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ENBRIDGE INC. $61 (Toronto symbol ENB; Conservative Growth and Income Portfolios, Utilities sector; Shares outstanding: 855.0 million; Market cap: $52.2 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 1.5; Dividend yield: 3.0%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.enbridge.com) gets 90% of its revenue from pipelines that pump oil and natural gas from Western Canada to Eastern Canada and the U.S. The remaining 10% mainly comes from distributing gas to 2.1 million consumers in Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick and New York State.

The company plans to spend $44 billion on new pipelines and expansions between 2014 and 2018. It completed $9.8 billion worth of that total in 2014 and expects to finish another $8.7 billion worth this year. Enbridge has already secured shipping contracts for $34 billion worth of these projects, which cuts its risk.

These outlays exclude the $6.5-billion Northern Gateway pipeline, which would pump crude from Alberta to the B.C. coast. Regulators have approved the line, but it still faces a number of political and other hurdles. If Enbridge decides to build Northern Gateway, it could begin operating in 2019.

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LINAMAR CORP. $82 (Toronto symbol LNR; Aggressive Growth Portfolio, Manufacturing & Industry sector; Shares outstanding: 65.1 million; Market cap: $5.3 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 1.3; Yield: 0.5%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.linamar.com) rose to an all-time high of $84.13 after reporting record first-quarter results.

In the three months ended March 31, 2015, sales rose 22.5%, to $1.3 billion from $1.0 billion a year earlier. That’s partly because Linamar recently bought hot-forging businesses in the U.S. and Germany for $107.6 million.

These operations bring expertise that will improve the company’s ability to make specialized parts. That will make its transmissions lighter and quieter, with less vibration.

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TRANSCANADA CORP. $53 (Toronto symbol TRP; Conservative Growth and Income Portfolios, Utilities sector; Shares outstanding: 709.0 million; Market cap: $37.6 billion; Priceto- sales ratio: 3.8; Dividend yield: 3.9%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.transcanada.com) operates a 68,000- kilometre pipeline network that pumps natural gas from Alberta to Eastern Canada and the U.S. The company’s pipelines supply 20% of North America’s natural gas needs. In 2014, they provided 48% of TransCanada’s revenue and 53% of its earnings.

The company also owns or invests in 21 power plants in Alberta, Ontario, Quebec and the northeastern U.S. In all, these facilities have over 11,800 megawatts of generating capacity. This division supplies 37% of revenue and 26% of earnings.

The remaining 15% of TransCanada’s revenue and 21% of earnings comes from its oil-pipeline division, which it started up in 2011. This business mainly consists of the Keystone pipeline, which pumps crude from Alberta to refineries in Illinois, and a distribution hub in Cushing, Oklahoma. Keystone accounts for 20% of Canada’s crude exports to the U.S.

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Pharmaceutical drugs are the biggest growth area for Johnson & Johnson today, as its strong brand helps it sustain a strong dividend yield.

One of the tech stocks that has had the greatest success for us, Apple is banking on Apple Pay and Apple Watch for its next growth spurt.

RIOCAN REIT $30.05 (Toronto symbol REI.UN; Units outstanding: 315.8 million; Market cap: $9.5 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Average; Dividend yield: 4.7%; www.riocan.com) continues to hit new all-time highs, even with the closure of the Future Shop chain.

Electronics retailer Best Buy (New York symbol BBY) recently closed 66 of its 131 Future Shop outlets in Canada and will convert the remaining 65 to Best Buy stores.

There are only 10 Future Shops in RioCan’s malls, so these closures and conversions should have little impact on its results. Combined, 32 Best Buy and Future Shop stores rent space from RioCan, accounting for just 1.5% of its 2014 rental revenue.

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CANADIAN REIT $45.51 (Toronto symbol REF.UN; Units outstanding: 72.6 million; Market cap: $3.4 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Extra Risk; Dividend yield: 3.8%; www.creit.ca) owns 198 properties, including retail, industrial and office buildings, across Canada and in Chicago. These holdings contain 24.9 million square feet of leasable area. The trust’s occupancy rate is 95.1%.

