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MITEL NETWORKS $12.87 (Toronto symbol MNW; TSINetwork Rating: Extra Risk)(613-592-2122; www.mitel.ca; Shares outstanding: 100.1 million; Market cap: $1.3 billion; No dividends paid) develops and markets products centred on business telephone systems. This includes products that integrate land lines and mobile phones. The company also offers call centre and video conferencing products.

In the three months ended December 31, 2014, Mitel’s revenue jumped 108.1%, to $301.4 million from $144.8 million a year ago (all figures except share price and market cap in U.S. dollars). Most of the increase came from Aastra Technologies, which Mitel acquired in January 2014. Earnings per share rose 89.5%, to $0.36 from $0.19.

Mitel recently agreed to buy Mavenir Systems (symbol MVNR on New York) for $560 million U.S.

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ACI WORLDWIDE $21.09 (Nasdaq symbol ACIW; TSINetwork Rating: Speculative)(402-334-5101; www.tsainc.com; Shares outstanding: 114.9 million; Market cap: $2.4 billion; No dividends paid) makes software for processing transactions involving credit cards, debit cards, automated teller machines, point-of-sale terminals and interbank payments. The company’s products also help cut fraud. Clients include leading global retailers, plus two-thirds of the world’s 100 largest banks.

ACI’s industry-leading products continue to attract prominent clients. For example, the company provides the technology behind Apple Inc.’s new mobile payment system, called Apple Pay.

ACI’s revenue rose 17.5% in 2014 to $1.02 billion from $864.9 million in 2013. That was mainly due to contributions from acquisitions, including the purchase in August 2014 of Retail Decisions (ReD) for $205 million.

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CIMAREX ENERGY $110.58 (New York symbol XEC; TSINetwork Rating: Extra Risk) (303-295-3995; www.cimarex.com; Shares outstanding: 87.6 million; Market cap: $9.7 billion; Yield: 0.6%) plans to spend $900 million to $1.1 billion on exploration and development in 2015, down sharply from $1.9 billion in 2014.

The company has cut back its spending plans in response to lower oil and gas prices. It aims to fund its 2015 spending from cash flow and the $406 million of cash it holds. That way it can avoid taking on debt, even though its long-term debt of $1.5 billion is a low 15.5% of its market cap.

Even with the lower spending, Cimarex expects its production to rise between 3% and 8% over 2014 levels this year. If oil and gas prices rise later in 2015, it has the flexibility to increase its spending, which would also boost its production and cash flow.

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AURICO GOLD $3.67 (Toronto symbol AUQ; TSINetwork Rating: Speculative)(604-681-2802; www.auricogold.com; Shares outstanding: 249.6 million; Market cap: $917.4 million; Dividend yield: 2.5%) operates the El Chanate gold mine in Mexico and the Young- Davidson gold project in northern Ontario. Young- Davidson started up in 2013, and will reach full production in 2016.

In the three months ended December 31, 2014, AuRico’s production jumped 23.0%, to 56,583 ounces from 46,017 ounces a year earlier. That increased its revenue by 40.2%, to $71.2 million from $50.8 million.

Cash flow per share was unchanged at $0.07 (all figures except share price and market cap in U.S. dollars). The company’s costs rose as it moved from open pit to underground mining at Young-Davidson. However, those costs should fall as it completes the mine’s new infrastructure.

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AMERIGO RESOURCES $0.34 (Toronto symbol ARG; TSINetwork Rating: Speculative) (604-681-2802; www.amerigoresources.com; Shares outstanding: 173.7 million; Market cap: $59.0 million; No dividends paid) processes copper and molybdenum from waste rock at Chile’s El Teniente, the world’s largest underground copper mine. This rock comes from the mine’s current production and tailings from the nearby Colihues deposit. This contract runs at least through 2037.

Amerigo gets 94% of its revenue by processing copper. The remaining 6% comes from molybdenum.

In the three months ended December 31, 2014, Amerigo’s copper production fell 7.4%, to 11.35 million pounds from 12.25 million a year earlier. Molybdenum output declined 11.8%, to 160,107 pounds from 181,464.

