How To Invest
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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PENGROWTH ENERGY TRUST $9.90 (Toronto symbol PGF.UN; Shares outstanding: 255.66 million; Market cap: $2.7 billion; SI Rating: Average) produces oil and gas in western Canada, as well as offshore Nova Scotia. Production is weighted 49% toward oil and liquids and 51% natural gas. Pengrowth’s debt stands at 50% of market cap. To conserve cash in the face of lower oil and gas prices, Pengrowth cut its quarterly distribution with the January, 2009 payment by 24.5%, to $0.17 from $0.225. The units now yield 20.6%. Pengrowth now trades at 3.9 times its estimated 2009 cash flow of $2.55 a share....
CRESCENT POINT ENERGY TRUST $24.32 (Toronto symbol CPG.UN; Shares outstanding: 125.2 million; Market cap: $3.0 billion; SI Rating: Speculative) produces oil and gas in western Canada. Production is currently weighted 87% toward oil and 13% to natural gas. Crescent Point’s debt of $723.6 million is low, at around 22% of market cap. The trust’s monthly distribution of $0.23 gives the units a yield of 11.4%. Crescent Point flowed just 47% of its cash flow through to its unitholders in the latest quarter. Crescent Point continues to focus on its light oil Bakken development in southeast Saskatchewan. The Bakken is one of the largest oil fields in Western Canada....
IMPERIAL OIL $40.18 (Toronto symbol IMO; Shares outstanding: 869.7 million; Market cap: $34.9 billion; SI Rating: Average) is Canada’s largest integrated oil company. Imperial’s 2,000 retail gas stations under the “Esso” banner provide diversification. ExxonMobil owns 69.6% of Imperial’s stock. Imperial’s production is set to rise in the long term, thanks to its new oil sands projects. This includes the 70%-owned Kearl Lake project. Imperial had hoped Kearl Lake would begin production by 2011. Now, however, it will probably delay work on the project until oil prices improve. The outlook for Imperial’s refining business is strong, partly due to a shortage of competition. Imperial’s refining profits could also keep expanding, since gasoline takes longer to fall than oil....
ENCANA CORP. $57.80 (Toronto symbol ECA; Shares outstanding: 749.8 million; Market cap: $43.3 billion; SI Rating: Average) is a leading North American producer of natural gas and oil. Natural gas accounts for 80% of its production. EnCana focuses on unconventional properties, such as early-stage gas fields and oil sands. These have much longer production lives than conventional properties. Right now, that gives EnCana a longer term resource base than Imperial Oil, although a return to high oil and gas prices would let Imperial continue to develop some of its higher-cost oil sands and Arctic natural gas prospects. EnCana has postponed its plan to break itself up into two separate companies — one focusing on natural gas, the other on oil sands and oil refineries. That’s because falling energy prices and the problems in credit markets would likely make it difficult for the two new smaller companies to raise capital to fund new projects....
CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILWAY LTD. $44 (Toronto symbol CP; Shares outstanding: 153.8 million; Market cap: $6.8 billion; SI Rating: Average) transports freight over a rail network between Montreal and Vancouver. In the United States, subsidiaries connect CP Rail’s Canadian lines to major hubs in the Midwest and Northeast. Alliances with other railways extend its reach to Mexico. In the three months ended September 30, 2008, CP Rail’s earnings per share excluding one-time items fell 2.4%, to $1.20 from $1.23. Like most railways, CP Rail uses surcharges to offset higher fuel costs. This pushed up revenue by 6.5%, to $1.3 billion from $1.2 billion. CP Rail’s fuel costs rose 49% in the third quarter. Consequently, its operating ratio (regular operating costs divided by revenue — the lower, the better) weakened to 76.0% from 72.9% a year earlier. However, falling oil prices and a new productivity improvement plan should help CP Rail cut its costs. The rising U.S. dollar is a plus for the company, as it pushes up the contribution of its U.S. operations....
PENN WEST ENERGY TRUST $16.04 (Toronto symbol PWT.UN; Shares outstanding: 384.4 million; Market cap: $6.2 billion; SI Rating: Speculative) is the largest conventional oil and gas trust in North America. In the three months ended September 30, 2008, Penn West’s revenue rose 113.6%, to $1.2 billion from $628 million, largely due to acquisitions. Cash flow per unit rose 20.1%, to $1.73 from $1.44. Penn West trades at 2.3 times cash flow per share based on the 12 months. Penn West now has average daily production of 190,177 barrels of oil equivalent (weighted 44% to natural gas and 56% to oil). The units yield 25.4%....
PENGROWTH ENERGY TRUST $10.09 (Toronto symbol PGF.UN; Shares outstanding: 254.6 million; Market cap: $2.6 billion; SI Rating: Average) produces oil and gas in western Canada, as well as offshore Nova Scotia. Pengrowth’s average daily production of 80,981 barrels of oil equivalent is weighted 49% toward oil and liquids and 51% natural gas. In the three months ended September 30, 2008, Pengrowth’s revenue rose 23.3%, to $518.7 million from $420.7 million. Cash flow per unit rose 23.6%, to $1.10 from $0.89....
ARC ENERGY TRUST $18.72 (Toronto symbol AET.UN; Shares outstanding: 215.3 million; Market cap: $4.0 billion; SI Rating: Speculative) produces oil and gas in western Canada. In the three months ended September 30, 2008, ARC’s revenue rose 61.8%, to $485.7 million from $300.2 million. Cash flow per unit rose 36.5%, to $1.16 from $0.85. The rise in cash flow came largely from higher oil and natural gas prices. ARC’s average daily production of 64,325 barrels of oil per day equivalent is weighted 50% toward oil and 50% natural gas. ARC’s debt remains low, at 17% of market cap. The trust has just lowered its monthly distribution by 16.7%, to $0.20 from $0.24. The units now yield 12.8%. ARC flowed only 68% of its cash flow through to its unitholders as distributions in the latest quarter. The units trade at 4.4 times cash flow based on the 12 months....
ISHARES MCSI CANADA INDEX FUND $15.98 (American Exchange symbol EWC; buy or sell through brokers) is like a market-cap based index fund, but it tinkers with the index fund formula to try and improve performance by using its proprietary Morgan Stanley Capital International Canada Index. The U.S.-based fund also has to work around foreign ownership restrictions. iShares MCSI Canada Index Fund is managed by Barclays Global Investors and has an MER of 0.54%. We think that if you want to own a Canadian index fund, you should buy the iShares CDN LargeCap 60. You’ll pay about a third of the management fees. We don’t recommend iShares MCSI Canada Index Fund.
NASDAQ-100 TRUST SHARES $28.62 (Nasdaq Exchange symbol QQQQ; buy or sell through brokers) or ‘Qubes’, hold the stocks that represent the Nasdaq 100 Index. This index is made up of the 100 largest and most heavily traded stocks on the Nasdaq exchange. The index reflects firms across major industry groups including computer hardware and software, telecommunications, retail/wholesale trade and biotechnology. It does not contain financial companies. Expenses are about 0.20% of assets. The top 10 highest-weighted stocks are Apple, Microsoft, Qualcomm, Google, Cisco, Intel, Research in Motion, Gilead Sciences, Oracle and Amgen. Nasdaq-100 Trust Shares are a buy for aggressive investors only.