In the three months ended December 31, 2014, Canadian REIT’s revenue rose 1.7%, to $108.5 million from $106.7 million a year earlier. Cash flow per unit gained 4.2%, to $0.75 from $0.72.

In 2014, the trust added one industrial property in Toronto and another in Edmonton for a total of $42.3 million. That followed $199.1 million of purchases in 2013 and $401.9 million in 2012.

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ENCANA $17.05 (Toronto symbol ECA; Shares outstanding: 741.2 million; Market cap: $14.0 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Average; Dividend yield: 2.1%; www.encana.com) has sold its natural gas pipelines and compression facilities in B.C.’s Montney region. The buyer is a partnership between Veresen (Toronto symbol VSN and a buy recommendation of Canadian Wealth Advisor) and investment firm KKR & Co. (New York symbol KKR).

The company received $461 million (Canadian) for these assets. The cash, along with the $1.4 billion (Canadian) it recently raised by selling new shares, will let Encana pay down its long-term debt of $7.3 billion U.S., which is a high 63% of its market cap.

Encana is still a buy.

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ISHARES CANADIAN UNIVERSE BOND INDEX ETF $31.99 (Toronto symbol XBB; buy or sell through brokers) mirrors the performance of the Canadian Universe Bond Index. The 892 bonds in the portfolio have an average term to maturity of 10.35 years. The fund’s MER is 0.33%.

The bonds in the index are 68.5% government and 31.5% corporate.

The fund yields 2.8%, compared to the Short- Term Bond Fund’s 2.5%. Its yield to maturity is 1.82%, 0.69% above the Short-Term Fund. That reflects the added risk of holding long-term bonds.

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ISHARES CANADIAN SHORT-TERM BOND INDEX ETF $28.73 (Toronto symbol XSB; buy or sell through brokers) mirrors the performance of the DEX Short-Term Bond Index.

This index consists of a range of investment-grade federal, provincial, municipal and corporate bonds with one- to five-year terms to maturity. The fund holds 407 bonds with an average term to maturity of 2.87 years. The bonds in the index are 64.2% government and 35.8% corporate. The fund’s MER is 0.27%.

The iShares Canadian Short-Term Bond Index Fund yields 2.5%, but this high yield is due to the fact that some of the fund’s bonds pay above-market interest rates. As a result, they trade above their face value. When these bonds mature, holders will only get the bonds’ face value, meaning the portfolio will incur predictable capital losses. These losses will offset some of the appeal of the above-market yields.

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CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILWAY LTD. $232.62 (Toronto symbol CP; Shares outstanding: 164.2 million; Market cap: $38.5 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Average; Div. yield: 0.6%; www.cpr.ca) has reported record first-quarter results.

In the three months ended March 31, 2015, the company earned $375 million, up 49.4% from $251 million a year earlier. Per-share profits jumped 59.2%, to $2.26 from $1.42, on fewer shares outstanding. Revenue rose 10.3%, to $1.67 billion from $1.51 billion.

CP saw strong gains from shipping grain, fertilizers, coal, forest products, chemicals and consumer goods. That offset fewer shipments of crude oil, automotive products and metals.

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VANGUARD GROWTH ETF $108.87 (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 large U.S. companies. The fund’s MER is just 0.09%.

The $47.8-billion Vanguard Growth ETF’s top holdings are Apple, Google, Coca-Cola, Facebook, Oracle, Home Depot, Comcast, Amazon.com, Gilead Sciences and Walt Disney Co.

The fund’s breakdown by industry is as follows: Technology, 24.0%; Consumer Services, 21.3%; Health Care, 13.4%; Financials, 13.0%; Industrials, 11.7%; Consumer Goods, 9.4%; Oil and Gas, 5.3%; Materials, 1.5%; Telecommunication Services, 0.3%; and Utilities, 0.1%.

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ISHARES CDN REIT SECTOR INDEX FUND $17.31 (Toronto symbol XRE; buy or sell through brokers; ca.ishares.com) holds the 15 Canadian real estate investment trusts in the S&P/TSX Capped REIT Index.

iShares CDN REIT’s expenses are 0.60% of its assets. The fund yields 4.7%.

