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Every Monday we now feature “A Stock to Sell” as our daily post. With each sell, we give you a full explanation of why we advise against investing in these stocks. This is part of our new approach offering you buy, hold and sell advice in our daily posts. You also get “Best Canadian Stocks” on Tuesday, “Our Top U.S. Stocks” on Thursday, and every Friday, our advice on one of the stocks that members of Pat’s Inner Circle have asked about in their weekly Question & Answer sessions. Eguana Technologies (symbol EGT on Toronto; www.eguanatech.com), formerly called Sustainable Energy Technologies Ltd., makes products that convert the high-current/low-voltage (DC) electricity from solar cells into high-voltage alternating current (AC) power, which is used by power grids and most industrial and consumer electronics....

Pat McKeough responds to many requests from members of his Inner Circle for advice on 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 a report on one of the stocks profiled in these Q&A sessions. Beginning this week, we give you Pat’s buy-hold-sell recommendation as well as his analysis of the stock. This is part of our new approach offering you regular and specific buy, hold and sell advice in our daily posts. Every week you’ll get “A Stock to Sell” on Monday, “Best Canadian Stocks” on Tuesday, and “Our Top U.S. Stocks” on Thursday. This week we had a question from an Inner Circle member about investing in a fast food franchisee. As its name Arcos Dorados (“Golden Arches” in Spanish) indicates, this company operates McDonald’s restaurants in Latin America and the Caribbean. It is McDonald’s single largest franchisee. Pat examines the pros and cons of doing business in an area that is growing rapidly but unevenly and still faces political and economic challenges. Q: Pat: What is your opinion on Arcos Dorados? Thanks....

Every Thursday we bring you “Our Top U.S. Stocks” as our daily post. In these posts, you’ll 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 covered in our newsletter on U.S. investing, Wall Street Stock Forecaster. “Our Top U.S. Stocks” is part of our new approach offering you regular buy, hold and sell advice in our daily posts. Every week you get “A Stock to Sell” on Monday, “Best Canadian Stocks” on Tuesday and on Friday, our advice on one of the stocks our Inner Circle members have asked about in their weekly Question & Answer sessions. GENERAL ELECTRIC CO. (New York symbol GE; www.ge.com) saw its shares drop from $42 in 2007 to under $6 in 2009, as the financial crisis caused big losses at its banking division. In response, the company decided to shrink this business’s assets to half of what they were before the recession. It expects to complete these cuts by the end of 2014....

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 investing advice on a wide range of investing topics. Each Investor Toolkit update gives you a fundamental tip and shows you how you can put it into practice right away. Tip of the week: “Investing money in futures gives you high leverage, but leverage magnifies losses as well as gains.” Trading in futures is a long-established and perfectly legal way to bet on price changes in commodity, currency and financial markets. This attracts futures traders....

Every Tuesday we bring you “Best Canadian Stocks” as our daily post. In these posts, you get our specific recommendation on the stocks we profile, with a full explanation of how we arrived at our opinion. You’ll read about stocks making moves that are profiled in one of our three newsletters featuring Canadian stocks—The Successful Investor, Stock Pickers Digest and Canadian Wealth Advisor. “Best Canadian Stocks” is part of our new approach offering you regular buy, hold and sell advice in our daily posts. Every week you get “A Stock to Sell” on Monday, “Our Top U.S. Stocks” on Thursday and on Friday, our advice on one of the stocks our Inner Circle members have asked about in their weekly Question & Answer sessions. A key part of successful investing involves picking stocks with hard-to-replace assets, like popular brand names....

Every Monday we now feature “A Stock to Sell” as our daily post. With each sell, we give you a full explanation of why we advise against investing in these stocks. This is part of our new approach offering you buy, hold and sell advice in our daily posts. You also get “Best Canadian Stocks” on Tuesday, “Our Top U.S. Stocks” on Thursday, and every Friday, our advice on one of the stocks that members of Pat’s Inner Circle have asked about in their weekly Question & Answer sessions. Automodular Corp. (symbol AM on Toronto; www.automodular.com), assembles car and truck components, such as instrument panels, engines and rear suspensions....

TEMPUR SEALY $58.64 (New York symbol TPX; TSINetwork Rating: Speculative) (800-878-8889; www.tempursealy.com; Shares outstanding: 60.8 million; Market cap: $3.6 billion; No dividends paid) completed its $1.3-billion purchase of rival Sealy in March 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.

