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MTS SYSTEMS CORP. $75 (Nasdaq symbol MTSC; Aggressive Growth Portfolio, Manufacturing & Industry sector; Shares outstanding: 15.0 million; Market cap: $1.1 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 2.0; Dividend yield: 1.6%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.mts.com) makes equipment and software that manufacturers use to test the behaviour of materials, machines and structures.

In its fiscal 2015 first quarter, which ended December 27, 2014, MTS’s revenue rose 3.0%, to $142.6 million from $138.4 million a year earlier. Overall earnings improved 14.5%, to $13.8 million from $12.0 million. Earnings per share gained 16.7%, to $0.91 from $0.78, on fewer shares outstanding. MTS spends 4% of its revenue on research.

The higher earnings are partly due to a recent restructuring plan that should cut MTS’s annual costs by $6 million.

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KEYSIGHT TECHNOLOGIES INC. $37 (New York symbol KEYS; Aggressive Growth Portfolio, Manufacturing & Industry sector; Shares outstanding: 168.0 million; Market cap: $6.2 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 2.2; No dividends paid; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.keysight.com) makes gear for testing electronics.

The company sells its products to industrial clients, including computer chipmakers (43% of total revenue), communications equipment suppliers (34%) and aerospace and defence firms (23%).

In its fiscal 2015 first quarter, which ended January 31, 2015, Keysight’s revenue gained 4.5%, to $701 million from $671 million a year earlier. Without the negative impact of exchange rates, revenue rose 7%.

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AGILENT TECHNOLOGIES INC. $41 (New York symbol A; Aggressive Growth Portfolio, Manufacturing & Industry sector; Shares outstanding: 336.0 million; Market cap: $13.8 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 2.0; Dividend yield: 1.0%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.agilent.com) has completed its plan to split into two publicly traded companies.

One firm kept the Agilent name and stock symbol and focuses on testing equipment for medical research labs. It gets 70% of its revenue from overseas.

The second company, called Keysight Technologies (see right), makes testing systems for electronics.

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ABB LTD. ADRs $21 (New York symbol ABB; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Manufacturing & Industry sector; ADRs outstanding: 2.3 billion; Market cap: $48.3 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 1.2; Dividend yield: 3.7%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.abb.com) makes transformers, transmission systems and circuit breakers for electrical utilities. The Switzerland-based firm also produces automation systems and robotics that industrial clients use to improve their productivity.

As part of a new plan to focus on its main operations, ABB sold several small businesses for a total of $1.1 billion in 2014. As well, the company is focusing on power projects with strong potential and turning down risky, less profitable orders. At the same time, a restructuring plan, including plant closures and job cuts, saved the company a further $1.1 billion in 2014.

Partly due to asset sales, ABB’s revenue fell 4.8% in 2014, to $39.8 billion from $41.8 billion in 2013. However, orders for new equipment rose 6.7%, to $41.5 billion from $38.9 billion.

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GENERAL ELECTRIC CO. $25 (New York symbol GE; Conservative Growth and Income Portfolios, Manufacturing & Industry sector; Shares outstanding: 10.1 billion; Market cap: $252.5 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 1.7; Dividend yield: 3.7%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.ge.com) makes machinery for power generation and distribution (such as turbines) and other products, like jet engines, medical equipment, appliances, lighting and locomotives.

The company continues to shrink GE Capital, which mainly provides loans to GE’s clients. In 2014, this business supplied 42% of the company’s operating earnings, but it aims to cut that to 25% by 2016.

As part of this plan, GE recently agreed to sell GE Capital’s consumer-lending operations in Australia and New Zealand for $6.3 billion. The proceeds will help cover the cost of the company’s recent alliance with France’s Alstom SA, a leading maker of parts for power plants and transmission gear.

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FEDEX CORP. $165 (New York symbol FDX; Aggressive Growth Portfolio, Consumer sector; Shares outstanding: 283.8 million; Market cap: $46.8 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 1.0; Dividend yield: 0.5%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.fedex.com) began offering air-delivery services in 1973, under the Federal Express banner. It’s now one the world’s largest shipping firms.

The company has four divisions:

FedEx Express (59% of 2014 revenue, 34% of earnings) offers air-delivery services to over 220 countries. This business has 650 aircraft and 55,000 ground vehicles.

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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.

