Latest Stock Advice
Gen Digital Inc. is trading quite cheaply for a firm that just grew revenue nearly 26% while providing plenty of cash flow for innovation, dividends and buybacks.
H.B. Fuller Company’s consistent dividend growth and rising earnings offer a sound total‑return profile versus many industrial and chemical peers.
Top pick North West Company offers a 3.1% yield as a defensive retailer with entrenched remote markets.
Twilio Inc. adds AI capabilities to stay ahead of rivals and win more strategic multi-year partnerships.
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These six ETFs hold mostly blue chip, widely traded stocks on Canadian and U.S. exchanges. All of them mirror, or track, the performance of major stock market indexes. That’s opposed to narrower indexes focused on, say, resources or themes such as solar power or biotech. Of course, you pay brokerage commissions to buy and sell these ETFs. But their low management fees give them a cost advantage over most mutual funds. Below we update our advice on all six—five buys and one we don’t recommend....
TELUS $39.66 (Toronto symbol T; Shares outstanding: 593.3 million; Market cap: $23.4 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; Dividend yield: 4.6%; www.telus.com) is Canada’s second-largest wireless carrier (behind Rogers Communications) with 8.4 million subscribers. In addition, its wireline division serves 3.1 million landline phone customers in B.C., Alberta and eastern Quebec. This business also has 1.5 million Internet users and 980,000 TV customers. Telus will now extend its reach into Manitoba with BCE’s takeover of Manitoba Tel (see page 33). To satisfy Canadian telecom regulators, BCE plans to sell to Telus about one-third of Manitoba Telecom’s current postpaid wireless accounts, or a block of about 140,000 subscribers. BCE will also transfer one-third of Manitoba Tel’s retail outlets to Telus. In the three months ended March 31, 2016, the company earned $414 million, down 3.0% from $427 million a year earlier. However, earnings per share were unchanged at $0.70, due to fewer shares outstanding. Revenue gained 2.6%, to $3.11 billion from $3.03 billion....
GREAT-WEST LIFECO $36.60 (Toronto symbol GWO; Shares outstanding: 993.2 million; Market cap: $36.4 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; Yield: 3.8%; www.greatwestlifeco.com) is one of Canada’s largest insurance firms. The company also offers mutual funds and wealth management services. Power Financial owns 67.2% of Great-West. In the past few years, the insurer has expanded its presence in Ireland. In July 2013, it paid $1.75 billion for Irish Life, that country’s largest pension manager and life insurance provider. Irish Life has now announced two purchases: it is buying Aviva Health, and increasing its stake in GloHealth from 49% to 100%....
TD BANK $55.77 (Toronto symbol TD; Shares outstanding: 1.9 billion; Market cap: $103.5 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; Dividend yield: 3.9%; www.td.com) is the first Canadian bank to use Visa’s new tokenization technology in its mobile banking app. This system uses encrypted “tokens” instead of credit card numbers and other account information. That helps protect sensitive client information from online intruders. It also speeds up mobile payments and other transactions. Better security should encourage more of TD’s customers to do their banking online. That would cut its costs as electronic transactions are cheaper to process than those in physical branches....