Latest Stock Advice
Nutrien Ltd. offers exposure to potash and nitrogen prices, a stable retail base and strong profitability.
Toromont Industries Ltd. should see continued earnings growth thanks to its leading market share and Canada’s plan to increase spending on infrastructure projects.
Top pick Barrick Mining just raised its dividend a whopping 140% as it generates record earnings and continues its strategic asset reorganization.
Warner Music Group Corp. is well-positioned for higher-margin catalog revenues, added streaming adoption, and new AI monetization opportunities.
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Pennsylvania-based Vanguard Group is one of the world’s largest investment management companies. In all, it administers almost $3 trillion U.S. across 175 mutual funds and ETFs. Generally speaking, Canadians can’t buy units of mutual funds that are registered in the U.S., because they aren’t registered with provincial securities commissions. For that matter, some Canadian funds are only available in a limited number of provinces. Canadians can, however, buy Vanguard exchange traded funds that trade on stock exchanges. Here are two Vanguard ETF we see as low-fee buys....
ISHARES CANADIAN SHORT-TERM BOND INDEX ETF $28.47 (Toronto symbol XSB; buy or sell through brokers) mirrors the performance of the DEX Short-Term Bond Index. This index consists of a range of investment-grade federal, provincial, municipal and corporate bonds with one- to five-year terms to maturity. The fund holds 437 bonds with an average term to maturity of 2.94 years. The bonds in the index are 65.0% government and 35.0% corporate. The fund’s MER is 0.28%. The iShares Canadian Short-Term Bond Index Fund yields 2.4%, but this high yield is due to the fact that some of the fund’s bonds pay above-market interest rates. As a result, they trade above their face value. When these bonds mature, holders will only get the bonds’ face value, meaning the portfolio will incur predictable capital losses. These losses will offset some of the appeal of the above-market yields....
CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILWAY $170.25 (Toronto symbol CP; Shares outstanding: 153.0 million; Market cap: $26.3 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; Dividend yield: 0.8%; www.cpr.ca) has agreed to sell a parcel of land—the Arbutus Corridor—to the City of Vancouver. Canadian Pacific stopped running trains through the Arbutus Corridor in 2001. Since then, the company has considered several options to re-develop the property. These included building a facility to store railcars. The municipal government opposed those plans. The sale price of $55 million is small next to the $1.6 billion, or $10.10 a share, that CP earned in 2015. But the deal also gives the company additional payments linked to future development of the property....
ISHARES CANADIAN UNIVERSE BOND INDEX ETF $31.87 (Toronto symbol XBB; buy or sell through brokers) mirrors the performance of the Canadian Universe Bond Index. The 957 bonds in the portfolio have an average term to maturity of 10.26 years. The fund’s MER is 0.33%. The bonds in the index are 72.0% government and 28.0% corporate. The fund yields 2.8%, compared to the Short-Term Bond Fund’s 2.4%. Its yield to maturity is 1.96%, 0.75 percentage points above the Short-Term Fund. That reflects the added risk of long-term bonds....