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SIERRA WIRELESS $43.46 (Toronto symbol SW; TSINetwork Rating: Extra Risk)(604-231-1100; www.sierrawireless.com; Shares outstanding: 31.9 million; Market cap: $1.4 billion; No dividends paid) makes modules that connect products to the Internet. This is known as machine-to-machine (M2M), or more generally as the Internet of Things.

Web-connected products can be remotely monitored—and potentially fixed—before they cause a breakdown. For example, makers of smart electricity meters, such as Itron, use the company’s modules to connect their products to the web. Sierra’s technology can also warn carmakers of possible defects developing in vehicles.

The company has grown quickly over the last five years, with revenue rising 53.2%, from $358.0 million in 2010 to $548.5 million in 2014 (all figures except share price and market cap in U.S. dollars). It made $0.63 a share in 2014, up sharply from $0.23 in 2013.

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Promoting clean, environmentally sound solutions for office design, DIRTT has a respected CEO but may struggle against strong competition.

Old enough to have helped Thomas Edison with the light bulb, Corning glassworks keeps expanding operations with many high-tech applications.

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.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency plans to bring in new rules forcing power plants to cut their greenhouse gas emissions by 30% by 2030.

Alliant is upgrading its facilities in response. Regulators will probably let it pass along most of the extra costs to customers in the form of higher rates. We feel Alliant is in a good position to handle the new regulations.

ALLIANT ENERGY CORP. (New York symbol LNT; www.alliantenergy.com) sells electricity and natural gas to 1.4 million customers in Wisconsin, Iowa and Minnesota.

The company has earmarked $5.2 billion for plant upgrades and replacing older transmission lines and pipelines between 2014 and 2018. These funds include $750 million for a gas-fired plant that should replace some of its older coal facilities (coal accounts for about half of Alliant’s electricity production).

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Transcontinental’s ability to keep the right assets in the fast-changing publishing industry makes it one of our top stocks to buy.

AGRIUM INC. $102 (www.agrium.com) gets 76% of its revenue and 46% of its earnings from its retail stores, which sell fertilizer, seeds and other supplies to farmers in North America, South America and Australia. That cuts its reliance on bulk fertilizer sales. Best Buy.

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.

Linn Energy (symbol LINE on Nasdaq; www.linnenergy.com) acquires and develops oil and gas properties in the Mid-Continent region in the southern U.S., the Permian Basin (Texas and New Mexico) and the Hugoton Basin (Texas and Kansas), as well as in California, Michigan and Illinois.

In December 2013, Linn bought Berry Petroleum for $4.3 billion in stock. The move added long-lasting, mature properties and boosted Linn’s growth prospects. Berry’s reserves were roughly 75% oil.

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EMERA INC. $43 (www.emera.com) earned $2.23 a share in 2014, up 13.8% from $1.96 in 2013. Revenue jumped 33.3%, to $3.0 billion from $2.2 billion. These gains are largely due to the company’s November 2013 purchase of three gas-fired power plants in New England for $541 million U.S....

ENBRIDGE INC. $62 (Toronto symbol ENB; Conservative Growth and Income Portfolios, Utilities sector; Shares outstanding: 851.6 million; Market cap: $52.8 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 1.4; 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.

Since 2008, Enbridge has spent $20 billion on 39 new pipelines and other projects. Thanks to these investments, the company’s revenue soared 164.1%, from $12.5 billion in 2009 to $32.9 billion in 2013. Its revenue probably increased to $37.7 billion in 2014.

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IMPERIAL OIL LTD. $50 (Toronto symbol IMO; Conservative Growth and Income Portfolios, Shares outstanding: 847.6 million; Market cap: $42.4 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 1.2; Dividend yield: 1.0%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.imperialoil.ca) spent $5.7 billion on exploration and capital upgrades in 2014, down 29.5% from $8.0 billion in 2013. That’s mainly because it completed the first phase of its 71%-owned Kearl oil sands project. U.S.-based ExxonMobil (New York symbol XOM), which owns 69.6% of Imperial, owns the remaining 29% of Kearl.

For 2015, Imperial expects to spend $4.0 billion on capital projects. Most of that will go toward expanding Kearl, as well as its Cold Lake oil sands property. These projects will last decades, so the recent drop in oil prices will have little impact on their long-term prospects.

