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With interest rates still near historic lows, borrowing money to invest continues to look like an attractive investment strategy. That’s especially true if you borrow to buy well-established, dividend-paying stocks. For example, you could pick from the 19 companies we recommend in our Canadian Wealth Advisor newsletter’s Safety-Conscious Stock Portfolio. These investments give you regular dividend income and cash flow to pay the interest on your investment loan. (The Safety-Conscious Stock Portfolio is one of three portfolios Canadian Wealth Advisor offers to conservative and income-seeking investors. The other two are the Index Fund and ETF Portfolio and our Safety-Conscious Income Trust Portfolio. We continually monitor and update all three portfolios.)...

J.C. Penney, symbol JCP on New York, operates 1,100 department stores in the U.S. and Puerto Rico. It also sells its goods over the Internet. In its 2010 fiscal year, which ended January 29, 2011, the U.S. stock pick’s sales rose 1.2%, to $17.8 billion from $17.6 billion in 2009. Its same-store sales increased 2.5%. The company launched a number of new brands in 2010. As well, online sales rose 4.4%, to $1.5 billion from $1.3 billion. The stock pick’s earnings per share jumped 48.6%, to $1.59 from $1.07 in 2009. Penney is doing a good job of managing its inventories. That cuts the need for costly clearance sales. It is also renovating about a third of its stores, including building more in-store boutiques devoted to specific brands....

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, based on our stock market research. Each Investor Toolkit update gives you a fundamental piece of investment strategy, and shows you how you can put it into practice right away. Tip of the week: “Goodwill should play an important role in your stock market research” When we’re looking for stocks to recommend in our newsletters and investment services, we put a lot of importance on the amount of goodwill that a company carries as an asset on its balance sheet....

Canada Bread Company Ltd., symbol CBY on Toronto, is Canada’s second-largest producer of baked goods after Weston Bakery. It also makes specialty pastas and sauces. The company’s main brands include Dempster’s, New York Bakery, Tenderflake, and Olivieri. Earnings fell 21.3% to $61.0 million, or $2.40 a share, in the fiscal year ended December 31, 2010. In 2009, it earned $77.5 million or $3.05 a share. If you exclude one-time items, such as restructuring expenses and costs to build a new bakery in Hamilton, Ontario, earnings per share fell 10.9% to $2.85 from $3.20. The new facility is expected to begin operating by July 1, 2011. Sales fell 6.9% to $1.6 billion from $1.7 billion. The strength of the Canadian dollar against the British pound and the U.S. dollar lowered the contribution of the company’s operations in the U.K. and the U.S. Prices of its ingredients, especially wheat, are also rising. However, the company is increasing its selling prices to offset rising costs....

Our TSI Network rating system is a key guide we use to find the top stocks to recommend in our newsletters and investment services, including Wall Street Stock Forecaster, our newsletter that focuses on top-quality U. S. stocks. We continue to recommend that Canadian investors hold 25% to 30% of their portfolios in well-established U.S. companies. What’s more, today’s low U.S. dollar provides you with a rare opportunity to add the top stocks in the U.S. markets to your portfolio at bargain prices....

Macy’s Inc., symbol M on New York, operates 850 Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s department stores in 45 states, as well as in District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and Guam. It also sells goods over the Internet. Macy’s is one of the U.S. stock market investments we analyze in our Wall Street Stock Forecaster newsletter. Macy’s makes a point of tailoring its lines to regional tastes. It also emphasizes its exclusive brands, which account for 43% of its sales....

The Canadian retail sector is highly competitive. Aside from other domestic retailers, Canadian consumer stocks are facing increasing competition from large U.S. discount retailers, like Wal-Mart and Costco. In addition, popular U.S. retailer Target is set to enter the Canadian market. As the competition between retailers continues to heat up, it’s more important than ever for investors to focus on Canadian retail growth stocks with a proven ability to adapt and prosper in the fast-changing retail landscape. In a just-published issue of The Successful Investor, we take a close look at Canadian Tire Corp. (symbol CTC.A on Toronto). The company has been improving the layout of its stores over the last 15 years, and adding new items to the merchandise they carry. It has also acquired and launched a number of new businesses....

Computer Modelling Group, symbol CMG on Toronto, sells software to clients in the oil and gas industry. It also provides consulting services. The company is one of the small cap stock picks we analyze in our Stock Pickers Digest newsletter. Computer Modelling’s software and services help its clients generate more cash flow by getting as much oil as possible from their existing wells. The company makes mostly recurring revenue from software licences and consulting contracts. That gives it long-term stability....