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ATLANTIC TELE-NETWORK $58.24 (Nasdaq symbol ATNI; TSINetwork Rating: Speculative) (340-777-8000; www.atni.com; Shares outstanding: 15.9 million; Market cap: $929.5 million; Yield: 1.8%) closed the sale of its Alltel wireless business to AT&T (symbol T on New York) late last year. As a result, it now holds cash of $407.6 million, or $24.64 a share, and has paid off its $271.1 million of debt.

The company bought Alltel from Verizon Wireless for just $223 million in April 2010.

Atlantic now has wireless and wireline telecom operations in the U.S. Southwest, New England, New York State, Guyana, Bermuda and parts of the Caribbean islands.

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IMPERIAL METALS $9.07 (Toronto symbol III; TSINetwork Rating: Speculative) (604-669-8959; www.imperialmetals.com; Shares outstanding: 74.9 million; Market cap: $715.9 million; No dividends paid) is down almost 42% since a dam broke at a tailings pond at its Mount Polley mine in B.C. The breach spilled wastewater and fine sand into nearby waterways.

The extent of the damage to local lakes and rivers is unknown at this point, but estimates of the total liability for the cleanup are in the range of $225 million. Imperial has just issued $100 million in convertible debentures to help pay these costs.

Meanwhile, Mount Polley will likely be shut down for at least one to two years, perhaps indefinitely. The mine is the company’s biggest producing asset and the main contributor to its cash flow. Imperial will now likely report cash flow of $0.40 a share in 2014, down from an estimated $1.05.

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AMAZON.COM $335.78 (Nasdaq symbol AMZN; TSINetwork Rating: Extra Risk) (206-266-1000; www.amazon.com; Shares outstanding: 462.0 million; Market cap: $154.6 billion; No dividends paid) has launched its Kindle Unlimited service for a flat $9.99 monthly fee.

Kindle Unlimited offers access to over 600,000 books that can be read at no additional cost on Kindle e-book readers, as well as over 2,000 audiobooks. Amazon is offering a free 30-day trial to entice users to try the service, which is also available using the Kindle app on a smartphone or tablet.

The new Kindle Unlimited also lets users alternate between reading and listening to their books (if those books are available as audiobooks) without losing their place.

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p>ACI WORLDWIDE $19.07 (Nasdaq symbol ACIW; TSINetwork Rating: Speculative) (402-334-5101; www.tsainc.com; Shares outstanding: 113.8 million; Market cap: $2.2 billion; No dividends paid) has agreed to buy Retail Decisions (ReD) for $205 million in cash. ReD, based in Brockwood, England, is an e-commerce and fraud-prevention firm that serves the payments industry. ReD’s software, which includes ReD Shield, ReD Fraud Xchange, ReD PRISM, ReD Alerts, ReDi, ReD1 Gateway and LiveProcessor, helps customers better manage and cut losses from fraud.

ACI Worldwide is still a hold.

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GOODYEAR TIRE & RUBBER CO. $25.46 (Nasdaq symbol GT; TSINetwork Rating: Extra Risk) (330-796-2122; www.goodyear.com; Shares outstanding: 275.3 million; Market cap: $7.1 billion; Dividend yield: 0.9%) is the world’s largest tire maker, with 52 plants in 22 countries.

In the quarter ended June 30, 2014, Goodyear’s revenue fell 4.9%, to $4.66 billion from $4.89 billion a year earlier. The company sold fewer tires in Latin America, which offset higher tire sales in all other regions, including North America.

Even with the lower revenue, earnings per share rose 8.1%, to $0.80 from $0.74, excluding one-time items. Goodyear’s costs, for rubber and other raw materials, continue to fall. As well, the company now has a favourable new contract with the United Steelworkers.

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BROADRIDGE FINANCIAL SOLUTIONS $42.03 (New York symbol BR; TSINetwork Rating: Extra Risk) (201-714-3000; www.broadridge.com; Shares outstanding: 120.7 million; Market cap: $4.9 billion; Dividend yield: 2.6%) earned $144.6 million in its fiscal 2014 fourth quarter, which ended June 30, 2014. That’s up 1.5% from $142.4 million a year earlier. Earnings per share rose 1.7%, to $1.17 from $1.15, on fewer shares outstanding.

Overall revenue gained 2.4%, to $885.9 million from $865.1 million. Revenue from contracts that pay recurring fees rose 7% and accounted for two-thirds of the total.

Excluding unusual items, Broadridge expects to earn $2.42 to $2.52 a share in fiscal 2015. The stock trades at a reasonable 17.0 times the midpoint of that range. The shares yield 2.6%.

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ADOBE SYSTEMS INC. $71.02 (Nasdaq symbol ADBE; TSINetwork Rating: Average) (408-536-6000; www.adobe.com; Shares outstanding: 497.4 million; Market cap: $35.8 billion; No dividends paid) makes a range of software that lets computer users create, edit and share documents in the popular PDF format. As well, graphic designers use its software to create print publications and web pages.

