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FAIR ISAAC CORP. $84 (New York symbol FICO; Aggressive Growth Portfolio, Manufacturing & Industry sector; Shares outstanding: 31.4 million; Market cap: $2.6 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 cut fraud and analyze cardholders’ spending patterns.

In its fiscal 2015 first quarter, which ended December 31, 2014, Fair Isaac’s revenue rose 2.8%, to $189.6 million from $184.3 million a year earlier.

The company saw higher sales at its applications division (66% of revenue) on increased licensing revenue from software that detects bank fraud. Sales of credit-scoring software and programs for analyzing large amounts of a business’s data were lower, mostly due to a big order in the year-ago quarter.

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DUN & BRADSTREET CORP. $135 (New York symbol DNB; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Finance sector; Shares outstanding: 35.9 million; Market cap: $4.8 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 2.9; Dividend yield: 1.4%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.dnb.com) provides credit reports on over 240 million companies. Its clients use this information to make lending and buying decisions.

Credit reports supply 63% of Dun & Bradstreet’s revenue. The remaining 27% comes from other information products, such as software that helps businesses manage websites and customer data.

In 2014, revenue rose 1.7%, to $1.68 billion from $1.65 billion in 2013. All regions saw gains: North America (74% of revenue), up 1.2%; Europe (15%), up 4.1%; and Asia (11%), up 1.9%.

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BROADRIDGE FINANCIAL SERVICES INC. $54 (New York symbol BR; Aggressive Growth Portfolio, Finance sector; Shares outstanding: 120.9 million; Market cap: $6.5 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 2.5; Dividend yield: 2.0%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.broadridge.com) serves the investment industry in three main areas: investor communications, securities processing and transaction clearing. It processes 90% of all proxy votes in the U.S. and Canada.

Without one-time items, Broadridge earned $39.9 million, or $0.32 a share, in its fiscal 2015 second quarter, which ended December 31, 2014. That’s up 27.9% from $31.2 million, or $0.25 a share, a year earlier. The company continues to add new clients and is doing a good job of holding on to existing ones. Revenue gained 10.4%, to $574.6 million from $520.6 million.

Broadridge typically makes half of its profits in its fourth quarter, which ends June 30. This is the busiest time for processing proxies and annual reports.

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RESTAURANT BRANDS INTERNATIONAL INC. $43 (New York symbol QSR; Aggressive Growth Portfolio, Consumer sector; Shares outstanding: 467.1 million; Market cap: $20.1 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 14.2; Dividend yield: 0.8%.; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.rbi.com) took its current form on December 12, 2014, as a result of Burger King Worldwide’s (old symbol BKW) takeover of Tim Hortons Inc. (old symbol THI).

Restaurant Brands now has 14,372 Burger King restaurants and 4,671 Tim Hortons outlets in over 100 countries.

In the three months ended December 31, 2014, the company lost $514.2 million, or $2.52 a share, compared to a profit of $66.8 million, or $0.19, a year earlier. Without merger-related costs and other unusual items, gross earnings before depreciation, interest and taxes gained 23.1%.

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WAL-MART STORES INC. $84 (New York symbol WMT; Conservative Growth Portfolio: Consumer sector; Shares outstanding: 3.2 billion; Market cap: $268.8 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 0.6; Dividend yield: 2.3%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.walmart.com) gets about 60% of its sales from its 4,516 stores in the U.S., including 3,407 supercentres, which sell both groceries and general merchandise. Groceries now supply 56% of Wal-Mart’s U.S. sales.

In 1991, the company opened its first store outside of the U.S. through a joint venture with a Mexican retailer. Its international division (29% of total sales) now operates 6,290 stores in 26 countries.

The remaining 11% of Wal-Mart’s sales comes from its Sam’s Club warehouse stores. The company charges customers a $45 annual membership fee to shop at these stores, which sell a variety of goods at wholesale prices. There are currently 647 Sam’s Club stores in the U.S. and other countries.

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Nearly 50% of Canadians do not have a Tax Free Savings Account (TFSA). And many of those that do are not making regular contributions. This is a shame. It means that many are missing out on a savings plan that can contribute substantially to building wealth and accumulating a strong cash reserve that’s there when you need it.

Since their inception in 2009 tax free savings accounts have given Canadians an excellent opportunity to earn investment income, on interest, dividends and capital gains, tax free.

To ensure that you can take the greatest possible advantage of your TFSA, noted financial columnist Jonathan Chevreau and I have assembled a special report, Make the Most of Your Tax Free Savings Account.

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Telus continues to upgrade its wireless and Internet services, spending $2.2 billion on these improvements in 2014. That’s helping it attract more subscribers in a highly competitive market.

