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Copper continues to attract a lot of attention from investors in commodity stocks. That’s because the metal has more than doubled in price, from a low of $1.25 U.S. in December 2008 to around $3.03 U.S. today. Traditionally, investors have bought copper as a way to profit from general economic growth. That’s because, unlike gold or silver, copper has a wide range of industrial uses. For example, it’s a key element in electrical wire and pipe. ...

With commodity prices on an upswing, many investors have turned their attention to companies that produce and explore for minerals. These include Canadian gold stocks, especially in light of gold’s recent rise to over $1,030 U.S. an ounce. (In the current Stock Pickers Digest, we take a close look at a junior gold explorer we’ve recommended in the past. It has a presence in one of the world’s most productive gold-producing regions. What’s more, it’s up 72.2% for us since early this year. Read on for further details.) ...

When you join my Inner Circle service, you get to ask me your own personal investment questions, plus you get to see what other Inner Circle members have asked, along with our answers. So you can see how the service works, and get a sense of how it might help your portfolio, I’d like to share a member question about investment timing and stock market trends. I hope you enjoy and profit from it. Q: Dear Pat, I just received $300,000 that I have to invest carefully. I have been investing in stocks and mutual funds for more than 10 years, but this new amount is very important for my retirement in about 10 years. The market has risen lately, and I’m concerned that there may soon be a correction. I would like to know if I should invest in one shot or spread the investment over a certain period of time. Please suggest a type of time frame, considering I am a “moderate” investor. My current portfolio is about 70% stocks, with 60% in Canada. Thank you for your help. A: Buying gradually may make you more comfortable than plunging right in. However, because of the way stock market trends typically unfold, it’s likely to cost you money in the long run. If you can afford to keep your money in the market for, say, five years, then the sooner you buy the better....

You’ll find our mutual-fund ratings (Aggressive, Conservative or Income) displayed next to every fund we recommend in our Canadian Wealth Advisor newsletter. They’re key to helping us find top-performing funds, including those that are suitable for income investing. (To show you how our system works, we’d like to share one of the income investing fund buys we recently recommended in Canadian Wealth Advisor. Please read on for full details.) Rating mutual funds is more complex than rating individual companies. When we judge a company’s investment quality, we take nine key factors into account....

BAFFINLAND IRON MINES $0.66 (Toronto symbol BIM; SI Rating: Start-up) (416-364-8820; www.baffinland.com; Shares outstanding: 255.3 million; Market cap: $168.5 million) continues to add to reserves through exploration at its Mary River iron-ore project on Baffin Island. Baffinland aims to build an open-pit mine at Mary River over a four-year period. It then plans to produce 18 million tonnes of ore a year for over 21 years. The company has signed contracts to sell the ore to steelmaking giants ThyssenKrupp and ArcelorMittal. However, the project’s timing depends on a continued economic rebound and a rise in steel demand. Baffinland holds a high cash balance of $25 million....

CANALASKA URANIUM $0.18 (Toronto symbol CVV; SI Rating: Start-up) (1-800-667-1870; www.canalaska.com; Shares outstanding: 137.8 million; Market cap: $24.8 million) continues to sign joint-venture partnerships to fund exploration drilling on its seventeen 100%-owned uranium properties in Saskatchewan’s Athabasca Basin region. The company’s partners include Japan’s giant Mitsubishi Corp., Chinese mining firm East Resources Inc. and a consortium of Korean companies that consists of Hanwha Corporation, Korea Electric Power, Korea Resources and SK Energy. CanAlaska holds cash of $8.6 million. CanAlaska owns a large amount of land that contains lots of drilling prospects. Moreover, it has personnel with expertise in exploration and mine building, specifically in the Athabasca Basin region. The company is budgeting for an extensive fall-winter exploration program, which will be partly financed by its joint venture partnerships....

MIRANDA GOLD $0.44 (Toronto symbol MAD; SI Rating: Start-up) (604-689-1659; www.mirandagold.com; Shares outstanding: 44.9 million; Market cap: $19.5 million) explores for gold, mainly in the Cortez Trend and Battle Mountain-Eureka regions of Nevada. Miranda has 13 properties in various stages of production in these areas, which are two of the world’s most productive gold belts. The company takes part in a number of joint ventures. These are crucial for junior-exploration firms, as they give them a way to fund further exploration on properties where they have already discovered minerals. The agreements also let juniors retain an interest in the properties without taking on debt or resorting to dilutive share issues. Miranda has joint ventures with Montezuma Mines, NuLegacy Gold, Newcrest Resources, Piedmont Mining, White Bear Resources and Queensgate Resources. The company holds $10.5 million in cash, which is enough for over five years of exploration....