Imperial Oil is a buy.

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LINAMAR CORP. $77 (Toronto symbol LNR; Aggressive Growth Portfolio, Manufacturing & Industry sector; Shares outstanding: 64.8 million; Market cap: $5.0 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 1.2; Dividend yield: 0.5%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.linamar.com) plans to expand its transmissionmanufacturing facility in Guelph, Ontario....

POTASH CORP. OF SASKATCHEWAN $47 (Toronto symbol POT; Aggressive Growth Portfolio, Resources sector; Shares outstanding: 830.2 million; Market cap: $39.0 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 5.9; Dividend yield: 4.1%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.potashcorp.com) sold more potash fertilizer in the latest quarter and is benefiting from lower operating costs. But potash prices remain weak.

In the three months ended December 31, 2014, earnings jumped 77.0%, to $407 million from $230 million a year earlier (all amounts except share price and market cap in U.S. dollars). Per-share earnings rose 88.5%, to $0.49 from $0.26, on fewer shares outstanding.

Sales gained 23.4%, to $1.9 billion from $1.5 billion. The company sold 2.5 million tonnes of potash, up 41.6% from 1.8 million a year earlier. However, the average price per tonne rose just 0.7%, to $284 from $282.

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TORSTAR CORP. $7.07 (Toronto symbol TS.B; Conservative Growth and Income Portfolios, Consumer sector; Shares outstanding: 80.1 million; Market cap: $566.3 million; Price-to-sales ratio: 0.5; Dividend yield: 7.4%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.torstar.com) gets 60% of its revenue from advertising on its newspapers and their websites, including The Toronto Star, Canada’s largest daily by circulation. Subscriptions account for most of the remaining 40%.

As part of a new strategy to increase online ad sales, Torstar plans to drop the paywall on The Toronto Star’s website and launch a new version for tablet computers. The shift will likely hurt its 2015 revenue but should attract more readers.

The company is debt-free and holds cash of $277.3 million, or $3.46 a share. That will help it adjust to the new online strategy. In addition, dividends total roughly $42 million a year, so the current payout still seems safe.

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TRANSCONTINENTAL INC. $16 (Toronto symbol TCL.A; Aggressive Growth Portfolio, Consumer sector; Shares outstanding: 78.0 million; Market cap: $1.2 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 0.6; Dividend yield: 4.0%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www. tctranscontinental.com) is Canada’s leading printer of flyers, magazines, newspapers and books. It also publishes magazines and newspapers.

The company recently agreed to sell its consumer magazine division to TVA Group (Toronto symbol TVA.B). This business publishes 15 English- and French-language magazines, including Elle Canada, Canadian Living and The Hockey News. As part of the deal, Transcontinental will keep printing these magazines, as well as other TVA publications, to the end of June 2022.

Selling these magazines will let the company focus on its smaller newspapers and related websites, which serve local advertisers instead of relying on less profitable national ads.

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PENGROWTH ENERGY CORP. $4.15 (Toronto symbol PGF; Aggressive Growth and Income Portfolios, Resources sector; Shares outstanding: 530.2 million; Market cap: $2.2 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 1.8; Dividend yield: 5.8%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.pengrowth.com) recently started up its Lindbergh oil sands project in eastern Alberta, which should produce 16,000 barrels a day by the end of 2015.

Due to falling oil prices and Lindbergh’s completion, Pengrowth plans to spend $200 million to upgrade and maintain its properties in 2015, down 74.0% from $770 million last year.

But even with the lower spending, Pengrowth expects to produce between 73,000 and 75,000 barrels a day (57% oil and liquids, 43% natural gas) in 2015, or about 1.5% more than in 2014, thanks to Lindbergh.

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CAE INC. $15 (Toronto symbol CAE; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Manufacturing & Industry sector; Shares outstanding: 265.2 million; Market cap: $4.0 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 1.8; Dividend yield: 1.9%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.cae.com) is buying the military flight-training business of BOMBARDIER INC. (Toronto symbols BBD.A $3.12 and BBD.B $3.04; Aggressive Growth Portfolio, Manufacturing & Industry sector; Shares outstanding: 1.7 billion; Market cap: $5.2 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 0.4; Dividend suspended in February 2015; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.bombardier.com).

