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Costco’s membership fees and low prices make it a strong growth stock. We look at whether it can sustain growth against fierce competition

More and more investors seem to look on the involvement of celebrity investors like Warren Buffett or Bill Gates as something of a pedigree for a stock....

We recommend that investors diversify up to 30% of their portfolios into U.S. stocks and as much as 10% into international securities. One attractive way for safety-conscious investors to do this is with exchange-traded funds (ETFs). Today we look at several ETFs from a U.S. firm that offer a low-fee way to achieve this diversification. We profile two Vanguard ETFs that track a U.S. large-cap index and an emerging market index.

Pennsylvania-based Vanguard Group is one of the world’s largest investment management companies. In all, it administers almost $3 trillion U.S. in 170 mutual funds.

Vanguard, which went into business in 1975, offers low-fee index mutual funds. 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 aren’t available in all provinces.

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Today, we look at a Canadian bank stock that has consistently paid dividends for 186 years. Bank of Montreal has benefited both from expansion outside of Canada and low interest rates in recent years. The bank continues to make acquisitions in the U.S. and the U.K. Recently it agreed to buy General Electric’s transportation-financing business, adding $11.5 billion in assets. Low interest rates have also helped the bank by increasing demand for loans. Between 2010 and 2014, the bank’s earnings rose by more than 50% and over the past three years, BMO has raised its dividend six times. We recommend BMO as a blue chip stock to buy for conservative investors.

BANK OF MONTREAL (Toronto symbol BMO; www.bmo.com) is Canada’s fourth-largestbank, with $672.4 billion of assets.

The bank has steadily expanded beyond Canadain recent years. For example, in 2011, it acquiredWisconsin-based banking firm Marshall & Ilsley for$4.0 billion in stock. That more than doubled thenumber of branches Bank of Montreal operates inthe U.S. and added two million customers.

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Visa, a global leader in credit and debit payments, expands into the fast-growing area of online and mobile payment transactions.

One of the great investing rules to live by comes from poker: if you can’t spot the sucker, it’s probably you

: The shares of IBM are down, but its proven ability to adapt to new conditions makes it a value stock with strong growth potential

There are many things to look for when evaluating a stock—and one of the most important is hidden assets

The more complicated features there are in an exchange-traded fund (ETF), the more the managers can charge in fees and the more hidden risks you face when investing in ETFs.

Switching brokers unwisely when your broker retires can lead to lining your new broker’s pocket

We look at the world leader in methanol, Canadian growth stock Methanex, which has a good long-term outlook but concerns in the near term.

We take a close look at a private REIT to show the importance of looking beyond marketing hype

Imperial Oil continues to face low oil prices, but its diversified operations make it our top energy stock for conservative investors.

With smart, low-risk acquisition strategies, blue chip insurance firms Great-West Lifeco and Sun Life Financial are positioned for growth.

CAE INC. $15 (Toronto symbol CAE; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Manufacturing & Industry sector; Shares outstanding: 269.3 million; Market cap: $4.0 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 1.8; Dividend yield: 2.0%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.cae.com) earned $47.7 million in its fiscal 2016 second quarter, which ended September 30, 2015, up 13.6% from $42.0 million a year earlier. Earnings per share rose at a slower pace of 12.5%, to $0.18 from $0.16, on more shares outstanding. Revenue gained 16.5%, to $616.8 million from $529.4 million. About 90% of the company’s revenue comes from foreign customers, so it’s benefiting from the lower Canadian dollar. Sales of flight simulators and pilot-training services to airlines (59% of total revenue) jumped 23.4%. CAE sold 16 simulators during the quarter and expects its full-year total to be near the 41 it sold in fiscal 2015....

GREAT-WEST LIFECO INC. $35 (Toronto symbol GWO; Conservative Growth and Income Portfolios, Finance sector; Shares outstanding: 993.2 million; Market cap: $34.8 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 1.0; Dividend Yield: 3.7%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.greatwestlifeco.com) is Canada’s second-largest insurance company, after Manulife Financial (Toronto symbol MFC). It also offers mutual funds, retirement planning and wealth management. Power Financial (Toronto symbol PWF) owns 67.2% of Great-West. As of September 30, 2015, the company had $1.15 trillion of assets under administration, up 12.9% from a year earlier. Great-West gets 45% of its earnings from Canada, where it operates under well-known labels like Great-West Life, Canada Life and Freedom 55....