In its fiscal 2014 second quarter, which ended May 30, 2014, Adobe earned $186.3 million, up 1.9% from $182.9 million a year earlier. Earnings per share rose 2.8%, to $0.37 from $0.36, on fewer shares outstanding. Revenue gained 5.7%, to $1.07 billion from $1.01 billion.

The improved results are mainly because Adobe is signing up more subscribers to its Creative Cloud package of photo editing and desktop publishing programs. The company added 464,000 Creative Cloud customers in the quarter and currently has a total of 2.3 million. It now expects to end fiscal 2014 with 3.3 million users, up from its earlier target of 3.0 million.

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SYMANTEC CORP. $24.28 (Nasdaq symbol SYMC; TSINetwork Rating: Average) (408-517-8000; www.symantec.com; Shares outstanding: 692.7 million; Market cap: $16.7 billion; Dividend yield: 2.5%) sells computer-security technology, including anti-virus and email-filtering software, to businesses and consumers. It also offers data-archiving software.

In its fiscal 2015 first quarter, which ended July 4, 2014, Symantec’s earnings rose 0.6%, to $313 million from $311 million a year earlier. Per-share earnings gained 2.3%, to $0.45 from $0.44, on fewer shares outstanding. Revenue rose 1.5%, to $1.74 billion from $1.71 billion.

The gains were mostly due to savings from a new restructuring plan that includes job cuts and simplifying product lines. In addition, Symantec separated its sales force into two groups: one focuses on winning new clients, and the other serves existing customers.

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NISSAN MOTOR (ADR) $19.56 (Nasdaq symbol NSANY; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average) (310-771-3111; www.nissan-global.com; Shares outstanding: 2.3 billion; Market cap: $44.2 billion; No dividends paid) is Japan’s second-largest automaker, after Toyota.

In its fiscal 2015 first quarter, which ended June 30, 2014, the company earned 112.1 billion yen ($1.1 billion U.S., or $0.49 per ADR), up 36.7% from 82.0 billion yen ($804.4 million U.S., or $0.36) a year earlier.

Revenue rose 10.8%, to 2.47 trillion yen ($24.1 billion U.S.) from 2.23 trillion yen ($21.8 billion). That’s because Nissan sold 1.24 million vehicles in the latest quarter, up 6.0% from a year earlier.

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DELPHI ENERGY $4.27 (Toronto symbol DEE; TSINetwork Rating: Speculative) (403-265-6171; www.delphienergy.ca; Shares outstanding: 155.2 million; Market cap: $670.6 million; No dividends paid) develops, produces and explores for oil and natural gas. About 67% of its output is gas. The remaining 33% is oil.

In the three months ended June 30, 2014, the company’s production rose 36.2%, to 10,397 barrels of oil equivalent a day from 7,635 barrels a year earlier.

Cash flow per share jumped to $0.09 from $0.05. The production increase was the main reason for the gain. The company also realized higher prices for its oil and gas in the latest quarter.

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BIRCHCLIFF ENERGY $11.92 (Toronto symbol BIR; TSINetwork Rating: Speculative) (403-261-6401; www.birchcliffenergy.com; Shares outstanding: 145.9 million; Market cap: $1.7 billion; No dividends paid) develops, produces and explores for oil and gas, mainly in the Peace River Arch area near the Alberta/B.C. border. About 83% of its output is gas. The remaining 17% is oil.

In the three months ended June 30, 2014, Birchcliff’s production rose 29.1%, to 31,178 barrels of oil equivalent per day from 24,141 barrels a year earlier. Cash flow per share jumped 79.3%, to $0.52 from $0.29, on the increased output and higher oil and gas prices.

In 2012, Birchcliff completed Phase III of its gas plant expansion in Pouce Coupe, Alberta. This project doubled the facility’s capacity and is letting the company bring the additional gas it is now producing to market.

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MAJOR DRILLING $8.42 (Toronto symbol MDI; TSINetwork Rating: Speculative) (1-866-264-3986; www.majordrilling.com; Shares outstanding: 79.2 million; Market cap: $666.7 million; Dividend yield: 2.4%) has agreed to buy privately held Taurus Drilling Services for $27.7 million, plus a further $11.5 million tied to performance.

Taurus, which operates in Canada, the U.S. and Mexico, performs underground longhole drilling for mining firms. Longhole drilling is used in operating mines to drill holes for various purposes, including blasting, drainage and providing electrical service and ventilation.