A good stock broker can help you manage your investments if you don’t want to do it yourself. However, good brokers have always been hard to find. And, as any good stock broker or experienced investor can tell you, bad brokers are all too common. By “bad brokers,” we mean those who put their own interests above their clients’. Keep in mind, however, that a bad stock broker can do this in a perfectly legal fashion by catering to their clients’ whims and weaknesses. Here are 3 ways to tell if brokers are putting their interests ahead of yours:...

ISHARES S&P/TSX 60 INDEX FUND $20.44 (Toronto symbol XIU; buy or sell through a broker; ca.ishares.com) is a good, low-fee way to buy the top stocks on the TSX. The units are made up of stocks that represent the S&P/TSX 60 Index, which consists of the 60 largest, most heavily traded stocks on the exchange. Expenses are just 0.17% of assets. Most of the stocks in the index are high-quality companies. However, as it must ensure that all sectors are represented, it holds a few we wouldn’t include, such as Yellow Media Inc. The index’s top holdings are: Royal Bank, 6.7%; Suncor Energy, 5.9%; TD Bank, 5.8%; Bank of Nova Scotia, 5.3%; Canadian Natural Resources, 4.4%; Barrick Gold, 4.3%; Potash Corp., 4.2%; Goldcorp, 3.1%; Bank of Montreal, 2.9%; CN Railway, 2.7%; Manulife Financial, 2.7%; CIBC, 2.7%; Research in Motion, 2.5%; and Cenovus Energy, 2.3%....

The seeming attraction of wind power stocks is obvious — these companies operate (or make parts for) wind turbines, which offer a source of clean, renewable energy that can replace fossil fuels like oil and coal. However, like many alternative-energy stocks, wind power’s potential has risk to match. For example, the government of Ontario’s recent decision to put a moratorium on offshore wind farms illustrates the mounting political opposition to new wind developments. (Our Special Report, “3 Little-Known Alternative Energy Companies that Could Double or Triple During the Obama Administration,” covers all you need to know to find the profit-making opportunities in wind power stocks. You get this Special Report at no cost when you take a one-month free trial to our Wall Street Stock Forecaster newsletter. Read on for further details. If you’re already a Wall Street Stock Forecaster subscriber or Inner Circle member, click here to access this report right away.)...

ALIMENTATION COUCHE-TARD $30.76 (Toronto symbol ATD.B: TSINetwork Rating: Extra Risk) (1-800-361-2612; www.couche-tard.com; Shares outstanding: 242.4 million; Market cap: $7.5 billion; Dividend yield: 1.0%) is the largest convenience-store operator in Canada, with over 2,000 outlets. It also has over 3,900 U.S. stores. The Canadian stores operate under the Couche-Tard and Mac’s banners, while the U.S. stores mainly use the Circle K brand. Couche-Tard sells fuel at over 68% of its stores.

In the quarter ended October 9, 2011, Couche-Tard’s earnings per share rose 6.9%, to $0.62 from $0.58 a year earlier (all figures except share price and market cap in U.S. dollars).

Sales rose 24.1%, to $5.2 billion from $4.1 billion. The gains came from higher fuel prices, the stronger Canadian dollar and higher merchandise sales. The company gets 30% of its sales by selling merchandise.

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Aastra Technologies, symbol AAH on Toronto, develops and markets products and systems for accessing communication networks, including the Internet. The aggressive investing stock’s technology is centred around business telephone systems, and includes products that integrate traditional and mobile phones. In the three months ended December 31, 2010, Aastra’s sales fell 0.8%, to $216.0 million from $217.8 million a year earlier. If you exclude the negative impact of exchange rates, sales would have risen 8.7%. The weaker sales pushed down Aastra’s earnings by 6.1%, to $14.4 million from $15.3 million a year earlier. Earnings per share declined 8.1%, to $1.02 from $1.11, on more shares outstanding. The company gets three quarters of its sales from Europe. The weaker European economy has hurt demand for the aggressive investing stock’s products, and forced it to cut its prices. It needs a sustained European economic recovery to show a sustained rise in sales and earnings....

