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TRANSCANADA CORP. $51.93 (Toronto symbol TRP; Shares outstanding: 708.0 million; Market cap: $36.3 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; Dividend yield: 3.7%; www.transcanada.com) has agreed to build a $1.9-billion, 260-kilometre pipeline that would pump natural gas from northeastern B.C.’s Dawson Creek area to a proposed liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant at Kitimat, on the
province’s coast.

The plant is a joint venture between Chevron Corp. (New York symbol CVX) and Apache Corp. (New York symbol APA). Both are recommendations of Wall Street Stock Forecaster, our newsletter that focuses on U.S. stocks.

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CANADIAN REIT $44.97 (Toronto symbol REF.UN; Units outstanding: 69.2 million; Market cap: $3.1 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Extra Risk; Dividend yield: 3.9%; www.creit.ca) owns 197 properties, including retail, industrial and office buildings, across Canada and in Chicago. These holdings contain almost 24.0 million square feet of leasable area. The trust’s occupancy rate is 95.1%.

In the three months ended March 31, 2014, Canadian REIT’s revenue rose 6.9%, to $102.8 million from $96.1 million a year earlier. Cash flow per unit gained 8.2%, to $0.66 from $0.61.

Canadian REIT added $191.1 million worth of new buildings in 2013. That followed property purchases totalling $401.9 million in 2012, including a 50% stake in Calgary Place, a 575,000-square-foot office and retail complex, for $156.0 million. So far this year, it has not made any acquisitions.

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ALLIED PROPERTIES REAL ESTATE INVESTMENT TRUST $34.31 (Toronto symbol AP.UN; Units outstanding: 69.5 million; Market cap: $2.4 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Extra Risk; Dividend yield: 4.1%; www.alliedpropertiesreit.com) owns 138 office buildings, mostly in major Canadian cities. These mainly Class I properties contain over 9.9 million square feet of leasable area.

Class I refers to 19th- and early-20th-century light industrial buildings that have been converted to retail space. They usually feature exposed beams, interior brick and hardwood floors.

The trust bought $400 million worth of properties in 2012 and $182.4 million more in 2013. So far in 2014, it has added five more for $101.7 million.

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GREAT-WEST LIFECO $30.65 (Toronto symbol GWO; Shares outstanding: 999.0 million; Market cap: $30.6 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; Yield: 4.0%; www.greatwestlifeco.com) is Canada’s largest insurance company. It also offers mutual funds and wealth management.

In the quarter ended March 31, 2014, earnings per share rose 9.3%, to $0.59 from $0.54 a year earlier. Great-West has $805.9 billion of assets under administration.

Earnings at the Canadian division (50% of the total) rose 10.9%. The European division (44%)—including Irish Life, acquired in July 2013—saw 34.9% higher profits. Losses widened at the U.S. division’s Putnam mutual fund business, cutting overall U.S. earnings by 42.3%, but the U.S. makes up just 6% of total profits.

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MANULIFE FINANCIAL $21.67 (Toronto symbol MFC; Shares outstanding: 1.9 billion; Market cap: $40.2 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; Dividend yield: 2.4%; www.manulife.ca) sells life and other forms of insurance, as well as mutual funds and investment management services. The company operates globally and has $635 billion of assets under management.

In the three months ended March 31, 2014, Manulife’s earnings per share rose 15.6%, to $0.37 from $0.32 a year earlier. Revenue gained 2.1%, to $9.0 billion from $8.8 billion, as its assets under management grew and its foreign operations benefited from favourable currency movements.

Manulife has made substantial progress cutting its U.S. insurance business’s exposure to unpredictable stock markets and interest rates.

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SUN LIFE FINANCIAL $39.88 (Toronto symbol SLF; Shares outstanding: 610.6 million; Market cap: $24.2 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; Dividend yield: 3.6%; www.sunlife.ca) sells savings, retirement, pension and life insurance products to individuals and corporations.

