsoft.com) is the world’s largest software company. It went into business in 1975 and grew rapidly over the next 25 years as its Windows operating system dominated the personal computer market. About 90% of the world’s computers now use the Windows operating system.

In the late 1980s, the company launched its Office suite of business programs, including a word processor (Word), spreadsheets (Excel) and slide presentations (PowerPoint). Office accounts for over 90% of this market.

Microsoft also controls about 75% of the market for software that runs corporate network servers. That helps support sales of Windows and Office, because businesses prefer to have their servers and employees’ computers running the same software. This compatibility makes it easier for users to upgrade their software and protect sensitive data.

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short selling
Every Wednesday, we publish our “Investor Toolkit” series on TSI Network. Whether you’re a new or experienced investor, these weekly updates are designed to give you advice on the stock market and other investment topics that will help you develop a successful approach to investing. Each Investor Toolkit update gives you a fundamental tip and shows you how you can put it into practice right away. Today’s tip: “In theory, there is nothing wrong with hedge funds, but in practice it’s much more difficult to make money shorting bad stocks than it is buying good ones.”...
stock market advice
Kemie Guaida
We’ve had great success with companies spun off from larger parent firms in the past few years. That’s mainly because spinoffs let both companies focus on their already well-established businesses. As well, a parent will only hand out a subsidiary’s shares to its own investors if it’s confident the spinoff will benefit both companies. Last week, we covered a spinoff that has been successful so far, Mondelez (see the article here). This week we examine the company that spun it off, Kraft Foods. We cover both of these stocks in our advisory on U.S. investing, Wall Street Stock Forecaster....
buying stocks
Pat McKeough responds to many requests from members of his Inner Circle for specific advice about buying stocks as well as questions on investment strategy and the economy. 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 Pat’s Inner Circle. This week we had a question from an Inner Circle member about one of Canada’s three big grocery chains. Already the owner of Sobeys, Empire made a major acquisition late last year when it added the Canadian stores of U.S. chain Safeway. The deal gave the company a much larger presence in Western Canada to offset its concentration of Sobeys stores in eastern Canada. Pat examines the company’s business with Safeway on board and assesses the rewards and potential hidden risks of this big acquisition. ...