As well, last year the company bought $1.1 billion worth of wireless frequencies, or spectrum that should let it cover more of Canada, particularly smaller cities and rural areas.

TELUS (Toronto symbol T; www.telus.com) gets 55% of its revenue from its 8.0 million wireless subscribers across Canada. It also has 3.2 million phone customers, 1.5 million high-speed Internet users and 888,000 TV subscribers.

Telus also continues to expand its health care division, which helps doctors, pharmacies and hospitals convert patient records and other information to electronic formats.

In September 2014, the company paid an undisclosed sum for ZRx Prescriber, an app that lets doctors write prescriptions through their tablet computers and smartphones. The app can also access a patient’s drug-insurance information, which speeds up claims and cuts down on errors. Over 520 clinics in Ontario and Quebec use ZRx Prescriber to process 400,000 prescriptions a month.

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Every Monday we feature “A Stock to Sell” as our daily post. With every stock or investment we recommend as a sell, we give you a full explanation of why we advise against investing in it at this time.

Metalore Resources (symbol MET on Toronto; www.metaloreresources.com) produces natural gas in Southwestern Ontario. It owns or controls approximately 40,000 of petroleum, natural gas and mineral leases in Norfolk County.

Right now, the company is producing gas from 85 wells. It also distributes gas to 85 businesses and consumers along its gathering pipelines through an agreement with Union Gas Ltd.

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Pat McKeough responds to many requests from members of his Inner Circle on specific stock picks as well as questions on investment strategy and the economy. Every week, his comments and recommendations on the most intriguing questions of the past week go out to all Inner Circle members. And each week, we offer you one of the highlights from these Q&A sessions. While we reserve our buy-hold-sell advice for Inner Circle members, these excerpts provide a great deal of information and analysis on stocks we’ve covered for members of Pat’s Inner Circle.

This week an Inner Circle Member asked us about a stock that has risen and fallen sharply in the past year. AutoCanada has almost four dozen franchised auto dealerships across Canada and continues to add more through takeovers. While the company has benefited from a rebound in car sales, it also faces several challenges in a cyclical, competitive business. Pat examines the risk of its growth-by-acquisition strategy and the potential impact of lower oil prices on Western Canadian car sales.

Q: Pat: I am a new member and I have a question. What is your current view of AutoCanada? Thanks.

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Every Thursday we bring you one of our best U.S. stock picks. You get our specific recommendation on the stocks we profile, with a full explanation of how we arrived at our opinion. You will read about stocks making moves you should know about, most often from coverage in our newsletter on U.S. investing, Wall Street Stock Forecaster. Over 30 billion devices—including things like home thermostats and appliances—will be connected to the Internet by 2020....

Every Wednesday, we publish our “Investor Toolkit” series on TSI Network. Whether you’re a beginning or experienced investor, these weekly updates are designed to give you specific investment tips and stock market advice. Each Investor Toolkit update gives you a fundamental piece of investment advice, and shows you how you can put it into practice right away.

Today’s tip: “Despite their promise to ease your tax burden on withdrawals, RRSP meltdown strategies are usually more lucrative for brokers than for investors.”

Investors sometimes ask us what we think of the so-called “RRSP meltdown.” This is a strategy that would let them make withdrawals from their RRSPs without paying income tax.

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Every Tuesday we bring you “Best Canadian Stocks.” You get our specific recommendations on the stocks we profile, with a full explanation of how we arrived at our opinion. You’ll read about stocks making moves you should know about, from coverage in one of our three newsletters featuring Canadian stocks—The Successful Investor, Stock Pickers Digest and Canadian Wealth Advisor.

ANDREW PELLER LTD. (Toronto symbol ADW.A; www.andrewpeller.com) is Canada’s second-largest producer of wines, after Vincor International. Its wineries in Nova Scotia, Ontario and British Columbia account for 13.4% of the Canadian wine market.

In the second quarter of its 2015 fiscal year, which ended September 30, 2014, Peller’s sales rose 7.2%, to $82.8 million from $77.2 million a year earlier. That’s mainly because the company started selling its Wayne Gretzky wines in Western Canada. The company also launched several new products, including its skinnygrape spritzers and Panama Jack cocktails.

Earnings jumped 45.5%, to $5.1 million, or $0.37 a share, from $3.5 million, or $0.25.

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TEMPUR SEALY $55.01 (New York symbol TPX; TSINetwork Rating: Speculative)(800-878-8889; www.tempursealy.com; Shares outstanding: 60.9 million; Market cap: $3.4 billion; No dividends paid) completed its $1.3- billion purchase of rival Sealy in 2013. This was a major acquisition for Tempur Sealy (formerly Tempur- Pedic), but it has let the company diversify into traditional spring-coil beds.

