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FAIR ISAAC CORP. $78.02 (New York symbol FICO; TSINetwork Rating: Average)(415-472-2211; www.fairisaac.com; Shares outstanding: 32.1 million; Market cap: $2.4 billion; Dividend yield: 0.1%) makes FICO Scores, the program that dominates the market for software that businesses use to evaluate customer creditworthiness. The company is also profiting by selling programs that help credit card issuers control fraud and analyze cardholders’ spending patterns.

In its fiscal 2014 fourth quarter, which ended September 30, 2014, Fair Isaac’s earnings per share rose 39.2%, to $1.10 from $0.79 a year ago.

Revenue gained 16.4%, to $221.6 million from $190.3 million. The company saw stronger sales at its main applications division (66% of the total) on increased licensing revenue from software that detects bank fraud.

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BROADRIDGE FINANCIAL SOLUTIONS $46.55 (New York symbol BR; TSINetwork Rating: Extra Risk) (201-714-3000; www.broadridge.com; Shares outstanding: 120.0 million; Market cap: $5.6 billion; Dividend yield: 2.3%) serves the investment industry in three main areas: investor communications, securities processing and transaction clearing. The company processes 90% of all proxy votes in the U.S. and Canada.

Without one-time items, Broadridge earned $37.0 million, or $0.30 a share, in its fiscal 2015 first quarter, which ended September 30, 2014. That’s down 22.9% from $48.0 million, or $0.39 a share, a year earlier. The company paid employees higher commissions on new sales and performance bonuses. It also expanded its sales and marketing capabilities.

Broadridge typically makes about half of its profits in its fiscal fourth-quarter ended June 30. That’s the busiest period for processing proxies and annual reports for its clients.

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ALIMENTATION COUCHETARD $44.55 (Toronto symbol ATD.B; TSINetwork Rating: Extra Risk) (1-800-361-2612; www.couchetard. com; Shares outstanding: 565.8 million; Market cap: $25.4 billion; Dividend yield: 0.4%) is buying The Pantry (symbol PTRY on Nasdaq), which operates more than 1,500 convenience stores in 13 southern U.S. states.

Couche-Tard will pay $1.7 billion—$ 860 million in cash and the assumption of $840 million of debt. This is its biggest purchase since it paid $2.7 billion U.S. for Norway’s Statoil Fuel & Retail gas station chain in June 2012.

Founded in 1967, The Pantry mainly grew through acquisitions beginning in the late 1980s. Like Couche-Tard, it focuses on selling higher-margin fresh food. It sells its own private-label bottled water and is the fifth-largest location for Subway restaurants.

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DOREL INDUSTRIES $39.05 (Toronto symbol DII.B; TSINetwork Rating: Extra Risk) (514-731-0000; www.dorel.com; Shares outstanding: 32.3 million; Market cap: $1.3 billion; Dividend yield: 3.5%) makes a range of items, including ready-to-assemble home and office furniture; juvenile products, such as car seats, strollers, high chairs, toddler beds and cribs; and recreational goods, mainly bicycles.

Dorel has grown quickly over the last 10 years, with revenue doubling from $1.2 billion in 2003 to $2.4 billion in 2013 (all figures except share price and market cap in U.S. dollars). This period included two big acquisitions: France’s Ampa Group for $240 million in 2003 and Dorel’s 2004 purchase of Pacific Cycle for $310 million.

In late 2013, Dorel acquired 70% of money-losing Caloi, a major Brazilian bike maker, for $73.0 million. It has now integrated Caloi’s production from its big plant in Manaus, Brazil into its distribution and sales network to the point that it’s now adding to Dorel’s profits.

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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.

GENERAL ELECTRIC CO. (New York symbol GE; www.ge.com) recently agreed to form a major new alliance with France’s Alstom SA, a leading maker of electrical-transmission equipment and parts for power plants.

Under the deal, GE will form three 50/50 joint ventures with Alstom. One will combine the companies’ electrical grid operations, while a second will focus on products for renewable energy projects, like offshore wind farms. The third will hold Alstom’s nuclear-equipment division.

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

Today’s tip: “To get the maximum reward from rising stocks, it’s essential to pick stocks with clear growth prospects and not simply momentum stocks with uncertain futures.”

By definition, growth stocks are companies that have above-average growth prospects. They are firms whose earnings growth has been above the market average, and is likely to remain above average. It is often the case that they pay small dividends or none at all. Instead, they re-invest their cash flow in the business, to promote their growth.

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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.