ISHARES DOW JONES CANADA SELECT DIVIDEND INDEX FUND $21.65 (Toronto symbol XDV; buy or sell through a broker; ca.ishares.com) holds 30 of the highest-yielding Canadian stocks. Its selections are based on dividend growth, yield and payout ratio. The weight of any one stock is limited to 10% of assets. The fund’s MER is 0.50%. It yields 1.9%. The fund’s top holdings are CIBC, 6.9%; Bonterra Energy Corp., 6.3%; Bank of Montreal, 5.2%; National Bank, 5.0%; TD Bank, 5.0%; AG Growth International, 4.9%; IGM Financial, 4.2%; Telus, 4.1%; Royal Bank, 4.0%; Bank of Nova Scotia, 3.9%; BCE, 3.5%; and TMX Group, 3.4%. The fund holds 52.9% of its assets in financial stocks. Utilities are next, at 22.5%. The top Canadian finance stocks have sound prospects. However, if you invest in this ETF, be sure to adjust the rest of your portfolio so it won’t be overly concentrated in the financial sector....

SPDR S&P 500 ETF $131.21 (New York symbol SPY; buy or sell through brokers; www.spdrs.com) holds the stocks in the S&P 500 Index, which consists of 500 major U.S. stocks that are chosen based on their market cap, liquidity and industry group. The index’s highest-weighted stocks are Exxon-Mobil, Microsoft, Procter & Gamble, Apple, JP Morgan Chase & Co., Johnson & Johnson, IBM, Chevron, General Electric, Wells Fargo & Co. and AT&T. The fund’s expenses are just 0.10% of its assets. If you want exposure to the S&P 500 Index, SPDR...

These 2 retirement planning tips can help you leave a well-organized and profitable estate

Cedar Fair L.P., symbol FUN on New York, owns and operates 11 amusement parks including Knott’s Berry Farm in California and Canada’s Wonderland, six outdoor water parks, one indoor water park and five hotels. For 2010, the U.S. stock’s revenue jumped 6.7%, to $977.6 million from $916.1 million in 2009. Park attendance rose 7.8%, and revenue from the company’s hotels rose 6.1%. Per-guest spending slipped less than 1% despite higher sales of season passes, which typically decrease the amount spent per visit. Even so, the partnership lost $31.6 million, or $0.57 a unit, in 2010, compared to earnings of $35.4 million, or $0.63 a unit, in 2009....

SPDR DOW JONES INDUSTRIAL AVERAGE ETF $120.45 (New York Exchange symbol DIA; buy or sell through brokers; www.spdrs.com) holds the 30 stocks that make up the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The fund’s top holdings are IBM, ExxonMobil, Chevron Corp., 3M, Procter & Gamble, McDonald’s Corp., Coca Cola, Caterpillar Inc., United Technologies and Boeing Co. The fund’s expenses are about 0.18% of its assets. SPDR Dow Jones ETF is a buy....

POWERSHARES QQQ ETF $57.14 (Nasdaq symbol QQQQ; buy or sell through brokers; www.invescopowershares.com), formerly called Nasdaq 100 Trust Shares, holds the stocks that represent the Nasdaq 100 Index. That index is made up of the 100 largest shares on the Nasdaq exchange, based on market cap. The Nasdaq 100 Index contains firms from a number of major industries, including computer hardware and software, telecommunications, retail/wholesale trade and biotechnology. It does not contain financial companies. The fund’s expenses are about 0.20% of its assets. The index’s highest-weighted stocks are Apple, Microsoft, Qualcomm, Google, Cisco Systems, Intel, Amazon.com, Oracle Corp., Comcast Corp. and Teva Pharmaceuticals....

Members of our Inner Circle service often ask for our advice on stocks they are thinking of buying that we don’t cover in our newsletters. These companies range from large multinational companies to the most speculative penny stocks. For example, an Inner Circle member recently asked our advice on Gippsland Resources. The Australia-based penny stock’s two main properties are both located in Egypt, and contain deposits of tantalum, a rust-resistant metal with many industrial uses. To give you a sense of how my Inner Circle service works, I’d like to share this question, and our answer, with you. I hope you enjoy and profit from it....

