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Focused on the Bakken oil development, Crescent Point Energy is a stock we believe has strong growth potential when oil prices recover

Using a dollar cost averaging strategy is one of the best systematic ways to make money in the stock market.

Getting in on the ground floor with new fast growing stocks may seem enticing, but there are many reasons why most new stocks promoted as “can’t-miss” ideas do miss.

In the complex drug industry, Pfizer’s effective growth strategies—such as biosimilar drugs—make it one of our top U.S. dividend stocks.

Solar energy stocks may become a long-term renewable resource worth investing in.

Investing in solar power companies can be profitable for investors who know all the risks.

A history of thriving on acquisitions makes Alimentation Couche-Tard a top growth stock for us and one of the best investments in Canada

Over-the-counter trading is for investors who don’t mind risk and are willing to chance losing their money

Investors can use special ETFs called bear funds to hedge their positions in a market downturn.

EBAY INC. $28 (www.ebay.com) earned $529 million in the third quarter of 2015, down 8.6% from $579 million a year earlier. Per-share earnings fell at a slower pace of 6.5%, to $0.43 from $0.46, on fewer shares outstanding. Revenue declined 2.4%, to $2.10 billion from $2.15 billion. That’s partly because Google changed its search methods, which made it harder for potential buyers to find merchandise on eBay’s auction websites. Hold.

DIEBOLD INC. $37 (www.diebold.com) is selling its North American electronic-security business, which includes burglar and fire alarms and video systems for accessing and monitoring buildings. The company will receive $350 million for these operations....

PROCTER & GAMBLE CO. $77 (New York symbol PG; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Consumer sector; Shares outstanding: 2.7 billion; Market cap: $207.9 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 2.8; Dividend yield: 3.4%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.pg.com) makes products in five main categories: fabric and home care items, such as Tide laundry detergent (29% of sales, 24% of earnings); baby goods, including Pampers diapers (27%, 26%); beauty products, like Olay cosmetics (24%, 23%); grooming items, including Gillette razors (10%, 16%); and health care products, such as Crest toothpaste (10%, 11%). Wal-Mart supplies 14% of the company’s sales.

Latest sale set to deliver big gains

In the past few years, Procter has sold many of its less profitable brands, including its recent deal to transfer 43 beauty product lines, including Wella, Clairol, Max Factor and CoverGirl, to Coty Inc. (New York symbol COTY).

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TEXAS INSTRUMENTS INC. $59 (Nasdaq symbol TXN; Aggressive Growth Portfolio, Manufacturing & Industry sector; Shares outstanding: 1.0 billion; Market cap: $59.0 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 4.6; Dividend yield: 2.6%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.ti.comtarget=”_blank”) earned $798 million in the three months ended September 30, 2015, down 3.4% from $826 million a year earlier. The company spent $790 million on share buybacks during the quarter. As a result, earnings per share were unchanged at $0.76.

Revenue declined 2.1%, to $3.4 billion from $3.5 billion. Sales of analog chips (64% of the total) rose 1.5%. (Analog chips convert inputs like touch and sound into electronic signals computers can understand.) Revenue from embedded processor chips (21%), which perform mathematical calculations, gained 2.0%. But revenue from other chips and calculators (15%) declined by 18.6%.

However, free cash flow (cash flow less capital expenditures) rose 4.2% in the past 12 months, to $3.6 billion. That gives the company plenty of flexibility to keep buying back shares and raising its dividend.

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FEDEX CORP. $155 (New York symbol FDX; Aggressive Growth Portfolio, Consumer sector; Shares outstanding: 282.4 million; Market cap: $43.8 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 0.9; Dividend yield: 0.6%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.fedex.com) has received approval from European regulators for its deal to buy Netherlands-based courier TNT Express NV. FedEx expects to complete the purchase by October 31, 2015.

The company will pay $4.8 billion. It held cash of $3.5 billion as of August 31, 2015, so it will borrow the funds it needs. Its long-term debt of $7.2 billion is a low 16% of its market cap, so it has lots of room to borrow more, especially at today’s low interest rates.

FedEx is a buy.

