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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NORANDA INCOME FUND $11.85 (Toronto symbol NIF.UN; SI Rating: Speculative) operates the CEZ processing facility in Salaberry-de-Valleyfield, Quebec. The fund currently yields 8.6%. The fund’s exposure to zinc prices and its lack of geographic diversification add to its risk....
ENERGY SAVINGS INCOME FUND $18.40 (Toronto symbol SIF.UN; SI Rating: Average) operates in Ontario, Manitoba, Alberta, Quebec, British Columbia, Illinois, and New York, selling natural gas to residential, small to mid-sized commercial, and small industrial customers under long-term, irrevocable fixed-price contracts....
WESTSHORE TERMINAL INCOME FUND $10.60 (Toronto symbol WTE.UN; SI Rating: Speculative) operates a coal storage and loading terminal at Roberts Bank, B.C. The trust yields 10.2%. Coal shipped from the mines owned by the Elk Valley Coal Partnership accounts for 90% of Westshore’s revenues....
CONSUMERS’ WATERHEATER INCOME FUND $13.62 (Toronto symbol CWI.UN; SI Rating: Speculative) owns a portfolio of approximately 1.3 million installed water heaters, rented primarily to residential customers in Ontario. The units currently yield 8.7%. A lot of the fund’s growth comes from installations in newly built homes....
ROGERS SUGAR INCOME FUND $4.15 (Toronto symbol RSI.UN; SI Rating: Speculative) is the leading refiner, processor, distributor and marketer of sugar products in western Canada. The fund has a current yield of 9.7%. Rogers Sugar is vulnerable to weather conditions affecting sugar beet production and prices....
IVY CANADIAN FUND $29.46 (CWA Rating: Conservative) invests in high-quality, largecapitalization stocks. The $4.8 billion fund’s top holdings include Shoppers Drug Mart, Yellow Pages Income Fund, Manulife Financial, Danaher Corp., Reckitt Benckister plc, Bank of Nova Scotia, Canadian National Railway, Loblaw, Imperial Oil and Omnicom Group. Ivy Canadian’s breakdown by industry is: Consumer staples, 26.9%; Financials, 21.6%; Consumer discretionary, 12.8%; Industrials, 12.7%; and Energy, 6.6%. Ivy Canadian made 8.4% annually over the last 10 years, compared to the S&P/TSX’s gain of 10.9%. The fund’s MER is 2.44%. It holds a high cash level of 9%....
IVY EUROPEAN FUND $11.72 (CWA Rating: Aggressive) holds mostly good quality stocks, although it has underperformed the benchmark Morgan Stanley indexes. We don’t see any reason to hold a mutual fund that concentrates in Europe. If you want European exposure, consider Ivy Foreign Equity Fund, or the closed-end European Equity Fund....
IVY ENTERPRISE FUND $4.55 invests in smaller and medium-sized companies. The $240.5 million fund has an MER of 2.46%. The fund’s overall choice of stocks doesn’t inspire our confidence. Its top holdings are RONA Inc., Winpak, Richie Brothers Auctioneers, National Instruments, Canadian Western Bank, Saxon Financial, Brown & Brown, Henry Schein and Robert Half International. We think investors can do better by buying some of the other small-cap funds we recommend in Canadian Wealth Advisor. Ivy Enterprise Fund is a sell.
IVY FOREIGN EQUITY FUND $26.03 (CWA Rating: Conservative) outperformed the Morgan Stanley benchmark international index over the last 10 years. The fund gained 8.0%, and that was better than the Morgan Stanley benchmark’s gain of 5.7%. Ivy Foreign Equity Fund made 5.1% over the last year. The fund invests in companies based outside of Canada, but cuts risk by avoiding direct investment in emerging markets. Ivy Foreign Equity is one of our top foreign fund recommendations. Still, we think non-U.S. international funds should make up at most perhaps 10% of the holdings of a conservative investor. The fund’s top 10 holdings are Reckitt Benckister plc (UK household & healthcare products), Brown & Brown (U.S. insurance), Danaher Corp. (U.S. control products and tools), Essilor International SA (corrective eyewear), Henry Schein Inc., (U.S. healthcare), PepsiCo (U.S. food & beverage), William Demant (hearing health products), Omnicom (U.S. media services), Diageo plc (UK alcoholic drinks) and Ecolab Inc. (U.S. maintenance & cleaning products)....
IVY GROWTH AND INCOME FUND $23.18 (CWA Rating: Conservative) (Mackenzie Financial Corp., 150 Bloor St. West, Toronto, Ont. M5S 3B5. 1-800-387-0780; Web site: www.mackenziefinancial.com. Load fund — available from brokers) is a balanced fund, holding a mixture of stocks, bonds and cash. The fund has performed well, returning 8.3% annually for the 10 years. It made 4.4% over the last year. The fund’s MER is 2.17%. The fund’s top stock holdings are Shoppers Drug Mart, PepsiCo, Omnicom Group (U.S. media services), Bank of Nova Scotia, Danaher Corp. (U.S. control products and tools), Reckitt Benckiser plc (UK household & healthcare products), Yellow Pages Income Fund, Manulife Financial and CN Railway. This $3.7 billion fund holds 19% of its assets in bonds. Interest rates on bonds are now under 5% annually in Canada. That’s the total return that a bond can provide, from today until it matures. However, bonds leave investors at the mercy of inflation, which shrinks the purchasing power of all fixed-return investments. In fact, an upsurge in inflation could wipe out all returns on bonds, and some of their principal besides....