Tim Hortons, symbol THI on Toronto symbol THI, sold its half of Maidstone Bakeries business to Aryzta AG of Switzerland last year for $475 million. That helped the company buy back $341.1 million of its stock under its current repurchase program, which ended February 17, 2011. Under its new program, the company plans to spend up to $445 million on share repurchases over the next year. Meanwhile, the growth stock pick’s sales rose 4.0%, to $2.5 billion in 2010 from $2.4 billion in 2009. During the year, the company opened 149 new restaurants in Canada. That brings its total number of Canadian stores up to 3,148. Same-stores sales in Canada rose 4.9%. In the U.S., Tim Hortons opened 44 restaurants and 52 self-serve kiosks. It now has 602 U.S. outlets. Same-store sales in the U.S. rose 3.9%. The company’s earnings for 2010 jumped 110.5%, to $624.0 million from $296.4 million in 2009. Earnings per share rose 118.3%, to $3.58 from $1.64, on fewer shares outstanding. This was mostly due to a $361.1-million gain on the sale of Maidstone. New restaurants and menu items also contributed to the higher earnings....

We think the long-term outlook for China — and Chinese stocks — is bright. That’s because the country’s huge population is generally younger than North Americans, and large numbers of Chinese have the potential to advance from poverty into the middle class. (One of the best ways for investors to tap into Chinese growth is through low-fee exchange-traded funds. The SPDR S&P China ETF is one example of an exchange traded fund that focuses on China. You can get our very latest buy/sell/hold advice on this fund in the latest issue of Canadian Wealth Advisor. See below for further details.) ...

ISHARES MSCI CANADA INDEX FUND $33.63 (New York symbol EWC; buy or sell through brokers; ca.ishares.com) is like a market-cap-based index fund, but its managers try to improve performance by tinkering with the index-fund formula. They do this through their Morgan Stanley Capital International Canada Index. The fund has an MER of 0.50%. The index’s top holdings are Royal Bank, 5.8%; TD Bank, 5.0%; Suncor Energy, 5.0%; Bank of Nova Scotia, 4.4%; Potash Corp., 4.0%; Canadian Natural Resources, 3.7%; Barrick Gold, 3.6%; Teck Resources, 2.7%; Bank of Montreal, 2.5%; Goldcorp, 2.4%; CN Railway, 2.4%; Manulife Financial, 2.4%; CIBC, 2.3% and Research in Motion, 2.2%. If you want to own a Canadian index fund, you should buy the iShares S&P/TSX 60 Index Fund. You’ll pay about a third of the management fees....

SPDR S&P CHINA ETF $75.92 (New York Exchange symbol GXC; buy or sell through brokers; www.spdrs.com), is an exchange-traded fund that aims to track the S&P China BMI Index. This index is made up of all of the publicly traded Chinese stocks that are available to foreign investors. Right now, SPDR S&P China ETF holds 147 stocks. The $669.0-million fund’s top holdings are: China Construction Bank, 7.6%; China Mobile, 6.5%; Industrial & Commercial Bank of China, 5.3%; CNOOC Ltd., 4.8%; Baidu Inc., 4.6%; Bank of China, 4.4%; China Life Insurance, 3.9%; Petro-China, 3.9%; Tencent Holdings Ltd., 3.0%; and China Petroleum & Chemical, 2.5%. The fund’s breakdown by industry is as follows: Financials, 32.5%; Oil and Gas, 16.0%; Information Technology, 13.1%; Telecommunication Services, 9.0%; Consumer Discretionary, 6.2%; Basic Materials, 5.8%; Consumer Staples, 4.6%; Utilities, 1.9%; and Health Care, 1.0%....

GUGGENHEIM CHINA SMALL CAP ETF $28.35 (New York Exchange symbol HAO; buy or sell through brokers; www.guggenheimfunds.com) aims to track the AlphaShares China Small Cap Index. This index is made up of all investable Chinese stocks with market caps between $200 million and $1.5 billion. The $374.8-million fund’s top holdings are Zhaojin Mining Industry, 1.5%; China Everbright, 1.3%; China Shipping Container Lines, 1.3%; BBMG Corp., 1.3%; Semiconductor Manufacturing International, 1.2%; Zhuzhou CSR Times Electric Co., 1.2%; Great Wall Motor Corp., 1.2%; Shanda Interactive Entertainment, 1.2%: China BlueChemical, 1.2%; and China Shanshui Cement Group, 1.1%. As China’s economy matures, and consumers feel more protected by the expanding social-safety net, domestic spending should rise. The ongoing Arab revolution could also spur China’s leaders to boost spending on social programs and services to ease the growing gap between the rich and poor. This fund is well positioned to benefit from these trends....