A sinkhole recently forced Russia’s Uralkali to close its Solikamsk-2 mine, which accounts for 20% of Uralkali’s potash production and 3.5% of global capacity.

Uralkali didn’t say how long it would take to reopen the mine, but it could close it permanently.

Regardless of the length of the shutdown, high potash inventories will continue to weigh on prices. Moreover, this year’s record U.S. harvest has hurt corn, soybean and wheat prices, prompting farmers to store excess crops while they wait for a rebound.

However, we feel that steady sales from Agrium’s retail stores give it an advantage over bulk fertilizer producers like Potash Corp.

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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.

Arafura Resources $0.05 (symbol ARU on the Australian exchange; www.arultd.com), is an Australian firm with a rare earth property in the country’s Northern Territory.

Rare earth elements are a group of metals with unique characteristics. They are fairly common in the Earth’s crust, but due to their geochemical properties, these elements are usually dispersed and not routinely found concentrated as minerals in economically exploitable ore deposits. Thus the name “rare earth.”

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Pat McKeough responds to many requests from Members of his Inner Circle for specific stock investment 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 a report on one of the stocks profiled in 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 an Inner Circle Member asked us about online travel specialists Priceline. The company offers online reservations for airline tickets, hotels and other vacation essentials and successfully raised its profile with commercials featuring Canadian actor William Shatner. Priceline has made several key acquisitions in the past two years and expects to make more. Pat looks at the company’s financial situation and assesses its ability to maintain a strong market share as it expands its international operations.

Q: What do you think about Priceline as a stock? Thanks.

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We wish all of our readers a great year-end holiday and a healthy, happy and prosperous New Year. Please note that our next daily will appear on Friday, December 26.

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

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TELUS $42.03 (Toronto symbol T; Shares outstanding: 615.0 million; Market cap: $25.6 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; Dividend yield: 3.8%; www.telus.com) added 113,000 wireless subscribers, net of cancellations, in the three months ended September 30, 2014, up 8.7% from a year earlier. It now has 8.0 million wireless users and continues to attract high-speed Internet and digital TV subscribers, as well.

As a result, Telus’s revenue rose 5.4%, to $3.0 billion from $2.9 billion. Earnings gained 6.0%, to $387 million from $365 million.

Telus spent $164 million on share buybacks in the latest quarter, so its per-share earnings rose 10.3%, to $0.64 from $0.58.

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MANULIFE FINANCIAL $22.93 (Toronto symbol MFC; Shares outstanding: 1.9 billion; Market cap: $42.1 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; Dividend yield: 2.7%; www.manulife.ca) sells life and other forms of insurance, as well as mutual funds and investment management services.

In the three months ended September 30, 2014, Manulife’s earnings per share gained 8.3%, to $0.39 from $0.36 a year earlier. Revenue rose 7.4%, to $9.5 billion from $8.8 billion, on strong sales of insurance and wealth management products in Asia.

As of September 30, Manulife had $663 billion of assets under management. After the quarter ended, it bought U.K.-based Standard Life’s Canadian insurance operations for $4 billion. In all, Standard Life has about 2,000 employees across Canada, along with 1.4 million clients and $52.0 billion of assets under management.

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SUN LIFE FINANCIAL $43.15 (Toronto symbol SLF; Shares outstanding: 611.6 million; Market cap: $25.9 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; Dividend yield: 3.3%; www.sunlife.ca) sells life insurance, savings, retirement and pension products to individuals and corporations.

The company has $698.2 billion of assets under management. It mainly operates in Canada, the U.S. and the U.K., but it continues to expand into Asia.

In August 2013, Sun Life sold its riskier, money-losing U.S. annuity business, which offers products that guarantee minimum long-term returns even if markets fall.

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RIOCAN REAL ESTATE INVESTMENT TRUST $26.85 (Toronto symbol REI.UN; Units outstanding: 307.8 million; Market cap: $8.5 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Average; Dividend yield: 5.3%; www.riocan.com) continues to open new shopping malls and, with partners, mixeduse properties with office and residential space. The trust is also selling off less profitable properties.

In the third quarter of 2014, RioCan’s net leasable area shrank by 2.5%, to 71.6 million square feet from 73.5 million a year earlier.

But thanks to strong demand from retailers, it’s renewing leases at higher rental rates. That’s why its cash flow rose 7.4% in the latest quarter, to $131 million from $122 million. Cash flow per unit gained 5.0%, to $0.42 from $0.40, on more units outstanding. RioCan’s revenue rose 10.0%, to $296 million from $269 million.

