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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short selling
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 advice on the stock market and other investment topics that will help you develop a successful approach to investing. Each Investor Toolkit update gives you a fundamental tip and shows you how you can put it into practice right away. Today’s tip: “In theory, there is nothing wrong with hedge funds, but in practice it’s much more difficult to make money shorting bad stocks than it is buying good ones.”...
buying stocks
Pat McKeough responds to many requests from members of his Inner Circle for specific advice about buying stocks as well as questions on investment strategy and the economy. Every week, his comments and recommendations on the most intriguing questions of the past week go out to all Inner Circle members. And each week, we offer you one of the highlights from these Q&A sessions. While we reserve our buy-hold-sell advice for Inner Circle members, these excerpts provide a great deal of information and analysis on stocks we’ve covered for members of Pat’s Inner Circle. This week we had a question from an Inner Circle member about one of Canada’s three big grocery chains. Already the owner of Sobeys, Empire made a major acquisition late last year when it added the Canadian stores of U.S. chain Safeway. The deal gave the company a much larger presence in Western Canada to offset its concentration of Sobeys stores in eastern Canada. Pat examines the company’s business with Safeway on board and assesses the rewards and potential hidden risks of this big acquisition. ...
investing in stocks
THOMSON REUTERS CORP. (Toronto symbol TRI; www.thomsonreuters.com) gets 55% of its revenue by selling news and information to professionals in the banking industry. The remaining 45% comes from providing specialized information products to clients in the legal, accounting and scientific research fields. Thomson earned $137 million, or $0.16 a share, in 2013 (all amounts except share price and market cap in U.S. dollars). That’s down sharply from $2.0 billion, or $2.39 a share, in 2012....
stock picks
Pat McKeough responds to many requests from members of his Inner Circle for specific advice and stock picks as well as questions on investment strategy and the economy. Every week, his comments and recommendations on the most intriguing questions of the past week go out to all Inner Circle members. And each week, we offer you one of the highlights from these Q&A sessions. While we reserve our buy-hold-sell advice for Inner Circle members, these excerpts provide a great deal of information and analysis on stocks we’ve covered for members of Pat’s Inner Circle. This week an Inner Circle member asked us about a Canadian stock whose products came into sharper focus following the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370. Flyht Aerospace Solutions makes a number of products, but the two attracting the most attention are devices that collect and stream flight data and could have shed light on the fate of the Malaysian airliner as it disappeared. Pat examines the company’s business and assesses its prospects for growth in a highly competitive market. ...
IMPERIAL OIL $51.60 (Toronto symbol IMO; Shares outstanding: 847.6 million; Market cap: $44.0 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Average; Div. yield: 1.0%; www.imperialoil.ca) is selling some of its conventional oil and natural gas properties in Alberta and B.C. to Whitecap Resources. These assets produce 15,000 barrels a day, which is equal to 5.1% of the 295,000 barrels a day that Imperial produced in 2013.

The company will receive $855 million when the sale closes in May 2014. That will help it pay for its plan to spend $5.5 billion on its main properties this year, including expanding its Cold Lake and Kearl oil sands developments. These investments should increase Imperial’s daily output by 150,000 barrels in 2015.

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PENN WEST $9.35 (Toronto symbol PWT; Shares outstanding: 490.7 million; Market cap: $4.5 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Average; Dividend yield: 6.0%; www.pennwest.com) is one of Canada’s largest oil and gas producers.

Penn West continues to shore up its finances and take steps to boost its value since appointing Rick George as chairman and Allan Markin as vicechairman. These moves include cutting staff, selling assets and lowering its dividend.

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CRESCENT POINT ENERGY CORP. $40.44 (Toronto symbol CPG; Shares outstanding: 395.7 million; Market cap: $16.1 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Extra Risk; Dividend yield: 6.8%; www.crescentpointenergy.com) produces oil and natural gas in Western Canada. Its output is weighted 91% toward oil and 9% to gas.

The company continues to focus on its Bakken light oil development in southeastern Saskatchewan.

In the three months ended December 31, 2013, Crescent Point’s cash flow rose 23.9%, to $533.3 million from $430.4 million a year earlier.
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CANADIAN REIT $44.60 (Toronto symbol REF.UN; Units outstanding: 69.0 million; Market cap: $3.1 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Extra Risk; Dividend yield: 3.9%; www.creit.ca) owns 198 properties, including retail, industrial and office buildings, across Canada and in Chicago. These holdings contain over 24.0 million square feet of leasable area. The trust’s occupancy rate is 95.5%.

In the three months ended December 31, 2013, Canadian REIT’s revenue rose 8.6%, to $106.7 million from $98.2 million a year earlier. Cash flow per unit gained 7.5%, to $0.72 from $0.67.

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ALLIED PROPERTIES REAL ESTATE INVESTMENT TRUST $34.29 (Toronto symbol AP.UN; Units outstanding: 68.7 million; Market cap: $2.4 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Extra Risk; Dividend yield: 4.1%; www.alliedpropertiesreit.com) owns 133 office buildings, mostly in major Canadian cities. These mainly Class I properties contain over 9.5 million square feet of leasable area.

Class I refers to 19th- and early-20th-century light industrial buildings that have been converted to retail space. They usually feature exposed beams, interior brick and hardwood floors.

The trust bought $400 million worth of properties in 2012. In 2013, it added $182.4 million more.
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IBM $193.55 (New York symbol IBM; Shares outstanding: 1.0 billion; Market cap: $200.5 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; Dividend yield: 2.0%; www.ibm.com) continues to expand its cloud computing businesses.

Cloud computing involves storing data and software on one or more centralized computer networks. Users access these programs or files over the Internet or through some other computer network.

IBM recently paid an undisclosed sum for Cloudant, a private firm that creates large databases on remote servers. IBM feels Cloudant’s technology will also enhance its analytics services, which help businesses analyze large amounts of data and improve their efficiency. That’s a big growth area.
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