We continue to recommend that investors aim to own two or more of Canada’s big five banks. But we also feel that conservative investors should further diversify their Finance-sector holdings with stocks like Great-West Lifeco.

GREAT-WEST LIFECO (Toronto symbol GWO; www.greatwestlifeco.com) has reported strong results in its latest quarter and raised its dividend.

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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. In today’s article we have two sells, both from an industry which has a great deal of promise for the future, but hurdles to overcome in the present.

3D Systems Corp. (symbol DDD on New York; www.3dsystems.com), makes and services 3-D printers and provides print materials.

The company’s sales rose 23.0% in the three months ended September 30, 2014, to $166.9 million from $135.7 million a year earlier, though its earnings per share fell 30.7%, to $0.18 from $0.26, on higher research and marketing spending.

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Pat McKeough responds to many requests from members of his Inner Circle for specific stock market advice 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. We give you Pat’s buy-hold-sell recommendation as well as his analysis of the stock. This is part of the specific buy, hold and sell advice we offer you in our daily posts. Every week you get “A Stock to Sell” on Monday, “Best Canadian Stocks” on Tuesday, and “U.S. Stock Picks” on Thursday.

Recently we had a question from an Inner Circle member about one of Canada’s bigger Real Estate Investment Trusts. Canadian Apartment Properties REIT—also known as CAP REIT—focuses primarily on rental properties like apartment buildings and townhouses but also on land-lease properties, largely in trailer parks. Almost 80% of the company’s revenue comes from Ontario and Quebec. Pat examines the company’s latest financial results and looks at its prospects at a time when low interest rates favour home and condominium buying over renting.

Q: Pat: What is your recommendation on Canadian Apartment Properties REIT? Thanks.

A: Canadian Apartment Properties REIT (symbol CAR.UN on Toronto; www.capreit.net) is a real estate investment trust that owns multi-unit residential properties, including apartment buildings and townhouses.

In all, the trust owns 41,958 units, including 35,674 residential suites and 30 manufactured-home communities, or trailer parks, with a total of 6,284 land-lease sites. Its occupancy rate is 97.9%.

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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.

AT&T INC. (New York symbol T; www.att.com) is the largest wireless provider in the U.S., with 120.6 million subscribers. Wireless accounts for 55% of AT&T’s revenue and 75% of its earnings.

The remaining 45% of revenue and 25% of earnings comes from its wireline division, which sells phone services, television packages and high-speed Internet access to 34.4 million customers.

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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: “Investor shorthand can provide a useful guide to investment information, but it can also oversimplify analysis and events and steer investors into bad decisions.”

Investor shorthand can help you think about and talk about large blocks of investment information. But it may also lead you to make associations and come to conclusions that can cost you money.

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Prompted by an increase in smartphone contracts and success with Fibe TV and Crave TV, BCE Inc. hikes its dividend by 5.3%.

MCCOY GLOBAL $3.71 (Toronto symbol MCB; TSINetwork Rating: Speculative)(780-453-8451; www.mccoyglobal.com; Shares outstanding: 27.7 million; Market cap: $102.7 million; Dividend yield: 5.4%) sold its heavy-duty truck-trailer unit last year and is now focused on its Energy Products and Services segment, which sells hydraulic gear, including power tongs, for drilling rigs worldwide. (Power tongs are large wrench-like tools that tighten and loosen the pipe in the drill hole.)

In 2013, this division opened its first two international sales and service centres. One is in Aberdeen, Scotland, and supports customers in the North Sea area. The other is in Singapore and serves clients in the Asia-Pacific region. McCoy recently opened another centre, in Dubai, to supply the Middle East.

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WAJAX CORP. $24.10 (Toronto symbol WJX; TSINetwork Rating: Extra Risk) (905-212-3300; www.wajax.ca; Shares outstanding:16.8 million; Market cap: $404.4 million; Dividend yield: 4.2%) sells and services cranes, forklifts and other heavy equipment. It also provides related parts (such as bearings, motors, hoses and fittings) and power systems (including diesel engines and transmissions).

The company’s customers are in the natural resource, construction, manufacturing and transportation industries.

In the three months ended December 31, 2014, Wajax’s revenue fell 1.4%, to $386.1 million from $391.7 million a year earlier. The decline was mostly due to lower sales to mining companies and oil and gas customers.

