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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TRANSCANADA CORP. $49.44 (Toronto symbol TRP; Shares outstanding: 708.9 million; Market cap: $36.0 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; Dividend yield: 4.2%; www.transcanada.com) still hopes its Keystone XL pipeline will be approved, even though Alberta’s new NDP government has withdrawn the province’s support for the project.

Keystone XL would pump crude from Alberta’s oil sands to the U.S. Gulf Coast. Due to various delays, the company now expects Keystone XL to cost $8.0 billion U.S.

Meanwhile, TransCanada has improved its efficiency and adopted new technologies, both of which are helping it pump more oil through its existing Keystone pipeline between Alberta and refineries in Illinois.

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VERESEN $14.25 (Toronto symbol VSN; Shares outstanding: 290.0 million; Market cap: $4.3 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Average; Dividend yield: 7.0%; www.vereseninc.com) owns pipelines, power plants and gas-processing facilities across North America.

A major holding is 50% of the Alliance gas line, which runs 3,000 kilometres between Chicago and Fort St. John, B.C. Veresen also owns the Alberta Ethane Gathering System, 42.7% of the Aux Sable NGL plant and the Hythe/Steeprock natural gas gathering and processing complex in the Cutbank Ridge region of Alberta and B.C.

In the three months ended June 30, 2015, Veresen’s cash flow per share fell 24.1%, to $0.22 from $0.29 a year earlier.

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PEMBINA PIPELINE $37.12 (Toronto symbol PPL; Shares outstanding: 340.4 million; Market cap: $13.0 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Average; Dividend yield: 4.7%; www.pembina.com) owns pipelines that carry half of Alberta’s conventional oil, 30% of Western Canada’s natural gas liquids (NGLs) and almost all of B.C.’s conventional oil.

Pembina also owns extensive facilities to extract, process and store NGLs.

In the three months ended March 31, 2015, the company’s cash flow per share fell 24.1%, to $0.63 from $0.83 a year earlier. That’s mainly because lower oil and gas prices cut profit margins and volumes at its NGL extraction business.

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CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILWAY LTD. $208.83 (Toronto symbol CP; Shares outstanding: 161.0 million; Market cap: $34.0 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; Dividend yield: 0.7%; www.cpr.ca) transports freight over a 22,000-kilometre rail network between Montreal and Vancouver, as well as hubs in the U.S. Midwest and Northeast.

CP continues to benefit from lower fuel prices and an aggressive cost-cutting plan, but the slowing economy is hurting its freight volumes and revenue. That has caused the shares to fall about 14% from earlier this year.

In the three months ended June 30, 2015, the railway earned $404 million, up 8.9% from $371 million a year earlier. Per-share profits jumped 16.1%, to $2.45 from $2.11, on fewer shares outstanding.

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LOBLAW COMPANIES $72.20 (Toronto symbol L; Shares outstanding: 412.6 million; Market cap: $29.4 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; Dividend yield: 1.4%; www.loblaw.ca) is Canada’s largest food retailer.

Loblaw plans to close 52 underperforming stores in the next year, including supermarkets, gas bars and stand-alone Joe Fresh clothing outlets. Following these closures, it will operate roughly 2,400 stores, including 1,250 Shoppers Drug Mart pharmacies.

The move will cut Loblaw’s yearly sales by $300 million, but it should add $35 million to $40 million to its annual gross profits. It also expects to save at least $200 million this year by merging its warehouses and other operations with Shoppers.

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TELUS $43.67 (Toronto symbol T; Shares outstanding: 60750 million; Market cap: $26.6 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; Dividend yield: 3.9%; www.telus.com) is closing its remaining 59 Black’s photography stores.

Telus paid $28 million for the 113-store Black’s chain in 2009. It felt these outlets would help it sell more mobile phones and service plans. However, digital camera sales have suffered as more people take pictures with their smartphones.

The company will transfer many Black’s employees to its other retail outlets, so any severance costs will be low.

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MANULIFE FINANCIAL $22.70 (Toronto symbol MFC; Shares outstanding: 2.0 billion; Market cap: $45.4 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; Dividend yield: 3.0%; www.manulife.ca) sells life and other forms of insurance, as well as mutual funds and investment management services.

In the three months ended March 31, 2015, Manulife’s earnings per share gained 5.4%, to $0.39 from $0.37 a year earlier. Revenue rose 25.1%, to $7.83 billion from $6.26 billion.

The company continues to expand in growing Asian markets. Right now, about 40% of its insurance premiums come from that region, which is adding to its revenue and profits.

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SUN LIFE FINANCIAL $41.43 (Toronto symbol SLF; Shares outstanding: 612.1 million; Market cap: $25.6 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; Dividend yield: 3.7%; www.sunlife.ca) sells life insurance, savings, retirement and pension products to individuals and corporations. It has $812.6 billion of assets under management and mainly operates in Canada, the U.S. and the U.K. It’s also expanding in Asia.

In the three months ended March 31, 2015, Sun Life’s revenue rose 2.2%, to $3.72 billion from $3.64 billion a year earlier. Earnings per share gained 16.7%, to $0.84 from $0.72.

The company continues to expand its asset management business, which generates high profit margins and requires little capital investment. It recently paid $560 million for Bentall Kennedy Group, which manages more than $27 billion in real estate for over 550 institutional clients across the U.S. and Canada.

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LOBLAW COMPANIES $63.46 (Toronto symbol L; Shares outstanding: 412.6 million; Market cap: $26.3 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; Dividend yield: 1.6%; www.loblaw.ca) has sold 38 of its stores to Choice Properties Real Estate Investment Trust (Toronto symbol CHP.UN).

Loblaw received $201.3 million, which is equal to 66.9% of the $301.0 million, or $0.73 a share, it earned in the three months ended March 28, 2015.

That total included $102.2 million worth of Choice Properties’ units. As a result, Loblaw now owns 83.1% of this REIT. It also accounts for 91.0% of Choice’s earnings.

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NEWMONT MINING $22.52 (New York symbol NEM; Shares outstanding: 529.0 million; Market cap: $11.9 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Average; Dividend yield: 0.4%; www.newmont.com) is buying the Cripple Creek & Victor gold mine in Colorado from AngloGold Ashanti (New York symbol AU) for $820 million.

Cripple Creek will produce 350,000 to 400,000 ounces of gold a year once it finishes an expansion in 2016. To put that in context, Newmont expects to produce 4.6 million to 4.9 million ounces this year. The mine should last until at least 2026.

To help pay for Cripple Creek, the company will sell 29.0 million common shares for a total of $682 million. Newmont also recently agreed to sell its Waihi gold mine in New Zealand for $101 million.

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