The purchase is also helping Tempur Sealy offset rising competition in its current business; the company makes and distributes mattresses and neck pillows made of its Tempur material, which conforms to the body to provide support and alleviate pressure points.

Competition remains high

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WYNDHAM WORLDWIDE $91.39 (New York symbol WYN; TSINetwork Rating: Extra Risk) (973- 753-6000; www.wyndhamworldwide.com; Shares outstanding: 123.3 million; Market cap: $10.9 billion; Dividend yield: 1.5%) is one of the world’s largest hospitality companies, with 7,650 franchised hotels and over 661,000 rooms worldwide.

Wyndham also manages vacation resorts, rental properties, luxury clubs and time-shares. The company now has 107,000 vacation-rental properties in 100 countries.

In the three months ended December 31, 2014, Wyndham’s revenue rose 3.0%, to $1.23 billion from $1.20 billion a year earlier. The company gets most of its revenue from vacation rather than business travel, and vacation bookings rose in the latest quarter. That helped push up its occupancy rate by 3.1%.

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BROADRIDGE FINANCIAL SOLUTIONS $52.97 (New York symbol BR; TSINetwork Rating: Extra Risk) (201-714-3000; www.broadridge.com; Shares outstanding: 120.0 million; Market cap: $6.4 billion; Dividend yield: 2.0%)continues to hit new all-time highs after reporting strong quarterly results.

Without one-time items, Broadridge earned $39.9 million, or $0.32 a share, in its fiscal 2015 second quarter, which ended December 31, 2014. That’s up 27.9% from $31.2 million, or $0.25 a share, a year earlier. The company continues to add new clients and is doing a good job of holding on to existing ones.

Revenue gained 10.4%, to $574.6 million from $520.6 million.

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YAMANA GOLD $5.01 (Toronto symbol YRI; TSINetwork Rating: Speculative)(416-815-0220; www.yamana.com; Shares outstanding: 880.8 million; Market cap: $4.6 billion; Dividend yield: 1.5%) has decided to go ahead with building a $398.0-million mine at its Cerro Moro gold and silver property in Argentina. Production could begin as soon as late 2017.

The mine will produce an average of 102,000 ounces of gold and 5.0 million ounces of silver over its eight-year life—and its lifespan could be extended with further exploration drilling.

Yamana Gold is still a buy.

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CARFINCO FINANCIAL $10.96 (Toronto symbol CFN; TSINetwork Rating: Speculative) (1-888-486-4356; www.carfinco.com; Shares outstanding: 26.5 million; Market cap: $281.1 million; Dividend yield: 2.7%) has rebounded closer to its takeover price of $11.25 a share after falling as low as $8.30 in January 2015.

In November 2014, Carfinco’s shareholders voted to accept a friendly $11.25-a-share takeover bid from Spain’s Banco Santander SA (ADR symbol SAN on New York).

Carfinco is confident the deal will go through, and the last two conditions were recently met: Spanish regulators granted their approval and Carfinco entered into an agreement to sell Persian Acceptance Corp., its U.S. subsidiary.

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INTACT FINANCIAL CORP. $90.64 (Toronto symbol IFC; TSINetwork Rating: Speculative) (416-341- 1464; www.intactfc.com; Shares outstanding: 131.5 million; Market cap: $11.9 billion; Dividend yield: 2.3%) is expanding in Western Canada by purchasing Canadian Direct Insurance from Canadian Western Bank (symbol CWB on Toronto) for $197 million. Canadian Direct offers home, auto and travel insurance, mainly in Alberta and B.C.

The acquisition also lets Intact expand its higherprofit- margin direct-to-consumer distribution channel. Direct distribution lets consumers get initial online quotes at any time and then use extended call centre hours to speak with—and purchase policies from— licensed insurance representatives.

In conjunction with this purchase, Intact plans to merge its Grey Power brand into its belairdirect brand to reduce the number of banners it offers. However, it will continue to offer Grey Power’s discount rates to drivers over the age of 50.

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WESTJET AIRLINES $30.63 (Toronto symbol WJA; TSINetwork Rating: Extra Risk)(1- 877-493-7853; www.westjet.com; Shares outstanding: 127.8 million; Market cap: $4.0 billion; Dividend yield: 1.8%) reports that its earnings per share jumped 34.6% in the three months ended December 31, 2014, to $0.70 from $0.52 a year earlier. Revenue rose 7.3%, to $994.4 million from $926.4 million.

Fuel makes up around a third of an airline’s operating expenses, and WestJet continues to benefit as its fuel costs drop along with oil prices.

The company is returning some of its higher profits to shareholders: it has just raised its quarterly dividend by 16.7% with the March 2015 payment, to $0.14 from $0.12. The stock now yields 1.8%.