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RUSSEL METALS $24.16 (Toronto symbol RUS; TSINetwork Rating: Speculative)(905- 819-7777; www.russelmetals.com; Shares outstanding: 61.7 million; Market cap: $1.5 billion; Dividend yield: 6.3%) reported stronger results in the latest quarter.

In the three months ended December 31, 2014, Russel’s revenue rose 24.9%, to $1.01 billion from $811.1 million a year earlier.

Earnings gained 36.4%, to $31.1 million, or $0.50 a share. A year earlier, the company earned $22.8 million, or $0.37. Russel has invested in new plants and processing equipment in the past three years, which has cut its costs and improved its efficiency. That’s paying off with higher profit margins.

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NISSAN MOTOR (ADR) $21.20 (Nasdaq symbol NSANY; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average) (310-771- 3111; www.nissan-global.com; Shares outstanding: 2.3 billion; Market cap: $48.1 billion; Dividend yield: 2.8%) is Japan’s second-largest automaker, after Toyota.

The company’s sales declined 45% in Russia in February 2015, to 9,447 vehicles. Mass-market brands like Nissan and GM were down the most among automakers in a month that saw overall Russian car and truck sales plunge 38%, to 128,298.

The decline was the result of the weakening Russian economy and the sharply lower ruble. Overall, Russian vehicle sales were down just 10% in 2014, but volumes were helped by a surge in December sales from Russians buying vehicles to make the most of their rapidly devaluing rubles.

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CALIAN TECHNOLOGIES $18.50 (Toronto symbol CTY; TSINetwork Rating: Speculative) (613- 599-8600; www.calian.com; Shares outstanding: 7.4 million; Market cap: $136.1 million; Dividend yield: 6.1%) operates in two areas: the Business and Technology Services division (70% of revenue) supplies engineers, health care workers and other professionals on a contract basis. The Systems Engineering division (30%) sells hardware and software for testing and operating satellite and other communication systems.

In the three months ended December 31, 2014, Calian’s revenue rose 8.1%, to $56.0 million from $51.8 million a year earlier.

Even with the higher revenue, earnings fell 1.4%, to $2.74 million, or $0.37 a share, from $2.78 million, or $0.38. That was mostly because Calian added workers to fulfill new contracts.

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LEON’S FURNITURE $15.50 (Toronto symbol LNF; TSINetwork Rating: Average)(416-243-7880; www.leons.ca; Shares outstanding: 71.1 million; Market cap: $1.1 billion; Dividend yield: 2.6%) reported sales of $649.4 million in the three months ended December 31, 2014. That’s up 2.5% from revenue of $633.8 million a year earlier.

Earnings gained 11.4%, to $29.9 million, or $0.38 a share. A year earlier, Leon’s earned $26.3 million, or $0.34 a share. Earnings rose more than sales because the company sold more high-profit-margin furniture rather than appliances and electronics.

Leon’s is a buy.

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WESTJET AIRLINES $30.27 (Toronto symbol WJA; TSINetwork Rating: Extra Risk)(1- 877-493-7853; www.westjet.com; Shares outstanding: 127.8 million; Market cap: $3.9 billion; Dividend yield: 1.9%) has taken delivery of its first Boeing 767 wide-body aircraft and says the plane will begin flights between Alberta and Hawaii in December 2015.

WestJet has ordered three more 767s for delivery later this year. The bigger planes will offer greater range than the company’s current fleet of Boeing 737s and let it compete with Air Canada on international routes.

Right now, WestJet flies to Dublin, Ireland, at the maximum range of its 737s. The new 767s will let it serve additional European cities, as well as South America or Asia.

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DOMINO’S PIZZA $102.17 (New York symbol DPZ; TSINetwork Rating: Average)(734-930-3030; www.dominos.com; Shares outstanding: 55.6 million; Market cap: $5.7 billion; Dividend yield: 1.2%) is the world’s largest chain of pizza stores that offer takeout and delivery. It operates 11,600 outlets in the U.S. and over 75 other countries. Franchisees run most of these stores.

In the three months ended December 28, 2014, the company’s earnings per share jumped 16.7%, to $0.91 from $0.78 a year earlier.

Overall sales gained 13.5%, to $643.0 million from $566.5 million. Same-store sales rose 6.1% internationally, but more important, they increased 11.1% in the U.S., which is home to most of the company’s stores.