COMPTON PETROLEUM $1.24 (Toronto symbol CMT; SI Rating: Speculative) (403-237-9400; www.comptonpetroleum.com; Shares outstanding: 263.6 million; Market cap: $326.8 million) explores for oil and natural gas in western Canada. About 83% of its production is natural gas. In the three months ended June 30, 2009, Compton’s cash flow per share fell sharply, to $0.08 from $0.59 a year earlier. Revenue fell 71.0%, to $54.1 million from $186.8 million. Lower oil and gas prices contributed to the declines. As well, the company saw a 29.8% drop in production because it sold land to pay down debt. Compton’s debt of $853.9 million is a high 2.6 times its $326.8-million market cap. The company is further lowering its debt by selling overriding royalties on its production. Overriding royalties give the buyer ownership of a percentage of production revenue, before any costs....

DELPHI ENERGY $1.68 (Toronto symbol DEE; SI Rating: Speculative) (403-265-6171; www.delphienergy.ca; Shares outstanding: 92.3 million; Market cap: $155.1 million) explores for oil and gas in Alberta and B.C. Natural gas makes up 87% of its overall daily output. In the three months ended June 30, 2009, Delphi’s average daily output rose 9.8%, to 6,809 barrels of oil equivalent (this measurement includes natural gas) from 6,202 barrels. Despite the higher production, Delphi’s cash flow per share fell 44.8%, to $0.16 from $0.29 a year earlier. That’s because of lower oil and gas prices....

I hope you are enjoying and profiting from my daily updates on TSI Network. Aside from the daily updates, TSI Network offers a range of other benefits, including over 2,000 articles on individual investments and how you can use our time-tested approach to maximize and protect your profits. Finding what you’re looking for couldn’t be easier. TSI Network gives you a wide range of easy-to-use tools to help you zero in on specific investment information. One of these is the handy list of 27 investing topics on the left-hand side of the site’s homepage....

Here are 4 rules we stick to when we’re researching mutual funds to include in our newsletters and investment services. While there is never any guarantee of a mutual fund’s performance, following these rules should help you avoid making poor choices. (For more on our fund-picking strategy, including our top ten fund picks, be sure to download our new special report, “Mutual Funds Canada: Inside the Top 10 Canadian Mutual Funds.”) ...

No matter whether you are a new investor or a seasoned veteran, these four key tips can help you learn how to trade stocks and make greater profits with less risk. They’re at the core of the advice we give in our investment services, including Canadian Wealth Advisor, our newsletter for more conservative investors. We think investors will profit most — and with the least risk — by buying shares of well-established companies with strong business prospects. These are companies that have strong positions in healthy industries. They also have strong management that will make the right moves to stay competitive in a changing market.

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With the Canadian dollar trading near $0.97 U.S., and outperforming many of the world’s major currencies, interest in forex (or foreign exchange) investments has picked up lately. Forex investments involve dealing in foreign currency futures or options. This can make sense for a business that is forced to take on unacceptable currency risk. Futures or options let the business pass that risk on to speculators who wish to accept it. ...

Giant computer maker Dell Inc. recently caught the attention of a number of tech stock investors when it bought Perot Systems, a computer outsourcing firm. But it wasn’t the takeover itself that was surprising; it was the tech stock’s $3.9 billion offer for Perot that caused eyeballs to pop. That’s a 60% premium over Perot’s share price at the time of the takeover. ...

CANADIAN UTILITIES LTD. (Toronto symbols CU [class A non-voting] $39 and CU.X [class B voting] $39; Income Portfolio, Utilities sector; Shares outstanding: 125.6 million; Market cap: $4.9 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 1.8; SI Rating: Above Average) distributes electricity and natural gas in Alberta. It also operates power plants in other parts of Canada, and in the U.K. and Australia. In August, Canadian Utilities received preliminary approval from the Alberta government to build and operate a new high-voltage transmission line between Edmonton and Calgary. Final approval for this project should come later this year. The line is part of a wider plan to make Alberta’s electricity grid more reliable. This new line will cost $1.65 billion, and will probably take several years to complete. To put this in context, Canadian Utilities earned $73.5 million, or $0.59 a share, in the three months ended June 30, 2009....

TRANSCANADA CORP. $33 (Toronto symbol TRP; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Utilities sector; Shares outstanding: 624 million; Market cap: $20.6 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 2.3; SI Rating: Above Average) operates a 59,000-kilometre pipeline network that pumps natural gas from Alberta to eastern Canada and the U.S. It also owns or invests in 20 electrical power plants. To diversify its operations, TransCanada is building the $12-billion U.S. Keystone pipeline, which will pump crude oil from Alberta’s oil sands to refineries in Illinois. TransCanada has already signed contracts with oil shippers at an average term of 18 years. In total, these deals represent 83% of Keystone’s capacity. The new pipeline’s first phase should start operating early next year. TransCanada plans to extend Keystone to the U.S. Gulf Coast by 2012....

