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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BMO DIVIDEND FUND $44.99 (BMO Mutual Funds, 77 King Street West, Suite 4200, Royal Trust Tower, Toronto, Ont., M5K 1J5, 1-800-665-7700; Web site: www.bmo.com. No load — deal directly with the bank) (CWA Rating: Conservative) currently holds about 36.3% of its portfolio in the Financial services industry. Its next-largest holdings are Energy at 24.4% and Consumer discretionary at 9.1%. BMO Dividend Fund’s largest holdings are Manulife Financial, Bank of Nova Scotia, CIBC, Royal Bank of Canada, Power Financial Corporation, Toronto-Dominion Bank, TransCanada Corporation, Imperial Oil, Suncor Energy, EnCana Corporation, Enbridge Inc., Husky Energy and Sun Life Financial. Over the last five years, the $5.2 billion BMO Dividend Fund has posted a 12.1% annual rate of return. That’s under the S&P/TSX’s gain of 18.2%. However, the S&P/TSX index held a high 40% or so of its holdings in Resources shares. That’s been one of the best-performing, although riskiest, sectors. The fund lost 5.6% over the last year, compared to a gain of 6.8% for the S&P/TSX index. BMO Dividend’s MER is 1.71%....
ISHARES CANADIAN BOND INDEX FUND $28.67 (CWA Rating: Income) (Toronto symbol XBB; buy or sell through a broker) mirrors the performance of the DEX Universe Bond Index. This index consists of a diversified range of investment grade Canadian government and corporate bonds, with a term to maturity of more than one year. At last report, the bonds in the index were 41.5% Government of Canada bonds, 26.7% Provincial government bonds, 2.1% municipal bonds and 28.8% corporate bonds....
ISHARES CANADIAN SHORT BOND INDEX FUND $28.31 (CWA Rating: Income) (Toronto symbol XSB; buy or sell through a broker) mirrors the performance of the DEX Short Term Bond Index. This index consists of a diversified range of investment grade federal, provincial, municipal and corporate bonds, with terms to maturity of between one and five years. Top issuers include the Government of Canada, Canada Housing Trust, RBC Capital Trust, the Province of Ontario and the Province of Quebec....
TRIMARK FUND $28.55 (CWA Rating:Conservative) (AIM Funds Management Inc., 5140 Yonge Street, Suite 900, Toronto, Ontario M2N 6X7. 1-800-631-7008; Website: www.aimfunds.ca. Buy or sell through brokers) takes a value-seeking investment approach, and this cuts its risk. This fund sticks to the long-time Trimark Investments approach to stock-picking — buying high-quality investments and holding them for the long term. That Trimark Investments strategy eventually gives investors steady returns, with below-average risk. The $4.2 billion Trimark Fund’s top 10 holdings are Nestle SA (Swiss food & beverages), Nokia (Finnish mobile phones), Novartis AG (health care and pharmaceuticals), Reed Elsevier NV (Netherlands publishing & data), Grupo Televisa SA de CV (Mexican television & media), Anglo-Irish Bank Corp. (Irish banking), WPP Group plc (UK marketing & advertising), Adidas AG (German sporting goods & apparel), Willis Group Holdings (UK insurance) and Accor SA (French hotels & business services). Regionally, the fund’s portfolio is now distributed 28.9% in the U.S., 16.3% in the UK, 16.1% in Switzerland, 7.6% in Ireland, 7.0% in Germany, 5.3% in Finland and 3.9% in France. The MER for this fund from Trimark Investments is 1.62%....
JAPAN EQUITY FUND $4.51 (New York symbol JEQ; CWA Rating: Aggressive) invests mostly in large capitalization stocks on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. The fund’s top holdings include: Toyota Motor, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, East Japan Railway Co., Shin-Etsu Chemical Co....
TRIMARK CANADIAN RESOURCES FUND $18.69 (CWA Rating: Aggressive) (AIM Funds Management Inc., 5140 Yonge Street, Suite 900, Toronto, Ontario M2N 6X7. 1-800-631-7008; Website: www.aimfunds.ca. Buy or sell through brokers.) includes firms we’d rate as Speculative in its top picks. However, we like Trimark Canadian Resources Fund’s value-seeking, conservative approach to picking stocks in the volatile resource sector. The $626.7 million fund’s top holdings are Talisman Energy, EnCana Corporation, Labrador Iron Ore Royalty Income Fund, West Fraser Timber Co. Ltd., Enerflex Systems, Plum Creek Timber Co. REIT, Mayr-Meinhof Karton AG, Savanna Energy Services, Umicore S.A. and Range Resources Corp. Trimark Canadian Resources Fund is broken down by sector as follows: Energy, 34.3%; materials, 37.6%; and Consumer discretionary, 2.7%....
TD RESOURCE FUND $37.66 (CWA Rating: Aggressive) (TD Asset Management, P.O. Box 7500, Station A, Toronto, Ontario. M5W 1P9. 1-800-386-3757; Web ite:www.tdcanadatrust.ca. No load — deal directly with the bank) invests in companies with superior asset bases, proven management and the ability to internally finance growth. The $279.9 million TD Resource Fund’s top stock holdings are mostly of ‘Average’ quality or higher. The fund’s holdings include Suncor Energy, EnCana Corporation, Talisman Energy Inc., Goldcorp, Yamana Gold, Petro-Canada, Nexen, Alcoa, BHP Billiton, Husky Energy, Chevron Corporation, Marathon Oil Corporation and Weatherford International. TD Resource Fund’s industry breakdown is: Energy, 58.5%; and Basic materials, 39.2%. Its MER is 2.17%....
ISHARES MCSI CANADA INDEX FUND $33 (American Exchange symbol EWC; buy or sell through brokers) is almost 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 if you want to own a Canadian index fund then you should buy the iShares CDN LargeCap 60 units. You’ll pay about a third of the management fees....
NASDAQ-100 TRUST SHARES $45 (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 Celgene. Nasdaq-100 Trust Shares are a buy for aggressive investors only.
DIAMONDS TRUST SHARES $112 (American Exchange symbol DIA; buy or sell through brokers) hold the 30 stocks that make up the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Currently, the fund’s top 10 holdings are IBM, 3M, Boeing Co., United Technologies, Caterpillar, McDonald’s Corp., Chevron Corp., Johnson & Johnson, Procter & Gamble and Exxon Mobil. Expenses are about 0.18% of assets. Diamonds Trust Shares are a buy.