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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But like Algonquin, Innergex makes sure it has firm long-term power-purchase contracts in place before it starts building new plants.
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The most recent was late last year, when Algonquin paid $327 million U.S. for Park Water, owner of three regulated water utilities with 74,000 customers in California and Montana.
Algonquin’s regulated utility businesses now provide water, electricity and natural gas to over 488,000 customers, up sharply from 120,000 three years ago. In addition, its hydroelectric, thermal energy, solar and wind facilities generate 1,150 megawatts, up from 460.
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The company now expects to spend $1.8 billion to $2.0 billion in 2015, down from $2.5 billion to $2.7 billion in its earlier plan (and down from an estimated $3.1 billion in 2014). As part of these cuts, it will suspend drilling for conventional oil in Alberta and Saskatchewan, and defer some oil sands work.
Cenovus now expects its cash flow for the year to fall by roughly half, to $1.4 billion, or $1.85 a share. That could prompt the company to cut its $1.065-a-share dividend, which yields 4.3%. Cenovus’s dividend payments total $800 million a year.
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The Vanguard FTSE Emerging Markets ETF’s top holdings include Taiwan Semiconductor (Taiwan: computer chips), China Mobile, Itau Unibanco Holding SA (Brazil: banking), China Construction Bank, Bank of China, Tencent Holdings (China: Internet), Industrial & Commercial Bank of China, Naspers Ltd. (South Africa: media); Banco Bradesco (Brazil: banking); and Hon Hai Precision Industry (Taiwan: electronics).
The $62.5-billion fund’s breakdown by country is as follows: China (24.4%), Taiwan (14.3%), India (11.7%), Brazil (10.7%), South Africa (9.5%), Mexico (5.6%), Malaysia (4.5%), Russia (3.6%), Indonesia (3.0%), Thailand (3.0%), Turkey (2.0%), Philippines (1.8%), Poland (1.8%) and others (4.1%).
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The $205.6-millon fund’s top holdings are Shenzhou International, 1.1%; Air China, 1.0%; Zijin Mining, 1.0%; China Everbright, 1.0%; Zhejiang Expressway, 1.0%; CSPC Pharmaceutical, 1.0%; Aluminum Corp. of China, 1.0%; Datang International Power, 1.0%; and Shanghai Electric, 1.0%.
As China’s economy matures and wages rise, domestic spending should continue to increase. As well, the country’s leaders recently announced that they will extend social services to migrant workers, and they will likely have to make further investments in programs to ease the growing gap between the rich and poor. Guggenheim China Small Cap ETF is well positioned to benefit from both of these trends.
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RioCan has Target as its seventh-largest tenant, with 26 locations, but the stores account for just 1.9% of the REIT’s annualized rental revenue.
Many of the Target stores are in established malls, so RioCan should be able to rent them to new tenants, perhaps at higher rates. Meanwhile, RioCan says the leases on the 26 locations are guaranteed by the U.S. parent company, Target Corp., for more than a decade.
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Loblaw is doing a good job of competing with U.S. retail giants like Wal-Mart, which are aggressively expanding in the grocery market. In addition to improving its efficiency and profiting from its Joe Fresh clothing line, it has bought Shoppers DrugMart, which nicely complements its main business. And now it has seen its competition diminish with Target’s decision to close its Canadian stores.
LOBLAW COMPANIES LTD. (Toronto symbol L; www.loblaw.ca) is Canada’s largest food retailer, with about 1,050 stores.
The company is benefiting from sales of other products beyond food. For example, in 2006 it launched its popular Joe Fresh line of clothing, shoes and accessories.
Loblaw sells these goods in over 330 of its supermarkets and through 17 stand-alone stores in the U.S. and Canada. It plans to open 140 more Joe Fresh stores outside of North America in the next four years.
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This week an Inner Circle member asked us about FLYHT Aerospace Solutions. This Canadian company supplies a number of products and services. But the two that have attracted the most attention in the past year are devices that collect and stream flight data. The mysterious disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 in March 2014—and the recent crash of AirAsia flight QZ850—underlined the potential value of those devices. Pat looks into the company’s business and assesses its prospects for growth in a highly competitive market.
Q: Pat: I would appreciate having your thoughts on the following company: FLYHT Aerospace Solutions. Thank you.
A: FLYHT Aerospace Solutions (symbol FLY on Toronto; www.flyht.com) supplies a number of products and services to the aviation industry. The company changed its name from AeroMechanical Services in 2012.
The company’s products include the AFIRS UpTime data-collection device, which records flight information as it happens and relays it to the aircraft operator’s facilities by satellite. FLYHT also sells an emergency device called FLYHTStream that sends real-time data to the ground for immediate analysis. As well, it recently introduced the Dragon, a lightweight, portable satellite communication device that lets users access FLYHT’s technology with an iPad.
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Newell uses oil to make its products, so it stands to gain from the almost 60% drop in crude prices since June 2014. And even when oil rebounds, it will continue to benefit from recent acquisitions and its high market share.
NEWELL RUBBERMAID INC. (New York symbol NWL; www.newellrubbermaid.com) makes plastic storage bins, tools, window blinds, pens and many other household goods.
The company makes most of its products from oil-based resins, so it stands to gain from the recent drop in oil prices.
Newell continues to streamline its manufacturing and distribution operations, which should cut $270 million from its annual costs by mid-2015. The company now feels it can save an additional $200 million a year by the end of 2017.
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