IGM FINANCIAL INC. $38 (Toronto symbol IGM; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Finance sector; Shares outstanding: 245.8 million; Market cap: $9.3 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 3.1; Dividend yield: 5.9%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www. igmfinancial.com) is Canada’s largest independent mutual fund provider. Power Financial owns 59.8% of IGM. The company has two main divisions. Investors Group offers mutual funds and other services, such as portfolio management, through 5,200 affiliated advisors. This business forms close relationships with clients, which helps it retain them. In the past year, its redemption rate for long-term funds was 8.4%, well below the industry average of 15.6%. The other division, Mackenzie Financial, sells funds through independent brokers....

HOME CAPITAL GROUP INC. $33 (Toronto symbol HCG; Aggressive Growth Portfolio, Finance sector; Shares outstanding: 70.2 million; Market cap; $2.3 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 3.9; Dividend yield: 2.7%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www. homecapital.com) is a mortgage lender that serves borrowers who don’t meet the stricter standards of larger, traditional lenders, like banks. The company offers most of its loans through 4,000 independent mortgage brokers. In July 2015, it cut ties with 45 of them after it uncovered inaccurate information on loan applications. Specifically, these brokers falsified borrowers’ annual incomes but not their credit scores and property values....

BLACKBERRY LTD. $9.84 (Toronto symbol BB; Aggressive Growth Portfolio, Manufacturing & Industry sector; Shares outstanding: 524.2 million; Market cap: $5.2 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 2.1; No dividends paid; TSINetwork Rating: Speculative; www.blackberry.com) has launched its first-ever smartphone powered by Google’s Android software....

BANK OF NOVA SCOTIA $61 (Toronto symbol BNS; Conservative Growth and Income Portfolios, Finance sector; Shares outstanding: 1.2 billion; Market cap: $73.2 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 3.4; Dividend yield: 4.6%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.scotiabank.com) has extended its Scene loyalty card program with Cineplex Entertainment (Toronto symbol CGX) for an additional 10 years, to October 31, 2025....

MANITOBA TELECOM SERVICES INC. $29 (Toronto symbol MBT; Conservative Growth and Income Portfolios, Utilities sector; Shares outstanding: 78.9 million; Market cap: $2.3 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 1.4; Dividend yield: 4.5%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.mtsallstream.com) has expanded its recent restructuring plan, under which it is cutting 25% of its Allstream subsidiary’s workforce and lowering this business’s capital spending by 20% to 30%....

MAPLE LEAF FOODS INC. $21 (Toronto symbol MFI; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Consumer sector; Shares outstanding: 136.6 million; Market cap: $2.9 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 0.9; Dividend yield: 1.5%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.mapleleaf.ca) will soon complete a multi-year restructuring that mainly involves closing older meat-processing plants and shifting their operations to newer facilities....

FORTIS INC. $38 (www.fortisinc.com) paid $4.5 billion for UNS Energy in August 2014. This business operates power plants and distributes electricity and gas to 658,000 clients in Arizona. In the three months ended September 30, 2015, UNS increased Fortis’s earnings by 116.4%, to $145 million from $67 million a year earlier....

NVIDIA CORP. $21 (Nasdaq symbol NVDA; Aggressive Growth Portfolio, Manufacturing & Industry sector; Shares outstanding: 543.5 million; Market cap: $11.4 billion; Price-to- sales ratio: 2.6; Dividend yield: 1.6%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.nvidia.com) is a leading designer of 3D-capable video chips, which make video games run more smoothly and appear more lifelike. The company outsources most of its production to Asian chipmakers.

In its fiscal 2015 third quarter, which ended October 26, 2014, Nvidia’s revenue rose 16.3%, to a record $1.2 billion from $1.1 billion a year earlier. Earnings jumped 43.3%, to $220.4 million from $153.8 million. The company spent $810.0 million on share buybacks in the past nine months. As a result, its earnings per share rose 50.0%, to $0.39 from $0.26.

Nvidia spends around 30% of its revenue on research, which is helping it expand into new areas, particularly chips for mobile devices. Its new Tegra chips now power Google’s new Nexus 9 tablet and Chromebook laptop computer. The company also recently launched its own tablet, called Shield, specifically for video game enthusiasts.

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KRAFT HEINZ CO. $75 (www.kraftheinzcompany.com) earned $0.44 a share in the third quarter of 2015, down 4.3% from $0.46 a year earlier. Sales fell 9.0%, to $6.4 billion from $7.0 billion. If you exclude exchange rates and businesses it sold since the July 2015 merger of Kraft Foods Group and H.J....