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Top-quality Canadian dividend stocks offer investors a unique blend of long-term cash flow and tax benefits.

Our view of car rental giant Avis Budget Group and whether it can hold off competition from fast-growing alternatives like Uber.

Loblaw has set itself up for years of growth with its acquisition of Shoppers Drug Mart, a new inventory system, and a share buyback plan.

Target-date funds are sold as offering great benefits for investors, but we don’t think you should accept the sales pitch.

Value stock Verizon Communications dials up growth with its AOL acquisition, more wireless revenue, and a new mobile video app.

With a promising uranium discovery in Canada, NexGen Energy may offer speculative appeal for highly aggressive investors—and risk to match

Insights into how the incubator fund process can let fund managers “bury their losers” can keep investors out of bad mutual funds.

A look at the risks investors face with short ETFs, or “bear market” ETFs designed to move in the opposite direction to a market index

There are a number of things all penny stocks have in common besides their low price. You need to know what they are to pick winners.

Bad penny stocks require the most intensive marketing and promotion

Penny stocks do sometimes pay off, but there are many pitfalls to avoid. You should be aware that many penny stocks are little more than very well executed marketing campaigns. Penny stock promoters will do anything in their power to get their penny stock noticed. These extensive marketing campaigns include emails, TV interviews, podcasts, newsletters and other paid sponsorships.

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Uranium stocks could be a worthwhile addition to your resource portfolio—but you need to be aware of the risks.

With new Star Wars films still ahead, Walt Disney Co. posts record revenue from its theme parks, movies, and distribution fees.

Marketing timing strategies like “buy low, sell high” make sense of past market movements, but are pretty much useless at predicting the future.

With a new U.S. mine boosting production, Newmont Mining adapts to lower gold and copper prices by focusing on quality and cost-cutting

Sometimes it’s better to just pay the Canadian capital gains tax, which can actually save you money and make your investments more profitable.

As CN uses its deep resources to increase efficiency and expand its network, we view it as a leading blue chip stock for Canadian investors

Profiting from the global stock market has never been easier for investors

We like juniors Birchcliff Energy and Trilogy Energy for their potential when oil recovers. But just one of these energy stocks is a buy now

Top stock brokers and portfolio managers provide you with ethical and conflict-free advice—and here are three things they won’t do.

BANK OF NOVA SCOTIA $59.87 (Toronto symbol BNS; Shares outstanding: 1.2 billion; Market cap: $72.0 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; Dividend yield: 4.7%, www.scotiabank.com) has extended its Scene loyalty card program with Cineplex Inc. for an additional 10 years, to October 31, 2025.

Scene lets cardholders earn points they can redeem for free movies at Cineplex’s theatres. It’s one of Canada’s most popular loyalty plans, with over seven million members.

The deal gives the bank lots of opportunities to cross-sell other services to Scene members. In particular, Scene is very popular with young moviegoers. So it’s a great way to begin a relationship with them when they’re just starting to bank and use credit and debit cards.

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GEORGE WESTON LTD. $109.43 (Toronto symbol WN; Shares outstanding: 128.0 million; Market cap: $14.0 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; Dividend yield: 1.6%) makes a number of products through Weston Foods. Its businesses include fresh and frozen bakery and cookie operations in Canada and plants that make frozen bakery items, biscuits, cookies, cones and wafers in the U.S.

Weston also owns 46% of Loblaw (see above) and 5.5% of Choice Properties REIT (Toronto symbol CHP.UN). Choice owns 519 properties, mainly supermarket- and drugstore-anchored shopping malls and stand-alone supermarkets and pharmacies. Loblaw holds 83.0% of Choice and accounts for 91.0% of the REIT’s earnings.

In the three months ended October 10, 2015, Weston’s revenue rose 2.9%, to $14.4 billion from $14.0 billion a year earlier.