The company mainly operates in Canada, the U.S. and the U.K., but it continues to expand into Asia. It has $671.1 billion of assets under management.

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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BANK OF NOVA SCOTIA $72.16 (Toronto symbol BNS; Shares outstanding: 1.2 billion; Market cap: $87.8 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; Dividend yield: 3.6%, www.scotiabank.com) began expanding in Latin America in the 1990s. It’s now focused on Peru, Mexico, Chile and Colombia, but it has a strong presence across the region.

There’s still lots of room to expand banking services throughout Latin America, especially as its growing middle class looks for stable deposit and consumer-lending services.

Bank of Nova Scotia now gets 34% of its revenue from its international division, which provides financial services not just in Latin America and the Caribbean, but also in Asia and other emerging markets.

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BCE INC. $48.28 (Toronto symbol BCE; Shares outstanding: 777.3 million; Market cap: $37.5 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; Dividend yield: 5.1%; www.bce.ca) is Canada’s largest provider of telephone, Internet and wireless services. It also offers satellite and Internet TV across the country.

In the three months ended March 31, 2014, BCE’s earnings per share rose 5.2%, to $0.81 from $0.77 a year earlier. Revenue increased 4.4%, to $4.54 billion from $4.35 billion.

Revenue from wireless services (32% of total revenue) rose 4.6%. The company’s network upgrades continue to attract new wireless subscribers, and it’s benefiting from rising use of smartphones, which generate higher monthly fees than regular cellphones.

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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 stock market advice that will help you develop a successful approach to investing. Each Investor Toolkit update gives you a fundamental tip and shows you how you can put it into practice right away. Today’s tip: “If you rely on one or two simple rules to cut your risk when you pick stocks, you may simply cut your profits.” Investors are always looking for simple ways to avoid risk in their investments. They want a rule that is easy to follow, foolproof, and compact enough to fit on a T-shirt....

RIOCAN REAL ESTATE INVESTMENT TRUST $27 (Toronto symbol REI.UN; Aggressive Growth Portfolio, Manufacturing & Industry sector; Units outstanding: 304.8 million; Market cap: $8.2 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 5.9; Dividend yield: 5.2%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.riocan.com) continues to work with joint venture partners to buy mixed-use properties, particularly in urban areas. This way, the trust can apply its expertise to the retail portion of these developments, while leaving the residential and office aspects to its partners.

In the first quarter of 2014, RioCan paid $138 million for interests in six properties under development. It also bought two existing retail properties for $21 million.

Thanks to these moves, RioCan’s cash flow rose 2.4% in the quarter, to $127 million, or $0.42 a unit. A year earlier, its cash flow was $124 million, or $0.41 a unit. The lower Canadian dollar also boosted its U.S. properties’ contribution.

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Beginning today, we launch Best Canadian Stocks, a feature which will appear every Tuesday as our daily post. We also launch a new approach—you will get our specific advice on whether to buy, hold or sell 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 one of our three newsletters featuring Canadian stocks—The Successful Investor, Stock Pickers Digest and Canadian Wealth Advisor. On Thursday, look for our first weekly feature on U.S. stocks, complete with our specific buy, hold and sell advice. PENGROWTH ENERGY (Toronto symbol PGF; www.pengrowth.com) produces oil and natural gas in Western Canada and off the Nova Scotia coast. Gas accounts for 55% of its production; the other 45% is oil....

target="_blank">www.blackberry.com) dropped 10% in response to a new alliance between Apple and IBM. Under the terms of the deal, IBM will develop business-related apps for Apple’s popular iPhone and iPad mobile devices. That could hurt sales of BlackBerry’s smartphones....

PRECISION DRILLING CORP. $15 (www.precisiondrilling.com) has sold some of its trucking operations in Texas and New Mexico for an undisclosed sum. These assets included trucks and related equipment that Precision uses to move its drilling rigs....

NORDION INC. $14 (www.nordion.com) recently accepted a $13.00 U.S.-a-share friendly takeover bid from Sterigenics, a privately held Illinois firm that sterilizes surgical tools, drug ingredients and other materials....