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C.R. BARD INC. $184 (New York symbol BCR; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Consumer sector; Shares outstanding: 73.9 million; Market cap: $13.6 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 4.0; Dividend yield: 0.5%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.crbard.com) earned $174.7 million in the three months ended September 30, 2015, up 4.7% from $166.9 million a year earlier. Earnings per share rose 6.0%, to $2.28 from $2.15, on fewer shares outstanding.

Sales gained 4.3%, to $865.7 million from $830.0 million. Without the high U.S. dollar’s negative impact, sales rose 8%.

The company is also buying the 50% of Medicon, a joint venture that distributes Bard’s medical devices in Japan. The company will pay $93 million for this stake. Owning all of Medicon will add $40 million to its annual sales.

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NORDSTROM INC. $65 (New York symbol JWN; Aggressive Growth Portfolio, Consumer sector; Shares outstanding: 188.2 million; Market cap: $12.2 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 0.9; Dividend yield: 2.3%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.nordstrom.com) owns and operates 304 stores in the U.S. and Canada that mainly sell upscale clothing and footwear.

The company recently sold its credit card loans to Toronto-Dominion Bank (Toronto symbol TD) for $2.2 billion. It used the cash to cut $325 million from its $2.8-billion debt and pay a special dividend of $4.85 a share, worth a total of $900 million.

Nordstrom will use the remaining funds to buy back $1 billion worth of its stock by March 1, 2017. That’s in addition to the $591 million remaining on its existing repurchase authorization, which expires on March 1, 2016.

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FAIR ISAAC CORP. $93 (New York symbol FICO; Aggressive Growth Portfolio, Manufacturing & Industry sector; Shares outstanding: 31.1 million; Market cap: $2.9 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 3.3; Dividend yield: 0.1%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.fico.com) makes FICO Scores, a computer program that helps businesses make better decisions about customer creditworthiness. FICO Scores dominates this niche market. Fair Isaac also sells software that helps credit card issuers control fraud and analyze cardholders’ spending patterns.

The company spends 12% of its revenue on research, which helps it stay ahead of the competition.

It’s now working to incorporate new data into its software. Right now, for example, FICO Scores doesn’t distinguish between people who carry balances on their credit cards (higher credit risk) and those who’ve never had a credit card but pay their utility and other bills off every month (lower risk). In addition, Fair Isaac plans to add data people publicly share on social media like Facebook. Both moves should make FICO Scores more accurate.

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SYMANTEC CORP. $21 (Nasdaq symbol SYMC; Aggressive Growth Portfolio, Manufacturing & Industry sector; Shares outstanding: 679.2 million; Market cap: $14.3 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 2.2; Dividend yield: 2.9%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.symantec.com) sells computer-security technology, including antivirus and email-filtering software, to businesses and consumers.

In 2014, the company said it would split into two publicly traded firms. One would keep the Symantec name and focus on antivirus and security software and services. The other, called Veritas Technologies, makes products for data backup and recovery.

However, the company has now decided to sell Veritas to a group of private investors for $8.0 billion. It expects to close the deal on January 1, 2016.

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ALCOA INC. $8.99 (New York symbol AA; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Resources sector; Shares outstanding: 1.3 billion; Market cap: $11.7 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 0.5; Dividend yield: 1.3%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.alcoa.com) plans to split itself into two separate firms.

One will focus on Alcoa’s upstream operations, which include mining bauxite ore and refining it into bulk aluminum products. This business will be the world’s fourth-largest aluminum producer, with $13.2 billion of annual revenue and $2.8 billion of gross earnings.

The other company will focus on engineered aluminum products, such as components for cars and jet engines. This firm has $14.5 billion of annual revenue and $2.2 billion of gross earnings.

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STANLEY BLACK & DECKER INC. $107 (New York symbol SWK; Conservative Growth and Income Portfolios, Manufacturing & Industry sector; Shares outstanding: 153.2 million; Market cap: $16.4 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 1.4; Dividend yield: 2.1%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.stanleyblackanddecker.com) earned $234.1 million in the three months ended October 3, 2015, down 5.0% from $246.4 million a year earlier. The company spent $192.1 million on share buybacks in the quarter, so per-share earnings gained 1.3%, to $1.55 from $1.53.