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ISHARES AUSTRALIA INDEX FUND $23.48 (New York symbol EWA; buy or sell through brokers) is an ETF that holds the 79 largest Australian stocks. Its MER is 0.48%.

The fund’s top holdings include Commonwealth Bank of Australia, 11.7%; Westpac Banking Corp., 9.1%; BHP Billiton, 8.5%; Australia and New Zealand Banking Group, 7.9%; National Australia Bank, 6.9%; Wesfarmers, 4.2%; CSL Ltd., 3.6%; Woolworths, 3.5%; Woodside Petroleum, 2.3%; Rio Tinto, 2.2%; Telstra Group, 2.2%, and Scentre Group, 1.7%; and Westfield Group, 1.5%.

Australia benefits from its stable banking and political systems. It is also rich in natural resources and close to key Asian markets with vast potential, including India and China.

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SPDR S&P CHINA ETF $79.29 (New York symbol GXC; buy or sell through brokers; www.spdrs.com) aims to track the S&P China BMI Index, which is made up of all publicly traded Chinese stocks available to foreign investors. Right now, the fund holds 307 stocks.

The $1.0-billion fund’s top holdings are Tencent Holdings, 7.7%; China Mobile, 6.2%; Baidu, 6.1%; China Construction Bank, 5.7%; Industrial & Commercial Bank, 5.1%; Bank of China, 3.3%; China Life Insurance, 2.4%; CNOOC Ltd., 2.1%; PetroChina, 2.1%; and China Petroleum & Chemical, 1.9%.

The ETF was launched on March 19, 2007. It has a 0.59% MER and yields 2.5%.

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ISHARES MSCI EMERGING MARKETS EASTERN EUROPE INDEX FUND $19.30 (New York symbol ESR; buy or sell through brokers) has 65.6% ofits assets invested in Russia, followed by Poland at 27.2%; Czech Republic, 3.6%; and Hungary, 3.2%.

The fund’s top holdings are Gazprom (Russia: gas utility), 14.1%; Lukoil (Russia: oil), 9.8%; Sberbank (Russia: bank), 6.2%; Magnit PJSC (Russia: retailing), 6.2%; MMC Norilsk Nickel (Russia: mining), 3.3%; PKO Bank Polski (Poland: banking), 4.1%; and Novatek (Russia: natural gas), 3.6%.

iShares MSCI Emerging Markets Eastern Europe Index Fund’s expense ratio is 0.67%.

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ISHARES MSCI BRAZIL INDEX FUND $39.87 (New York symbol EWZ; buy or sell through brokers) is an ETF that is designed to track the Brazilian stock market.

Its top holdings are Cia Itau Unibanco Holding (banking), 9.2%; Petrobras (oil and gas), 8.1%; Banco Brandesco SA, 7.9%; AmBev (beer and beverages), 7.5%; Vale do Rio Doce (mining), 5.8%; BRF SA (food), 4.3%; and Cielo SA (payment processor), 3.3%.

The ETF was launched on July 10, 2000. It has a 0.61% expense ratio.

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FORTIS INC. $38 (www.fortisinc.com) earned $14 million in the three months ended September 30, 2014, down 70.8% from $48 million a year earlier. Per-share earnings fell at a faster rate of 73.9%, to $0.06 from $0.23, on more shares outstanding. The drop is mainly due to unusual costs related to the company’s recent $4.5 billion U.S....

ISHARES MSCI CHILE INVESTABLE MARKET INDEX FUND $41.09 (New York symbol ECH; buy or sell through brokers) is an ETF that aims to track the MSCI Chile Investable Market Index, which consists of stocks that mainly trade on the Santiago Stock Exchange.

The fund’s top holdings are S.A.C.I. Falabella (retail), 10.3%; Enersis SA (electricity), 9.6%; Empresas Copec SA (conglomerate), 7.8%; Empresa Nacional de Electricidad (electricity), 7.2%; LATAM Airlines, 5.5%; Banco Santander Chile (banking), 5.0%; Empresas CMPC (pulp and paper), 4.6%; Banco de Chile, 4.5%; Cencosud SA (retailer), 4.4%; and Quimica y Minera de Chile (mining), 3.9%.

The fund’s industry breakdown is: Utilities, 25.9%; Financials, 18.7%; Materials, 12.8%; Consumer Discretionary, 12.5%; Consumer Staples, 9.5%; Energy, 7.9%; Industrials, 7.8%; Telecommunications, 2.4%; and Information Technology, 2.0%.