LINAMAR CORP. $64 (Toronto symbol LNR; Aggressive Growth Portfolio, Manufacturing & Industry sector; Shares outstanding: 64.8 million; Market cap: $4.1 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 1.1; Dividend yield: 0.6%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.linamar.com) gets around 80% of its revenue by making engines, transmissions and other precision-machined parts for automakers. It has 44 plants in North America, Europe and Asia.

The remaining 20% of Linamar’s revenue mainly comes from self-propelled, scissor-type elevating work platforms, which it sells under the Skyjack name. The company also makes other industrial machinery, such as parts for wind farms.

Pent-up car demand boosted results

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BOMBARDIER INC. (Toronto symbols BBD.A $3.81 and BBD.B $3.75; Aggressive Growth Portfolio, Manufacturing & Industry sector; Shares outstanding: 1.7 billion; Market cap: $6.4 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 0.4; Dividend yield: 2.5%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.bombardier.com) has received new orders for up to 48 of its CSeries passenger jets.

These are the first orders since a problem with the plane’s engine forced Bombardier to suspend test flights in May 2014. The engine’s maker, Pratt & Whitney, has addressed this issue, and Bombardier expects to begin delivering these planes in 2015.

Including these new deals, the company now has firm orders for 205 CSeries planes. If buyers exercise all their options to buy additional aircraft, Bombardier’s total orders would rise to 495 planes and be worth about $35 billion U.S.

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ENBRIDGE INC. $52 (Toronto symbol ENB; Conservative Growth and Income Portfolios, Utilities sector; Shares outstanding: 834.8 million; Market cap: $43.4 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 1.2; Dividend yield: 2.7%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.enbridge.com) had hoped to complete its new Flanagan South pipeline in the third quarter of 2014, but the company now says it will start up in the fourth quarter.

Flanagan South will connect Enbridge’s main oil-export pipeline in Illinois with storage facilities in Cushing, Oklahoma. From there, the company will pump the oil to refineries in Texas. The new line will let Enbridge transport up to 775,000 barrels a day on this route, up from just 175,000 on its existing Spearhead line.

Demand for this extra capacity should be strong, because it will let oil producers ship more of their crude from Western Canada and North Dakota’s Bakken area to the U.S. Gulf Coast.

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TORSTAR CORP. $7.98 (Toronto symbol TS.B; Conservative Growth and Income Portfolios, Consumer sector; Shares outstanding: 79.9 million; Market cap: $637.6 million; Price-to-sales ratio: 0.5; Dividend yield: 6.6%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.torstar.com) is closing its free Metro daily newspapers in Regina, Saskatoon and London, Ontario, after they failed to attract enough advertisers. The company will keep publishing Metro papers in larger cities, including Toronto, Ottawa, Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Halifax and Winnipeg. Torstar has also shut down The Grid, a money-losing free weekly paper in Toronto.

The company didn’t say how much it would pay in severance and other costs, but these moves should free up cash that it can invest in its websites.

Torstar is a buy.

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ENCANA CORP. $24 (Toronto symbol ECA; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Resources sector; Shares outstanding: 740.9 million; Market cap: $17.8 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 2.6; Dividend yield: 1.3%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.encana.com) has agreed to sell its operations in Alberta’s Bighorn area to privately held Jupiter Resources.

Encana will get $1.8 billion when the sale closes in the next few weeks (all amounts except share price and market cap in U.S. dollars). To put that in context, the company earned $515 million, or $0.70 a share, in the quarter ended March 31, 2014.

The company is also selling a gas-fired power plant and its 50% stake in a second plant, both in Alberta, for an undisclosed sum.

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CAE INC. $14 (Toronto symbol CAE; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Manufacturing & Industry sector; Shares outstanding: 264.0 million; Market cap: $3.7 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 1.7; Dividend yield: 1.7%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.cae.com) has received orders for seven flight simulators and related equipment. In all, these deals are worth $120 million, or 6% of CAE’s $2.1 billion of annual revenue.