Sales fell 1.7%, to $2.8 billion from $2.9 billion. Stanley gets about half of its sales from outside the U.S., so if you exclude the negative impact of currency rates, sales rose 6%. Stronger demand for its hand tools offset lower sales of its building-security products and tools for industrial users.

The company continues to benefit from a recent restructuring, while lower prices for steel and other raw materials are expanding its profit margins. As a result, Stanley now expects to earn $5.80 to $5.95 a share for all of 2015, up from its earlier forecast of $5.70 to $5.90. The stock trades at an attractive 18.2 times the midpoint of the new range.

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Trading ETFs can work just as well in facilitating dumb moves as it does with smart moves

GENERAL ELECTRIC CO. $29 (New York symbol GE; Conservative Growth and Income Portfolios, Manufacturing & Industry sector; Shares outstanding: 10.1 billion; Market cap: $292.9 billion; Priceto- sales ratio: 2.0; Dividend yield: 3.2%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.ge.com) continues to shrink its GE Capital subsidiary as part of a plan to focus on its industrial businesses, including jet engines, medical equipment, appliances, lighting and locomotives.

Including its recent deal with Wells Fargo (see left), the company has now sold $126 billion worth of GE Capital’s assets. It should reach its goal of shrinking this business by $200 billion by the end of 2016.

After these sales, the financing business will supply just 10% of GE’s earnings, down from 42% in 2014. The Federal Reserve considers GE Capital a “systemically important financial institution,” so reducing its size should let GE avoid the tougher capitalization requirements and stress tests the Fed imposes on big lenders.

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STATE STREET CORP. $70 (New York symbol STT; Aggressive Growth Portfolio, Finance sector; Shares outstanding: 403.8 million; Market cap: $28.3 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 2.6; Dividend yield: 1.9%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.statestreet.com) sells accounting and administrative services to large institutional investors, such as mutual funds and pension plans.

State Street’s fee income rises and falls with the value of the mutual funds and other securities it manages. Recent stock market weakness reduced the value of its assets under custody and administration by 4.2%, to $27.3 trillion, as of September 30, 2015, compared to the same date a year ago. Assets it manages, including exchange traded funds, fell 9.0% to $2.2 trillion.

These declines lowered the company’s revenue by 1.2% in the third quarter of 2015, to $2.65 billion from $2.68 billion a year earlier.

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J.P. MORGAN CHASE & CO. $66 (New York symbol JPM; Income Portfolio, Finance sector; Shares outstanding: 3.7 billion; Market cap: $244.2 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 2.6; Dividend yield: 2.7%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.jpmorgan chase.com) has four main divisions: Consumer and Community Banking, which includes branches and credit cards (45% of 2014 revenue, 44% of earnings); Corporate and Investment Banking, including brokerage and underwriting services (36%, 33%); Asset Management (12%, 10%); and Commercial Banking (7%, 13%). About 75% of Morgan’s revenue comes from the U.S.

The bank is selling some operations and scaling back in other areas. These moves are in response to the Federal Reserve’s plan to impose tougher capital requirements on banks it feels are too big or complex.

For example, it recently agreed to sell its Canadian credit card businesses to Bank of Nova Scotia (Toronto symbol BNS).

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WELLS FARGO & CO. $55 (New York symbol WFC; Conservative Growth and Income Portfolios, Finance sector; Shares outstanding: 5.1 billion; Market cap: $280.5 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 3.3; Dividend yield: 2.7%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.wellsfargo.com) operates through three divisions: Community Banking provides mortgages, loans, credit cards and other financial services (57% of 2014 revenue, 59% of earnings); Wholesale Banking supplies business loans (27%, 32%); and Wealth, Brokerage and Retirement offers wealth management, brokerage and trust services to individuals and institutions, such as pension plans (16%, 9%).

The bank gets 95% of its revenue from the U.S.

Wells Fargo recently agreed to buy the commercial lending and leasing operations of GE Capital, the financing division of General Electric (see box). These businesses offer loans to help manufacturers boost their inventory, as well as other forms of financing.

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