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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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Investing in high-risk investment opportunities may look like a quick way to supercharge your portfolio gains—but it’s more likely to kill those gains
Over the past few decades, we’ve built a list of what we call “reasons for wariness”. No single one of these factors is a sure sign of a bad investment. But we watch out for them when analyzing investments, especially where we find more than one. When we spot reasons for wariness in a business model or a growth plan, we want to be sure the company understands the risk. One prominent factor on our list is growth by acquisition. A company can speed up its growth by buying other companies, rather than building on or duplicating its existing operations. But, while acquisitions speed growth, they also accumulate risk. After all, the seller of something always knows more about it than the buyer. When a company focuses on acquisitions for corporate growth, it assumes it can out-perform the current management of what it buys. It assumes it can raise the return by a wide enough margin to increase its earnings, over and above the acquisition’s cost....
VANGUARD GROWTH ETF $110.65 (New York symbol VUG; buy or sell through brokers) aims to track the Center for Research in Security Prices (CRSP) U.S. Large Cap Growth Index, a broadly diversified index that mainly consists of big U.S. companies. The fund’s MER is just 0.09%.
The $48.1-billion Vanguard Growth ETF’s top holdings are Apple, Alphabet, Coca-Cola, Facebook, Visa, Home Depot, Comcast, Amazon.com, Gilead Sciences and Walt Disney Co. The fund’s breakdown by industry is as follows: Technology, 23.9%; Consumer Services, 22.2%; Health Care, 13.7%; Financials, 12.5%; Industrials, 11.9%; Consumer Goods, 10.1%; Oil and Gas, 4.0%; Materials, 1.3%; and Telecom Services, 0.3%.
Vanguard Growth ETF is a buy.
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The $48.1-billion Vanguard Growth ETF’s top holdings are Apple, Alphabet, Coca-Cola, Facebook, Visa, Home Depot, Comcast, Amazon.com, Gilead Sciences and Walt Disney Co. The fund’s breakdown by industry is as follows: Technology, 23.9%; Consumer Services, 22.2%; Health Care, 13.7%; Financials, 12.5%; Industrials, 11.9%; Consumer Goods, 10.1%; Oil and Gas, 4.0%; Materials, 1.3%; and Telecom Services, 0.3%.
Vanguard Growth ETF is a buy.
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In June 1999, the Loewen Group, North America’s second-largest funeral company, filed for bankruptcy protection in the U.S. and Canada. At the time, it operated 1,116 funeral homes and 429 cemeteries in North America and 32 funeral homes in the U.K.
Loewen Group grew rapidly by acquisition, but it made other moves that greatly added to its risk.
For one, it took on a lot of debt to finance its purchases, many of which it bought at inflated prices in bidding wars with larger rival Service Corporation International.
The new operations’ profits didn’t cover the extra interest costs. Loewen eventually had to sell many of them below cost to comply with its debt obligations.
Loewen Group’s debt stood at $2.3 billion when it filed for bankruptcy in 1999. That was high even in relation to its market cap of $3.4 billion at its stock-price peak of $57 in 1996. It was insurmountable in 1998, when the company’s interest costs of $182.4 million exceeded all its earnings and cash flow. That year, Loewen had negative cash flow (more money flowed out than in) of $34.3 million.
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Loewen Group grew rapidly by acquisition, but it made other moves that greatly added to its risk.
For one, it took on a lot of debt to finance its purchases, many of which it bought at inflated prices in bidding wars with larger rival Service Corporation International.
The new operations’ profits didn’t cover the extra interest costs. Loewen eventually had to sell many of them below cost to comply with its debt obligations.
Loewen Group’s debt stood at $2.3 billion when it filed for bankruptcy in 1999. That was high even in relation to its market cap of $3.4 billion at its stock-price peak of $57 in 1996. It was insurmountable in 1998, when the company’s interest costs of $182.4 million exceeded all its earnings and cash flow. That year, Loewen had negative cash flow (more money flowed out than in) of $34.3 million.
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Concordia Healthcare Corp., $48.01, symbol CXR on Toronto (Shares outstanding: 41.7 million; Market cap: $2.5 billion; www.concordiarx.com), is an Oakville, Ontario-based drug company that acquires and sells established treatments, mainly in the U.S. Concordia aims to acquire the rights to relatively small, mature products as opposed to the newer treatments larger pharmaceutical firms target. Its main products include Donnatal, for irritable bowel syndrome and acute enterocolitis; Zonegran, for epilepsy; and Photofrin, a cancer drug. In April 2015, the company paid $1.2 billion for 12 branded drugs and five generic products from Covis Pharma (all figures except share price and market cap in U.S. dollars). These include Nilandron (prostate cancer); Dibenzyline (vascular disease); Lanoxin (heart disorders); and Plaqueni (lupus and rheumatoid arthritis)....