In addition, Pat thinks then beginner investors should cultivate two important qualities: a healthy sense of skepticism and patience.
Investors should approach all investments with a healthy sense of skepticism. This can help keep you out of fraudulent stocks that masquerade as high-quality stocks. It will also keep you out of legally operated, but poorly managed, companies that promise more than they can possibly deliver.
If you are a new investor, you should also realize that losing patience can cause you to sell your best choices right before a big rise. All too often, investors buy a promising stock just as it enters a period of price stagnation. Even the best-performing stocks run into these unpredictable phases from time to time. They move mainly sideways in a wide range for months or years before their next big rise begins. (Stock brokers often refer to these stocks as “dead money.”)
If you lack patience, you run a big risk of selling your best choices in the midst of one of these phases, prior to the next big move upward. If you lose patience and sell, you are particularly likely to do so in the low end of the trading range, when stock prices have weakened and confidence in the stock has waned.
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The ETF’s top holdings include Toyota, 6.1%; Mitsubishi UFJ Financial, 3.1%; Softbank Corp., 3.0%; Honda Motor, 2.5%; Sumitomo Mitsui Financial, 2.4%; Mizuho Financial Group, 1.8%; Hitachi, 1.4%; Takeda Pharmaceutical, 1.3%; Canon, 1.3%; and Mitsubishi Estate Co., 1.3%.
The fund’s industry breakdown is as follows: Financials, 21.5%; Consumer Discretionary, 20.9%; Industrials, 19.3%; Information Technology, 10.4%; Consumer Staples, 6.3%; Health Care, 6.0%; Materials, 5.9%; Telecommunication Services, 5.8%; Utilities, 2.5%; and Energy, 1.2%.
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As a result, Pengrowth’s average daily production fell 11.7% in the three months ended September 30, 2013, to 83,275 barrels of oil equivalent (57% gas, 43% oil) from 94,284 a year earlier. But thanks to higher prices, cash flow per share rose 10.7%, to $0.31 from $0.28.
The stock is up 33% since the start of 2013, but it still trades at just 5.8 times the company’s forecast 2014 cash flow of $1.14 a share.
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ENERPLUS CORP. $18.97 (Toronto symbol ERF; Shares outstanding: 202.1 million; Market cap: $3.8 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Extra Risk; Dividend yield: 5.7%) produces an average of 87,729 barrels of oil equivalent a day (52% gas and 48% oil).
The company’s properties are mainly in Alberta, Saskatchewan, B.C., North Dakota and Montana, as well as the Marcellus Shale, which passes through Pennsylvania, New York, Ohio and West Virginia.
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In the quarter ended September 30, 2013, ARC’s cash flow per share rose 29.1%, to $0.71 from $0.55 a year earlier. Production gained 5.6%, plus its gas prices rose 20.0% and oil prices increased 24.6%.
ARC’s long-term debt is $739.8 million, or a low 8.0% of its market cap. It trades at 8.6 times its forecast 2014 cash flow of $3.36 a share.
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In its fiscal 2013 fourth quarter, which ended October 31, 2013, the bank earned $1.30 a share, up 10.2% from $1.18 a year earlier.
Higher loan demand and an increase in deposits pushed up the Canadian banking division’s earnings by 23.3%. That includes the contribution from ING Direct, which Bank of Nova Scotia bought for $3.1 billion in late 2012. ING Direct offers a variety of no-fee banking services, mainly over the Internet. It has 1.8 million customers and $30 billion of deposits.
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