The acquisition looks like a great fit for Major, because it lets the company expand into mine-production drilling. That’s important, because it reduces Major’s focus on exploration drillers, which depend on volatile commodity markets for financing.

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CARFINCO FINANCIAL GROUP $8.38 (Toronto symbol CFN; TSINetwork Rating: Speculative) (1-888-486-4356; www.carfinco.com; Shares outstanding: 26.5 million; Market cap: $224.2 million; Dividend yield: 5.7%) provides car loans to consumers who don’t meet the criteria of banks and other traditional lenders.

In September 2013, Carfinco expanded into the U.S. through its $9.5-million purchase of Persian Acceptance Corp., an automotive lender that also caters to less-affluent borrowers. The acquisition boosted Carfinco’s loans outstanding by about 22%.

In the three months ended June 30, 2014, the company’s revenue rose 24.5%, to $24.3 million from $19.5 million a year earlier. Carfinco loaned $54.0 million in the quarter, up 26.9% from $42.6 million.

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INTACT FINANCIAL CORP. $74.47 (Toronto symbol IFC; TSINetwork Rating: Speculative) (416-341-1464; www.intactfc.com; Shares outstanding: 131.5 million; Market cap: $9.7 billion; Dividend yield: 2.6%) is Canada’s largest provider of property and casualty insurance, based on premiums. Its brands include Intact Insurance, Canada BrokerLink, belairdirect and Grey Power.

In the three months ended June 30, 2014, Intact’s revenue was virtually unchanged from a year earlier, at $2.17 billion. The company earned $210 million, or $1.60 a share, up sharply from $98 million, or $0.73.

However, the year-earlier results include a pre-tax loss of $143 million, mostly related to storms and flooding in southern Alberta. Similar losses in the 2014 quarter were just $33 million.

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DREAM OFFICE REIT $29.07 (Toronto symbol D.UN; TSINetwork Rating: Extra Risk) (416-365-3535; www.dundeereit.com; Units outstanding: 104.6 million; Market cap: $3.1 billion; Dividend yield: 7.7%) (formerly Dundee REIT) owns and manages 24.5 million square feet of office and retail space in major cities across Canada.

In the quarter ended June 30, 2014, Dream’s revenue rose 3.1%, to $204.4 million from $198.2 million a year earlier. The trust continues to renew expiring leases at higher rates.

Cash flow gained 2.7%, to $61.0 million from $59.4 million, while cash flow per unit rose 4.9%, to $0.64 from $0.61, on more units outstanding.

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MITEL NETWORKS $10.83 (Toronto symbol MNW; TSINetwork Rating: Extra Risk) (613-592-2122; www.mitel.ca; Shares outstanding: 99.4 million; Market cap: $1.1 billion; No dividends paid) has reported its second quarter of results that include Aastra Technologies, a Stock Pickers Digest recommendation Mitel acquired in a friendly takeover on January 31, 2014. Aastra shareholders received cash and Mitel shares.

During the quarter, Mitel’s revenue rose 96.9%, to $288.7 million from $146.6 million a year ago (all figures except share price in U.S. dollars). Most of the increase came from Aastra.

Without one-time items, earnings jumped 124.2%, to $22.2 million from $9.9 million. However, earnings per share rose just 16.7%, to $0.21 from $0.18, as the company issued new shares to pay for Aastra Technologies.

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STUART OLSON INC. $10.01 (Toronto symbol SOX; TSINetwork Rating: Speculative) (780-454-3667; www.stuartolson.com; Shares outstanding: 24.9 million; Market cap: $270.0 million; Dividend yield: 4.8%) (formerly The Churchill Corp.) provides building-construction, commercial and industrial electrical contracting, earthmoving and industrial insulation services to government and private sector clients. It mainly operates in Western Canada.

In the three months ended June 30, 2014, the company earned $1.4 million, or $0.06 a share, excluding one-time items. A year earlier, it made just $485,000, or $0.02 a share.

Revenue rose 20.2%, to $334.0 million from $277.8 million, thanks to rising construction activity in Western Canada.

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TIM HORTONS $66.99 (Toronto symbol THI; TSINetwork Rating: Average) (905-845-6511; www.timhortons.com; Shares outstanding: 134.3 million; Market cap: $9.1 billion; Dividend yield: 1.9%) is up 11%, near all-time highs, since reporting better-than-expected quarterly results on August 6.

In the three months ended June 29, 2014, Tim Hortons’ revenue rose 9.3%, to $874.3 million from $800.1 million a year earlier. That beat the consensus forecast of $843.3 million.

Same-store sales rose 2.6% at its Canadian locations and 5.9% in the U.S. These gains were mainly due to successful new menu items.

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