The company has sold 11 flight simulators since its 2015 fiscal year began on April 1, 2014. In fiscal 2014, the company sold a record 48 simulators.

CAE is our #1 buy for 2014.

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TIM HORTONS INC. $60 (Toronto symbol THI; Aggressive Growth Portfolio, Consumer sector; Shares outstanding: 134.2 million; Market cap: $8.1 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 2.5; Dividend yield: 2.1%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.timhortons.com) operates 3,610 coffee-and-donut stores in Canada, 870 in the U.S. and 44 in the Persian Gulf.

In the quarter ended March 30, 2014, the company’s revenue rose 4.8%, to $766.4 million from $731.5 million a year earlier. That’s mainly because it opened 23 outlets in Canada and 11 in the U.S. Same-store sales rose 1.6% at its Canadian locations and 1.9% in the U.S.

Earnings gained 5.5%, to $90.9 million from $86.2 million. Per-share earnings jumped 17.9%, to $0.66 from $0.56, on fewer shares outstanding.

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CANADIAN TIRE CORP. $103 (Toronto symbol CTC.A; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Consumer sector; Shares outstanding: 79.7 million; Market cap: $8.2 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 0.7; Dividend yield: 1.9%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.canadiantire.ca) operates 492 Canadian Tire stores, which specialize in automotive, household and sporting goods. It also owns other retail chains, such as Mark’s (casual clothing) and SportChek.

The company is selling 20% of its credit card operations to Bank of Nova Scotia (see page 74) for $500 million. Canadian Tire has an option to sell an additional 29% to the bank over the next 10 years.

Meanwhile, Canadian Tire earned $70.6 million in the quarter ended March 29, 2014, down 3.3% from $73.0 million a year earlier. Earnings per share fell 2.2%, to $0.88 from $0.90, on fewer shares outstanding.

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POTASH CORP. OF SASKATCHEWAN $39 (Toronto symbol POT; Aggressive Growth Portfolio, Resources sector; Shares outstanding: 837.9 million; Market cap: $32.7 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 4.6; Dividend yield: 3.9%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.potashcorp.com) is up 10% since the start of 2014. That’s mainly because potash miners cut their output in response to the July 2013 breakup of a marketing alliance between producers in Russia and Belarus. These reductions have increased prices from their recent low of $310 U.S. a tonne to $350.

Prices should remain steady, particularly because North American farmers will need more fertilizer to replenish their soil after last year’s record crops. However, the stock trades at a high 22.0 times the $1.65 U.S. a share the company will probably earn in 2014.

Potash Corp. is still a hold.

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CGI GROUP INC. $38 (Toronto symbol GIB.A; Aggressive Growth Portfolio, Manufacturing & Industry sector; Shares outstanding: 309.6 million; Market cap: $11.8 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 1.1; No dividends paid; TSINetwork Rating: Extra Risk; www.cgi.com) has won a contract to help modernize the Michigan state government’s computer systems.

The revenue from this deal—$89.4 million U.S.—is small next to the company’s annual revenue of $10 billion. Still, deals like this enhance CGI’s reputation in the wake of the well-publicized problems it had launching the Obamacare website.

CGI Group is a buy.

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EMERA INC. $34 (Toronto symbol EMA; Income Portfolio, Utilities sector; Shares outstanding: 142.6 million; Market cap: $4.8 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 1.8; Dividend yield: 4.2%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.emera.com) has agreed to pay $390 million for 34.9% of a line that will transmit power from a new hydro-electric plant in Labrador to the island of Newfoundland. In addition, Emera will spend $1.6 billion on an undersea line that will transmit 20% of this facility’s power to Nova Scotia.

These projects, which should start up in 2017, will help Emera comply with new Nova Scotia regulations that require it to get 40% of its power from renewable sources by 2030, up from 17% today.

Emera is a buy.

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