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.
[text_ad use_category="18"]
Read More
Close
BANK OF NOVA SCOTIA $72.16 (Toronto symbol BNS; Shares outstanding: 1.2 billion; Market cap: $87.8 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; Dividend yield: 3.6%, www.scotiabank.com) began expanding in Latin America in the 1990s. It’s now focused on Peru, Mexico, Chile and Colombia, but it has a strong presence across the region.
There’s still lots of room to expand banking services throughout Latin America, especially as its growing middle class looks for stable deposit and consumer-lending services.
Bank of Nova Scotia now gets 34% of its revenue from its international division, which provides financial services not just in Latin America and the Caribbean, but also in Asia and other emerging markets.
...
There’s still lots of room to expand banking services throughout Latin America, especially as its growing middle class looks for stable deposit and consumer-lending services.
Bank of Nova Scotia now gets 34% of its revenue from its international division, which provides financial services not just in Latin America and the Caribbean, but also in Asia and other emerging markets.
...
BCE INC. $48.28 (Toronto symbol BCE; Shares outstanding: 777.3 million; Market cap: $37.5 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; Dividend yield: 5.1%; www.bce.ca) is Canada’s largest provider of telephone, Internet and wireless services. It also offers satellite and Internet TV across the country.
In the three months ended March 31, 2014, BCE’s earnings per share rose 5.2%, to $0.81 from $0.77 a year earlier. Revenue increased 4.4%, to $4.54 billion from $4.35 billion.
Revenue from wireless services (32% of total revenue) rose 4.6%. The company’s network upgrades continue to attract new wireless subscribers, and it’s benefiting from rising use of smartphones, which generate higher monthly fees than regular cellphones.
...
In the three months ended March 31, 2014, BCE’s earnings per share rose 5.2%, to $0.81 from $0.77 a year earlier. Revenue increased 4.4%, to $4.54 billion from $4.35 billion.
Revenue from wireless services (32% of total revenue) rose 4.6%. The company’s network upgrades continue to attract new wireless subscribers, and it’s benefiting from rising use of smartphones, which generate higher monthly fees than regular cellphones.
...
Thinking of buying Aecon Group Inc. stocks. Get answers why or why not.
Every Wednesday, we publish our “Investor Toolkit” series on TSI Network. Whether you’re a new or experienced investor, these weekly updates are designed to give you specific advice on successful investing. Each Investor Toolkit update gives you a fundamental tip and shows you how you can put it into practice right away. Tip of the week: “With short selling, you have to balance the slim chance of making money fast against the greater probability that you will lose money—possibly a lot of it.” There are plenty of references in the financial media to “shorts”—those seeking to profit from stocks that fall in price. But this strategy comes with considerable risk....
LEON’S FURNITURE LTD. (Toronto symbol LNF; www.leons.ca) has steadily opened new stores, growing from 27 in 2003 to 78 today. But the company more than quadrupled in size overnight with its March 28, 2013, purchase of its main rival, The Brick, for $700 million. The Brick has 228 outlets across Canada. Leon’s and The Brick will continue to operate as separate chains. As a result of the acquisition, Leon’s sales jumped to $426.0 million in the three months ended March 31, 2014, from $162.5 million a year earlier. Earnings fell sharply, to $818,000, or $0.01 a share, from $5.4 million, or $0.08....
North American and European consumers continue to shift away from cash and toward credit and debit cards. As a result, banks on those two continents are buying fewer automated teller machines. But ATM demand remains high in developing nations, where many stores only accept cash. ATM makers NCR and Diebold are also diversifying into related products and offering more software and support services. We cover both of these stocks in our newsletter on U.S. investing, Wall Street Stock Forecaster. NCR CORP. (New York symbol NCR; www.ncr.com) gets 52% of its revenue from ATMs. It also makes cash registers and self-serve checkouts (32% of revenue) and kiosks for theatres and arenas (10%). Maintenance services supply the other 6%. Overseas markets account for 60% of NCR’s revenue....
Every Wednesday, we publish our “Investor Toolkit” series on TSI Network. Whether you’re a beginning or experienced investor, these weekly updates are designed to give you advice on specific investment topics. Each Investor Toolkit update gives you a fundamental piece of investing strategy, and shows you how you can put it into practice right away. Today’s tip: “Ethical or socially responsible investing can be a misleading concept. Often it’s an oversimplified reaction to a complex situation, having little impact on the companies targeted while limiting perfectly good investment opportunities.” From time to time, we are asked about ethical investing (or “socially responsible investing”). I’d say it works as a marketing angle for a handful of small investment companies, and it may make you feel better about your investments. But it won’t do much to improve your investment results, or cut down on what you see as unethical corporate behaviour....
The shift toward online shopping continues to pick up speed: over the next 10 years, e-commerce could account for 40% of all retail sales in developed nations and 30% in emerging markets. We feel the best way to profit from this trend is through shares of companies that process online payments and fulfill orders. Here are two such stocks we cover in our newsletter on U.S. investing, Wall Street Stock Forecaster. VISA INC. (New York symbol V; www.visa.com) operates the world’s largest electronic payments network, through which it processes credit, debit, prepaid and commercial transactions....
Every industry and group has its own special jargon. This specialized language always has the same purpose. It simplifies communications within the industry, and helps make insiders feel they are part of a tightly knit community. It also helps the group pursue its goals. It shapes concepts that will establish lines of thought and discussions that match the industry’s view of the world. But it can be confusing for those who are not insiders in the group. This natural human tendency has probably been going on ever since language began. Many will recall George Orwell’s classic novel written at the dawn of the Cold War, 1984. In the book, the totalitarian government that rules the English-speaking world has decided to replace English with an invented language called Newspeak. This new language uses lots of English words, but it defines concepts in such a way that forbidden ideas are difficult, if not impossible, to express....
FIRSTSERVICE CORP. (Toronto symbol FSV; www.firstservice.com) serves the following areas of the real estate market: commercial real estate, residential property management and property improvement. The company has more than 24,000 employees worldwide. In the quarter ended March 31, 2014, FirstService’s revenue rose 15.1%, to $548.4 million from $476.4 million a year earlier (all figures except share prices in U.S. dollars). Excluding one-time items, earnings per share were $0.09, compared to a loss of $0.20. The first quarter is typically a slower time for the company. Revenue rose at all three of FirstService’s divisions: Colliers International (commercial real estate), up 28%; FirstService Residential (residential property management), up 7%; and FirstService Brands (property services), up 11%. FirstService Brands operates Paul Davis Restoration, California Closets and CertaPro Painters....