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LOBLAW COMPANIES $66.80 (Toronto symbol L; Shares outstanding: 412.4 million; Market cap: $27.6 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; Dividend yield: 1.5%; www.loblaw.ca) is Canada’s largest food retailer, with about 1,200 supermarkets. Its banners include Loblaws, Provigo, Fortinos, Real Canadian Superstore and No Frills. George Weston Ltd. (see below) owns 46% of the company.

In the three months ended October 10, 2015, Loblaw earned $408 million, or $0.99 a share, up 10.0% from $371 million, or $0.90, a year earlier. Sales rose 2.5%, to $13.9 billion from $13.6 billion. Excluding gasoline, same-store sales rose 3.1% at Loblaw and 4.9% at the 1,300-store Shoppers Drug Mart chain, which the company bought for $12.3 billion in March 2014.

Loblaw continues to integrate its operations with Shoppers Drug. It expects these moves to save it at least $222 million in 2016.

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TORSTAR $3.13 (Toronto symbol TS.B; Shares outstanding: 79.9 million; Market cap: $254.3 million; TSINetwork Rating: Average; Dividend yield: 8.2%; www.torstar.com) lost $164.8 million, or $2.04 a share, in the three months ended September 30, 2015. A year earlier, it lost $87.0 million, or $1.08 a share.

Excluding costs related to job cuts and other measures in response to falling ad revenue at Torstar’s newspapers, the company lost $10.4 million, or $0.13 a share, in the latest quarter. Torstar expects its restructuring to cut $9.3 million from its annual costs in 2015 and a further $14.3 million in 2016.

Overall revenue declined 7.3%, to $185.4 million from $199.9 million. Lower ad sales cut revenue at both the free weekly newspapers and flyer-distribution operations, as well as at the Toronto Star and other daily papers.

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TRANSCANADA CORP. $42.69 (Toronto symbol TRP; Shares outstanding: 708.9 million; Market cap: $30.7 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; Dividend yield: 4.9%; www.transcanada.com) recently had its proposed Keystone XL pipeline rejected by the U.S. The line would have pumped oil sands crude to refineries on the U.S. Gulf Coast.

So far, TransCanada has spent $2.4 billion U.S. on this $8.0-billion U.S. project. However, it can use some of the line’s equipment on other projects, which would minimize a writedown.

Meanwhile, TransCanada has $35 billion of large-scale projects underway, as well as $13 billion in small- to medium sized developments set to come into service in the next three years.

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TELUS $42.20 (Toronto symbol T; Shares outstanding: 605.0 million; Market cap: $25.5 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; Dividend yield: 4.1%; www.telus.com) earned $398 million in the three months ended September 30, 2015, up 2.8% from $387 million a year earlier. Earnings per share rose 3.1%, to $0.66 from $0.64, on fewer shares outstanding. Revenue gained 4.2%, to $3.2 billion from $3.0 billion.

Telus continues to sign up high-speed Internet and TV customers, which is helping offset lower demand for traditional phone services.

The company now aims to improve its earnings by cutting 3% of its workforce. That should lower its annual costs by $100 million to $125 million.

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ISHARES MSCI BRAZIL INDEX FUND $23.14 (New York symbol EWZ; buy or sell through brokers) is an ETF that’s designed to track the Brazilian stock market.

Its top holdings are AmBev SA (beer and beverages), 10.6%; Cia Itau Unibanco Holding (banking), 10.2%; Petrobras (oil and gas), 6.8%; Banco Brandesco SA, 6.4%; BRF SA (food), 4.3%; Cielo SA (payment processing), 3.9%; Ultrapar SA (gas distribution and petrochemicals), 3.0%; and Itausa Investimentos SA (financial services), 2.8%. The ETF was launched on July 10, 2000. It has a 0.62% expense ratio.

Sluggish exports and low resource prices continue to slow Brazil’s economic growth. State-controlled oil and gas giant Petrobras is also in the midst of a huge corruption scandal. As well, president Dilma Rousseff, re-elected in late 2014, has yet to fulfill her promises of less growth-inhibiting government intervention in the economy.

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