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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ISHARES MSCI SOUTH KOREA INDEX FUND $47.66 (New York symbol EWY; buy or sell through brokers) aims to track the MSCI Korea Index.

The ETF’s top holdings are Samsung Electronics, 19.1%; Hyundai Motor, 3.8%; SK Hynix Semiconductor, 3.7%; Shinhan Financial, 3.0%; KB Financial, 2.4%; Hyundai Mobis (auto parts), 2.4%; Naver (Internet), 2.4%; Korea Electric Power, 2.2%; Kia Motors, 2.2%; Posco (steel), 2.2%; Korea Electric Power, 2.2%; KT&G Corp. (tobacco), 2.0%; and AmorePacific Corp. (cosmetics), 2.0%;

The iShares MSCI South Korea Index Fund was launched on May 9, 2000. Its expense ratio is 0.62%.

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ISHARES MSCI EMERGING MARKETS INDEX FUND $33.05 (New York symbol EEM; buy or sell through brokers) aims to track the MSCI Emerging Markets Index.

The fund’s geographic breakdown includes China, 23.0%; South Korea, 14.7%; Taiwan, 12.3%; India, 8.4%; South Africa, 8.1%; Brazil, 6.9%; Mexico, 4.8%; Russia, 3.9%; Malaysia, 3.1%; Indonesia, 2.4%; Thailand, 2.2%; and Poland, 1.6%.

Its top holdings are Samsung Electronics (South Korea), 3.0%; Taiwan Semiconductor (computer chips), 2.8%; Tencent Holdings (China: Internet), 2.5%; China Mobile, 2.1%; China Construction Bank, 1.7%; Naspers (South Africa: media and Internet), 1.5%; Industrial & Commercial Bank of China, 1.3%; Bank of China, 1.1%; and Hon Hai Precision Industry (Taiwan), 1.1%.

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ENBRIDGE INC. $52.76 (Toronto symbol ENB; Shares outstanding: 856.7 million; Market cap: $45.4 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; Div. yield: 3.5%; www.enbridge. com) continues to move ahead with the major reorganization it announced in December 2014.

The company plans to transfer some of its pipelines and wind farms to 19.9%-owned affiliate Enbridge Income Fund Holdings Inc. (Toronto symbol ENF). This company owns 42% of Enbridge Income Fund (Enbridge Inc. owns the remaining 58%), which holds a variety of businesses, including oil and gas pipelines and solar and wind farms.

Asset transfers like this, called drop-downs, free up cash the parent company can use for new projects. The affiliate also benefits because the new assets’ cash flow helps it maintain or raise its distributions to investors.

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TD BANK $51.38 (Toronto symbol TD; Shares outstanding: 1.8 billion; Market cap: $94.9 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; Dividend yield: 4.0%; www.td.com) is Canada’s largest bank, with $1.1 trillion of assets. It operates 1,305 branches in the U.S.—compared to 1,166 in Canada—and owns 41.01% of TD Ameritrade (New York symbol AMTD), a leading online brokerage.

Excluding one-time items, TD’s earnings per share rose 4.4% in its fiscal 2015 third quarter, which ended July 31, 2015, to $1.20 from $1.15. Revenue gained 6.6%, to $8.0 billion from $7.5 billion.

The bank’s Canadian and U.S. retail operations are profiting from stronger growth in both loans and deposits. Meanwhile, its focus on customer service and online banking is helping it attract and hold on to depositors. Lower gasoline prices also give consumers more cash to repay loans, cutting TD’s overall loan losses.

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Follow our stock market investment advice and be a worry-free investor.
time share investment

In our experience, a time-share investment rarely provides you with any real advantage.


If you visit a vacation resort this winter, you may get invited to a complimentary dinner, cocktail party or other event. In return for the free drinks, food or entertainment, all you’ll have to do is sit through a pitch for an “investment” in a time-share. It may be worthwhile to attend, depending on what else you have to do. But in my experience, a time-share investment rarely provides you with any real advantage.

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