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CHIPOTLE MEXICAN GRILL $674.57 (New York symbol CMG; TSINetwork Rating: Speculative) (303- 595-4000; www.chipotle.com; Shares outstanding: 31.0 million; Market cap: $20.8 billion; No dividends paid) is a Denverbased Mexican restaurant chain. It charges slightly higher prices than fast food companies, but it offers better quality food, including naturally raised meat, and superior decor and service.

In the three months ended December 31, 2014, Chipotle’s sales jumped 26.7%, to $1.07 billion from $844.1 million a year earlier. Its restaurants attracted more customers during the quarter, which pushed up same-restaurant sales by 16.1%.

Chipotle opened 60 new outlets and now has a total of 1,783. It plans to add 190 to 205 more in 2015.

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AMAZON.COM $373.37 (Nasdaq symbol AMZN; TSINetwork Rating: Extra Risk)(206-266-1000; www.amazon.com; Shares outstanding: 464.4 million; Market cap: $174.3 billion; No dividends paid) is a major online retailer. The company gets about 25% of its sales from books, music and videos. Other products, including electronics, computer games and toys, make up the other 75%. Amazon Marketplace lets other companies sell their products through Amazon’s websites.

In the three months ended December 31, 2014, Amazon earned $0.45 a share. That was down 11.8% from $0.51 a share a year earlier, but it was much better than the consensus estimate of $0.24. Sales rose 14.6%, to $29.3 billion from $25.6 billion.

In early 2014, the company raised the price of its Amazon Prime free-shipping service to $99 a year from $79. This was the first increase since Amazon launched Prime in 2005.

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IAMGOLD $2.90 (Toronto symbol IMG; TSINetwork Rating: Speculative) (1-888-464-9999; www.iamgold.com; Shares outstanding: 376.9 million; Market cap: $1.0 billion; No dividends paid) now holds over $800 million U.S. of cash and gold bullion after the sale of its Niobec niobium mine in Quebec’s Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean region.

IAMGold received $500 million U.S. for the sale of Niobec. It will get another $30 million U.S. when an adjacent deposit of rare earth elements goes into production.

The company’s big cash and gold holding puts it in a strong position to pay down its long-term debt of $641 million U.S. It could also expand its existing gold projects, pay dividends, buy back shares or make timely acquisitions from distressed sellers at low prices.

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ALARMFORCE INDUSTRIES $10.08 (Toronto symbol AF; TSINetwork Rating: Speculative) (1-800- 267-2001; www.alarmforce.com; Shares outstanding: 11.7 million; Market cap: $121.1 million; Dividend yield: 1.2%) sells twoway voice-alarm systems and monitoring services in Canada and increasingly in the U.S.

In the three months ended October 31, 2014, the company’s sales rose 5.2%, to $13.3 million from $12.6 million a year earlier. It earned $0.17 a share, down 19.0% from $0.21.

AlarmForce’s revenue rose along with its subscriber base and higher monthly revenue per customer. Earnings declined because it spent more on product development and marketing.

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RESTAURANT BRANDS INTERNATIONAL $40.97 (New York symbol QSR; TSINetwork Rating: Average) (212-333-3810; www.rbi.com; Shares outstanding: 467.1 million; Market cap: $19.1 billion; Dividend yield: 0.9%) took its current form on December 12, 2014, as a result of Burger King Worldwide’s (old symbol BKW) acquisition of Tim Hortons Inc. (old symbol THI).

Restaurant Brands is the world’s third-largest fastfood operator, after McDonald’s and Yum Brands, with 14,372 Burger King restaurants and 4,671 Tim Hortons outlets in 100 countries.

In the three months ended December 31, 2014, the company lost $514.2 million, or $2.52 a share, compared to a profit of $66.8 million, or $0.19 (all amounts except share price and market cap in U.S. dollars). Excluding merger-related costs and other unusual items, operating earnings rose 23.1%.

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BELLATRIX EXPLORATION $3.50 (Toronto symbol BXE; TSINetwork Rating: Speculative) (403-266-8670; www.bellatrixexploration.com; Shares outstanding: 191.5 million; Market cap: $735.5 million; No dividends paid) will cut its 2015 exploration and development spending by 33.3%, to $200 million from $300 million in 2014, in response to low oil and gas prices.

However, Bellatrix can still draw on $85 million from its joint venture partners, bringing total spending to $285 million this year.

As a result of the spending cut, the company now expects to produce an average of 43,000 to 44,000 barrels of oil equivalent a day in 2015. That’s down from its original forecast of 47,000 to 48,000 but about 14% higher than its 2014 average production of 38,100 barrels a day.

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