The ETF’s largest holding is RioCan REIT at 20.0%, followed by H&R REIT (13.5%), Canadian REIT (7.1%), Canadian Apartment REIT (7.0%), Allied Properties REIT (6.6%), Calloway REIT (6.6%), Dream Office REIT (6.4%), Cominar REIT (4.4%), Boardwalk REIT (5.0%), Chartwell REIT (4.5%), Artis REIT (4.3%), Granite REIT (4.3%), Crombie REIT (2.2%), Pure Industrial REIT (2.1%) and Northern Property REIT (1.7%).

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PENGROWTH ENERGY $4.09 (Toronto symbol PGF; Shares outstanding: 534.6 million; Market cap: $2.1 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Average; Dividend yield: 5.9%; www.pengrowth.com) produces oil and natural gas, mostly in Western Canada. It recently started up its Lindbergh oil sands project in eastern Alberta, which should produce 16,000 barrels a day by the end of 2015.

In the three months ended December 31, 2014, Pengrowth’s cash flow rose 10.0%, to $0.22 a share from $0.20. The company sharply cut its operating costs, offsetting a 7.2% production decline, to 71,802 barrels of oil equivalent a day from 77,371.

The company will spend $200 million on exploration and development in 2015, down 74.0% from $770 million last year. Even so, it expects to produce 73,000 to 75,000 barrels a day in 2015, up about 1.5% from 2014.

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BONAVISTA ENERGY $8.02 (Toronto symbol BNP; Shares outstanding: 203.8 million; Market cap: $1.7 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Extra Risk; Dividend yield: 5.2%; www.bonavistaenergy.com) explores for oil and natural gas in Alberta, Saskatchewan and British Columbia. Its production is 70% gas and 30% oil.

In the three months ended December 31, 2014, Bonavista’s cash flow per share rose 1.6%, to $0.63 from $0.62 a year earlier.

The company’s output gained 14.3%, to 85,810 barrels of oil equivalent a day from 75,072. However, lower oil prices mostly offset the production increase and higher realized gas prices.

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LOBLAW COMPANIES $62.05 (Toronto symbol L; Shares outstanding: 412.5 million; Market cap: $25.8 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; Dividend yield: 1.6%; www.loblaw.ca) is testing a new home-delivery service with San Francisco-based Uber Technologies, which offers users rides from private drivers in 300 cities.

Users of Loblaw’s Click & Collect online service can order groceries from three of the company’s Toronto supermarkets. They can then pick up their goods at their local store and get a free ride home from Uber.

This is a limited-time promotion, but if it’s successful, Uber may offer Loblaw customers a discounted fare. That could prompt them to buy more groceries than they normally would.

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MARKET VECTORS VIETNAM ETF $18.22 (New York symbol VNM; buy or sell through brokers) holds Vietnamese companies or foreign firms that get a significant amount of their revenue from Vietnam.

The ETF’s top holdings are Vincom Corp. (real estate), 8.2%; Masan Group (a food, resources and banking conglomerate), 7.6%; Bank for Foreign Trade of Vietnam, 7.2%; Saigon Thuong Tin Commercial Bank, 6.4%; Hansae Co. (a South Korean clothing maker), 5.6%; Charoen Pokphand Foods (a Thailand-based food conglomerate), 5.1%; Hoang Anh Gia Lai Group (conglomerate), 4.7%; and Premier Oil (a U.K.-based producer with stakes in the huge Cuu Long basin off southern Vietnam), 4.6%.

The Market Vectors Vietnam ETF’s industry breakdown is as follows: Financials, 42.5%; Consumer Staples, 16.8%; Energy, 15.7%; Consumer Discretionary, 11.1%; Industrials, 6.6%; Materials, 4.6%; and Utilities, 2.6%. Its MER is 0.76%.

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ISHARES CHINA LARGE-CAP ETF $51.98 (New York symbol FXI; buy or sell through brokers) is an exchange traded fund that aims to track the Financial Times Stock Exchange (FTSE) China 50 Index, which is made up of the 50 largest, most liquid Chinese stocks. All of the companies in the index trade on the Hong Kong exchange. Some also trade as American depositary receipts (ADRs) on New York.