This business trains pilots for the Royal Canadian Air Force and other NATO countries at facilities in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, and Cold Lake, Alberta.

CAE will pay $19.8 million when it closes the deal later this year. This a small sum for both companies, but the new operations are a nice fit with CAE’s other pilot-training businesses. After the sale, Bombardier can focus on its struggling aircraft-manufacturing business, including the upcoming launch of its new CSeries passenger jet.

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SAPUTO INC. $36 (Toronto symbol SAP; Aggressive Growth Portfolio, Consumer sector; Shares outstanding: 391.1 million; Market cap: $14.1 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 1.3; Dividend yield: 1.4%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.saputo.com) bought 87.92% of Warrnambool Cheese and Butter Factory, one of Australia’s largest dairy producers, for $449.6 million in February 2014. In April 2014, it added the fluid-milk operations of Nova Scotia dairy Scotsburn for $65.0 million.

These acquisitions increased Saputo’s revenue by 20.4% in its fiscal 2015 third quarter, which ended December 31, 2014, to $2.8 billion from $2.3 billion a year ago. Higher cheese and butter prices in the U.S. also contributed to the gain. Earnings rose 7.3%, to $154.6 million from $144.1 million. But earnings per share gained just 2.7%, to $0.38 from $0.37, on more shares outstanding.

The stock trades at 22.9 times the $1.57 a share Saputo will likely earn in fiscal 2015. That’s a high p/e ratio for a slow-growing dairy company that relies on acquisitions to expand.

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MANITOBA TELECOM SERVICES INC. $24 (Toronto symbol MBT; Conservative Growth and Income Portfolios, Utilities sector; Shares outstanding: 78.1 million; Market cap: $1.9 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 1.2; Dividend yield: 7.1%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.mtsallstream.com) gets 60% of its revenue from its MTS division, which has 1.3 million telephone and wireless clients in Manitoba. The other 40% comes from Allstream, which sells telephone, Internet and other communication services to businesses across Canada.

In the three months ended December 31, 2014, the company earned $24.2 million, or $0.31 a share. That’s a big improvement over the year-earlier quarter, when writedowns and other unusual charges led to a loss of $87.8 million, or $1.25.

Overall revenue fell 0.9%, to $404.8 million from $408.5 million.

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TELUS CORP. $44 (Toronto symbol T; Conservative Growth and Income Portfolios, Utilities sector; Shares outstanding: 611.7 million; Market cap: $26.9 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 2.2; Dividend yield: 3.6%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.telus.com) is Canada’s third-largest wireless carrier, after BCE and Rogers Communications, with 8.0 million subscribers. Wireless now supplies 54% of Telus’s revenue and 66% of its earnings.

The remaining 46% of revenue and 34% of earnings come from its wireline division, which mainly consists of 3.2 million traditional phone customers in B.C., Alberta and eastern Quebec. This business also includes 1.45 million Internet users and 888,000 TV customers.

Unlike BCE, which has expanded its media businesses in the past few years, Telus has concentrated on improving its wireless and high-speed Internet networks.

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BCE INC. $56 (Toronto symbol BCE; Conservative Growth and Income Portfolios, Utilities sector; Shares outstanding: 840.3 million; Market cap: $47.1 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 2.2; Dividend yield: 4.6%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.bce.ca) is Canada’s largest telephone provider, with 5.0 million customers in Ontario and Quebec. It also has 2.3 million high-speed Internet users and 2.4 million TV subscribers. This business supplies 46% of BCE’s revenue.

The company also sells wireless services (29% of revenue) to 8.1 million customers across Canada, and its Bell Media segment (13%) owns CTV Television, specialty channels and radio stations.

In November 2014, the company paid $3.95 billion in cash and stock for the 56% of Bell Aliant that it didn’t already own. Bell Aliant, which accounts for the remaining 12% of BCE’s revenue, sells telephone and Internet services to 2.2 million clients in Atlantic Canada and rural Ontario and Quebec.

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