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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CRESCENT POINT ENERGY CORP. $28.03 (Toronto symbol CPG; Shares outstanding: 449.5 million; Market cap: $12.9 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Extra Risk; Dividend yield: 9.9%; www.crescentpointenergy.com) produces oil and natural gas in Western Canada, with a focus on its Bakken light oil development in southeastern Saskatchewan.

The company is now buying heavily indebted Legacy Oil + Gas (Toronto symbol LEG) for $563 million plus the assumption of $967 million in debt. Activist investors put a lot of pressure on Legacy to complete a deal.

The move will add about 22,000 barrels of oil a day to Crescent Point’s current output of 150,000 barrels. About 15,000 barrels of Legacy’s output is in Crescent Point’s core Bakken area.

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IMPERIAL OIL $49.32 (Toronto symbol IMO; Shares outstanding: 847.6 million; Market cap: $41.9 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Average; Dividend yield: 1.1%; www.imperialoil.ca) is a major integrated oil company with oil sands projects in Alberta and conventional oil and gas operations across Western Canada. It also operates three refineries and 1,700 Esso gas stations.

Oil prices hit a high of $147 U.S. a barrel in July 2008, but then plummeted to a low of $32 in December 2008 as the recession took hold. Prices climbed back to over $100 in 2010, and remained near there until mid-2014 when oil plunged from $110 to less than half that price by the end of the year. Oil is now at $60 a barrel.

Strong oil prices for most of 2014 let Imperial report cash flow of $5.3 billion, or $6.26 a share. This year, low oil prices will likely push cash flow down by more than half, to $2.6 billion, or $3.02 a share.

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Stocks to buy - John deere
Pat McKeough responds to many requests from members of his Inner Circle. Every week, his comments on the most intriguing questions of the past week go out to all Inner Circle members. Each week, we offer you a highlight from these Q&A sessions. This week, why the world’s largest farm equipment maker isn’t among our U.S. stocks to buy.

Q: How do you see things shaping up for Deere & Co.? Is it a buy? Thanks.

A: Deere & Co. (symbol DE on New York; www.deere.com) started up in 1837 when its founder, John Deere, began making polished-steel plows at his blacksmith shop in Grand Detour, Illinois.

Today, the company is the world’s largest maker of agricultural equipment, with plants in the U.S., Canada, France, Germany, Spain, South Africa, Mexico and Argentina. In addition to John Deere, its top brands include Frontier, Kemper, Green Systems and SABO.

Deere mainly sells these products through independent dealers and home-improvement chains like Home Depot and Lowe’s. It has three divisions:

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Home renovations spurred by an improved real estate market help keep Stanley Black and Decker one on our best stocks to buy in the U.S.
Our portfolio advice: when you find the best stocks to invest in, and the shares begin to rise, avoid the temptation to sell them too soon.
Starbucks is opening 1,650 new shops in 2015 and has strong growth overseas—our take on whether that makes it a good stock investment
Replying to an investor seeking stock picks to buy and hold, we assess the long-term prospects of America’s biggest grocery store operator.
RIOCAN REIT $30.05 (Toronto symbol REI.UN; Units outstanding: 315.8 million; Market cap: $9.5 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Average; Dividend yield: 4.7%; www.riocan.com) continues to hit new all-time highs, even with the closure of the Future Shop chain.

Electronics retailer Best Buy (New York symbol BBY) recently closed 66 of its 131 Future Shop outlets in Canada and will convert the remaining 65 to Best Buy stores.

There are only 10 Future Shops in RioCan’s malls, so these closures and conversions should have little impact on its results. Combined, 32 Best Buy and Future Shop stores rent space from RioCan, accounting for just 1.5% of its 2014 rental revenue.

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CANADIAN REIT $45.51 (Toronto symbol REF.UN; Units outstanding: 72.6 million; Market cap: $3.4 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Extra Risk; Dividend yield: 3.8%; www.creit.ca) owns 198 properties, including retail, industrial and office buildings, across Canada and in Chicago. These holdings contain 24.9 million square feet of leasable area. The trust’s occupancy rate is 95.1%.

In the three months ended December 31, 2014, Canadian REIT’s revenue rose 1.7%, to $108.5 million from $106.7 million a year earlier. Cash flow per unit gained 4.2%, to $0.75 from $0.72.

In 2014, the trust added one industrial property in Toronto and another in Edmonton for a total of $42.3 million. That followed $199.1 million of purchases in 2013 and $401.9 million in 2012.

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ENCANA $17.05 (Toronto symbol ECA; Shares outstanding: 741.2 million; Market cap: $14.0 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Average; Dividend yield: 2.1%; www.encana.com) has sold its natural gas pipelines and compression facilities in B.C.’s Montney region. The buyer is a partnership between Veresen (Toronto symbol VSN and a buy recommendation of Canadian Wealth Advisor) and investment firm KKR & Co. (New York symbol KKR).

The company received $461 million (Canadian) for these assets. The cash, along with the $1.4 billion (Canadian) it recently raised by selling new shares, will let Encana pay down its long-term debt of $7.3 billion U.S., which is a high 63% of its market cap.

Encana is still a buy.

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