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GOODYEAR TIRE & RUBBER CO. $26.05 (Nasdaq symbol GT; TSINetwork Rating: Extra Risk) (330-796-2122; www.goodyear.com; Shares outstanding: 269.6 million; Market cap: $7.0 billion; Dividend yield: 0.9%) is the world’s largest tire maker, with 52 plants in 22 countries.

In the three months ended December 31, 2014, Goodyear’s sales fell 9.1%, to $4.36 billion from $4.80 billion a year earlier. The rising U.S. dollar hurt the contribution of foreign sales, and Europe experienced one of the warmest winters on record, cutting winter tire demand.

Excluding one-time items, earnings fell 20.6%, to $166.0 million, or $0.59 a share, but that was still ahead of the consensus estimate of $0.58. A year earlier, Goodyear earned $209.0 million, or $0.74 a share.

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SASOL LTD. (ADR) $33.44 (New York symbol SSL; TSINetwork Rating: Extra Risk)(082- 883-9697; www.sasol.com; ADRs outstanding: 650.9 million; Market cap: $21.6 billion; Dividend yield: 3.4%) is a South Africa-based company that converts coal and natural gas into motor fuels, produces oil and gas and mines coal.

In its fiscal 2015 first half, which ended December 31, 2014, Sasol’s sales rose 1.6%, to 99.8 billion South African rand from 98.2 billion rand a year earlier (1 rand = $0.1099 U.S.). Earnings per ADR gained 6.0%, to 32.00 rand from 30.19. The U.S. dollar rose against the rand, increasing the value of Sasol’s foreign sales. That offset a 19% decline in realized oil prices.

Despite the improved results, Sasol now plans to bring in an aggressive plan to conserve cash, including layoffs, lower spending on oil and gas exploration and development, and a 12.5% dividend cut. The ADRs yield 3.4%, based on the lower rate.

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DREAM OFFICE REIT $25.82 (Toronto symbol D.UN; TSINetwork Rating: Extra Risk) (416-365-3535; www.dream.ca/office; Units outstanding: 107.9 million; Market cap: $2.8 billion; Dividend yield: 8.7%) (formerly Dundee REIT) owns and manages 24.3 million square feet of office and retail space in major cities across Canada.

In Western Canada, the real estate investment trust has 16% of its total square footage in Calgary and 20% elsewhere. In Eastern Canada, it holds 23% of its square footage in downtown Toronto, 17% in suburban Toronto and 24% elsewhere. Its occupancy rate is 93.0%.

In the three months ended December 31, 2014, Dream Office’s revenue fell 1.6%, to $205.2 million from $208.4 million a year earlier. The trust sold four properties to Dream Industrial REIT (symbol DIR.UN on Toronto) for $33.0 million in September 2014. Dream Office owns 24.2% of Dream Industrial.

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CHEMTRADE LOGISTICS INCOME FUND $21.38 (Toronto symbol CHE.UN; TSINetwork Rating: Speculative) (416-496-5856; www.chemtradelogistics .com; Units outstanding: 68.5 million; Market cap: $1.5 billion; Dividend yield: 5.6%) is one of North America’s largest providers of removal services for resource firms, such as oil refineries and base metal processors, whose operations create sulphur, acid and other by-products. Chemtrade converts these substances into useful chemicals, like sulphuric acid.

The company’s revenue rose 55.4% in the three months ended December 31, 2014, to $313.3 million from $201.6 million a year earlier.

That’s largely due to General Chemical, which Chemtrade bought for $900 million U.S. in January 2014. General makes a range of chemicals, including aluminum sulphate, aluminum chlorohydrate and ferric sulphate (all of which are used in water treatment), as well as ingredients for prescription drugs, nutritional supplements and veterinary products.

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MAJOR DRILLING $7.07 (Toronto symbol MDI; TSINetwork Rating: Speculative)(1-866- 264-3986; www.majordrilling.com; Shares outstanding: 80.1 million; Market cap: $566.6 million; Dividend yield: 0.6%) reports that its revenue fell 2.8% in the three months ended January 31, 2015, to $69.8 million from $71.8 million a year earlier. The company lost $0.24 a share, compared to a year-ago loss of $0.16 a share.

In the latest quarter, Major’s profit margins fell sharply because it performed less highpriced specialized exploration drilling and more production-related drilling.

To conserve cash until commodity prices start to rebound and its customers increase their drilling, Major is cutting its semi-annual dividend to $0.02 a share from $0.10. That gives the stock a 0.6% yield.

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