The fund’s top holdings are Tencent Holdings, 8.8%; China Mobile, 8.0%; China Construction Bank, 7.5%; Industrial & Commercial Bank, 6.8%; Bank of China, 5.9%; Ping An Insurance, 4.5%; China Life, 4.4%; CNOOC Ltd., 3.9%; PetroChina, 3.8%; China Petroleum and Chemical, 3.4%; and China Overseas Land & Investment, 2.5%.

The fund’s holdings give it the following industry breakdown: Financials, 48.1%; Telecommunications, 11.7%; Oil and Gas, 11.6%; Technology, 11.1%; Industrials, 6.2%; Consumer Goods, 6.4%; and Utilities, 2.1%. Its expense ratio is 0.74%.

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MANULIFE FINANCIAL $22.18 (Toronto symbol MFC; Shares outstanding: 2.0 billion; Market cap: $43.7 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; Dividend yield: 2.8%; www.manulife.ca) now gets about a third of its insurance premiums from Asia—but that’s about to rise sharply.

The company has just entered into a 15-year “bancassurance” partnership with Singapore-based banker DBS Group Holdings. The deal will let Manulife sell life and health insurance through DBS’s Asian branch network.

Manulife won the deal over a group of companies that included Aviva plc, Prudential and AIA Group. It will pay DBS $1.2 billion to replace Aviva in its branches.

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BCE INC. $54.15 (Toronto symbol BCE; Shares outstanding: 841.9 million; Market cap: $45.6 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; Dividend yield: 4.8%; www.bce.ca) is Canada’s largest provider of telephone, Internet and wireless services. It also offers satellite and Internet TV across the country.

In the three months ended March 31, 2015, BCE’s earnings per share rose 3.7%, to $0.84 from $0.81 a year earlier. Revenue increased 2.8%, to $5.2 billion from $5.1 billion.

Revenue from wireless services (30% of the total) rose 9.7% as the company’s network upgrades continue to attract new subscribers. It’s also gaining from rising use of smartphones, for which it charges higher service fees than regular cellphones.

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When investors get in the habit of using one investment measure to buy stocks, they often find that it can be dangerously misleading.

Giving mortgages to borrowers the banks won’t touch may seem risky, but this firm’s disciplined approach puts it among our top stock picks.

Focusing on one region can be risky for bank stocks and falling oil prices have compounded that risk for Canadian Western Bank.

H&R REIT $23.32 (Toronto symbol HR.UN; Units outstanding: 275.3 million; Market cap: $6.5 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Extra Risk; Dividend yield: 5.8%; www.hr-reit.com) owns stakes in 45 office buildings, 114 industrial properties and 340 shopping malls in Canada and the U.S. In December 2014, the REIT sold part ownership of 101 industrial properties in Canada and the U.S. for $731 million. In all, these buildings comprise 19.5 million square feet. The buyers include the Canadian Public Sector Pension Investment Board. H&R will keep a 50% interest in the Canadian properties and a 49.5% stake in the U.S. portfolio. It will also keep managing these assets and will receive fees for doing so. H&R will retain full ownership of 14 other industrial properties....

TELUS $42.36 (Toronto symbol T; Shares outstanding: 609.0 million; Market cap: $25.9 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; Dividend yield: 3.8%; www.telus.com) has issued $1.75 billion worth of new long-term notes. The company will use the proceeds to pay for its recent $1.5-billion purchase of new AWS-3 radio frequencies (or wireless spectrum). Telus will use this spectrum to boost its wireless services’ speed and capacity. That will encourage more of its subscribers to upgrade to smartphones, which are more profitable for Telus than regular cellphones. The new notes will increase Telus’s long-term debt to around $11.2 billion, or a high 43% of its $25.9-billion market cap. However, the company’s annual free cash flow (or cash flow minus capital expenditures) is $1.1 billion, which gives it plenty of flexibility to pay down its debt. In addition, Telus has staggered its loan maturities to 2045, so its annual repayments remain manageable....