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ISHARES MSCI GERMANY FUND $28.57 (New York symbol EWG; buy or sell through brokers) tracks the stocks in the MSCI Germany Index. This index aims to replicate 85% of the market capitalization of the German stock market. The remaining 15% is unavailable for investment, partly due to limitations on foreign ownership.

The ETF’s top holdings are Bayer (diversified chemicals), 10.2%; Siemens (engineering conglomerate), 7.9%; BASF (chemicals), 7.2%; Daimler (autos), 6.7%; Allianz (insurance), 6.5%; SAP (software), 5.5%; Deutsche Telekom, 4.5%; Deutsche Bank AG, 3.8%; BMW AG, 3.1%; and Volkswagen AG, 3.1%.

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ISHARES MSCI SOUTH KOREA INDEX FUND $56.34 (New York symbol EWY; buy or sell through brokers) aims to track the MSCI Korea Index.

The ETF’s top holdings are Samsung Electronics, 23.1%; SK Hynix Semiconductor, 4.5%; Hyundai Motor Co., 4.4%; Naver (Internet content), 3.5%; Posco (steel), 3.2%; Shinhan Financial, 3.1%; Hyundai Mobis (auto parts), 2.7%; Kia Motors, 2.4%; KB Financial, 2.3%; and Korea Electric Power, 1.9%.

The fund’s industry breakdown is as follows: Information Technology, 34.5%; Consumer Discretionary, 17.5%; Financials, 14.7%; Industrials, 12.3%; Materials, 8.6%; Consumer Staples, 6.5%; Utilities, 2.3%; Energy, 1.5%; Telecommunication Services, 1.3%; and Health Care, 0.8%.

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MOLSON COORS CANADA INC. (Toronto symbols TPX.A $85 and TPX.B $85; Conservative Growth and Income Portfolios, Consumer sector; Shares outstanding: 185.3 million; Market cap: $15.8 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 3.3; Dividend yield: 2.0%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.molson coors.com) is the world’s fifth-largest brewer by production volume. Its main brands include Coors Light, Molson Canadian and Carling.

Overall beer consumption in North America has declined in the past few years, mainly because baby boomers are switching to wine and spirits.

Moving beyond North America

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ISHARES MSCI EMERGING MARKETS INDEX FUND $40.89 (New York symbol EEM; buy or sell through brokers) aims to track the MSCI Emerging Markets Index.

Its geographic breakdown includes China, 19.9%; South Korea, 14.1%; Taiwan, 12.1%; Brazil, 9.8%; South Africa, 8.0%; India, 7.1%; Mexico, 5.2%; Russia, 4.3%; Malaysia, 3.7%; Indonesia, 2.6%; Thailand, 2.5%; and Turkey, 1.8%.

The fund’s top holdings are Samsung Electronics (South Korea), 2.9%; Taiwan Semiconductor (computer chips), 2.8%; Tencent Holdings (China: Internet), 2.1%; China Mobile, 1.9%; Naspers (South Africa: media and Internet), 1.3%; China Construction Bank, 1.3%; Industrial & Commercial Bank of China, 1.2%; Itau Unibanco Holding (Brazil: banking), 1.1%; and America Movil (Mexico: wireless).

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ROYAL BANK OF CANADA $79 (Toronto symbol RY; Conservative Growth and Income Portfolios, Finance sector; Shares outstanding: 1.4 billion; Market cap: $110.6 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 3.8; Dividend yield: 3.8%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.rbc.com) earned $2.3 billion in its fiscal 2014 fourth quarter, which ended October 31, 2014. That’s up 11.0% from $2.1 billion a year earlier. Per-share earnings rose 12.9%, to $1.57 from $1.39, on fewer shares outstanding. Revenue improved 5.8%, to $8.4 billion from $7.9 billion.

Earnings at Royal’s Canadian and U.S. retail banking division (which supplied 52% of the total) rose 7.6% on strong loan growth and higher fee-based income. The securities trading division (18% of total earnings) saw its profits fall 14.3% on lower trading volumes, and costs to comply with new U.S. securities regulations.

The bank’s wealth management division (13%) reported 41.1% higher earnings, mainly because rising stock prices increased the value of its assets under administration. Insurance earnings (12%) jumped 139.3%, mainly because a charge related to new Canadian tax laws depressed the year-earlier earnings. Without this charge, this business’s earnings rose 14% on fewer claims. The investor and treasury services business’s earnings (5%) gained 24.2%, thanks to higher deposit volumes and better efficiency.

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