PRECISION DRILLING TRUST $6.70 (Toronto symbol PD.UN; Aggressive Growth Portfolio, Resources sector; Units outstanding: 275.6 million; Market cap: $1.8 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 1.3; SI Rating: Extra Risk) provides contract-drilling services to oil and gas producers. Its clients are located in western Canada, the U.S. and Mexico. The trust owns a fleet of 388 drilling rigs. Precision has been able to avoid cutting its rates to attract new business. That’s because rising oil prices have spurred demand for its drilling rigs. As well, many of Precision’s customers are locking in new contracts now because drilling services may become more expensive in the next year or two. The trust is also building new rigs for specific purposes and types of terrain. Demand for these models is growing strongly, so Precision can charge more for them than for its general-purpose rigs....

PENGROWTH ENERGY TRUST $11 (Toronto symbol PGF.UN; Aggressive Growth Portfolio, Resources sector; Units outstanding: 258.4 million; Market cap: $2.8 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 1.2; SI Rating: Average) produces oil and natural gas, mainly from properties in western Canada. Natural gas accounts for 60% of its production; oil supplies the remaining 40%. In October, the trust cut its monthly distribution by 30%, to $0.07 a unit from $0.10. The new annual rate of $0.84 yields 7.6%. The lower payout should save Pengrowth roughly $93 million a year. That will help it pay down its $1.4-billion long-term debt, which is equal to 50% of its market cap....

AGRIUM INC. $53 (Toronto symbol AGU; Aggressive Growth Portfolio, Resources sector; Shares outstanding: 157 million; Market cap: $8.3 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 0.7; SI Rating: Average) makes fertilizers from natural gas at 11 plants in North America and Argentina. The company also makes other fertilizers, such as potash and phosphate, from mines in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Idaho. Agrium sells its products to industrial users and farmers through over 800 stores in the U.S., Argentina and Chile. The company continues to pursue a hostile takeover of U.S.-based fertilizer maker CF Industries Holdings Inc. (New York symbol CF). If successful, this would cost it $4.4 billion U.S. in cash and stock. Adding CF would triple Agrium’s phosphate and urea and ammonium nitrate (UAN) fertilizer-production capacity. The company has extended this offer several times. It now expires on October 22. Despite recent weakness, the long-term outlook for fertilizer is strong. Rising populations will continue to drive demand for food. This should prompt farmers to use more fertilizer to raise their crop yields, and the quality of their products....

POTASH CORP. OF SASKATCHEWAN $96 (Toronto symbol POT; Aggressive Growth Portfolio, Resources sector; Shares outstanding: 295.6 million; Market cap: $28.4 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 3.6; SI Rating: Average) is the world’s largest fertilizer producer. The company operates six potash mines in Saskatchewan and one in New Brunswick. The reserves of five of these mines should last between 60 and 97 years. The other two mines have minimal or undetermined reserves. The stock hit an all-time high of $246 in June 2008, but fell to $62 last December. The drop was caused by lower prices for crops, which hurt demand for fertilizers like potash. As well, farmers in North America and Australia are seeing better-than-expected crop yields this year, even though they applied less fertilizer. This is mainly because of good weather and large amounts of residual fertilizer in the soil from last year. In an effort to stabilize prices, Potash Corp. will cut its production by 60% this year. Still, global inventories remain high. That’s because many customers stockpiled fertilizers during last year’s boom, in anticipation of continued rising demand. Prices will remain weak until they start using up their inventories....

TELUS CORP. (Toronto symbols T $34 and T.A $32; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Utilities sector; Shares outstanding: 318 million; Market cap: $10.5 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 1.1; SI Rating: Above Average) is Canada’s second-largest telephone company after BCE Inc. (Toronto symbol BCE). Telus has been expanding its wireless operations over the past few years. As a result, the company now gets 55% of its earnings from its 6.3 million wireless subscribers across Canada. Telus has 37% of the wireless market. Market leader Rogers Communications Inc. (Toronto symbol RCI.B) has 48%. The remaining 45% of Telus’s earnings comes from its traditional phone business, which has 4.1 million...

The price of uranium rose steadily from $7.10 U.S. a pound in December 2000 to as high as $138 U.S. a pound in June 2007.

Some advisors like to use sports or military analogies to describe their investment approach. They see a great stock pick as the equivalent of a touchdown or home run, and a series of them as a successful military campaign. This, however, puts too much emphasis on excitement and glory, and pays too little attention to risk. In contrast, if we had to compare our approach to anything outside the investment business, we’d choose chess. (You can learn more about our value-investing strategy for selecting stocks in our new free report, “Canadian Stock Market Basics: How to Trade Stocks and Make Good Investments in Canada.”)...

During the 1990s, many investors held to a fixed idea that global stock market equities would be more profitable than North American stocks. This was especially true, so they claimed, of companies based in China, India and other emerging markets. We advised our readers to resist investing heavily in emerging markets during those years. Instead, we recommended that investors look to their U.S. holdings, and the buys we recommended in Wall Street Stock Forecaster, for overseas exposure. U.S. blue-chip stocks operate in many countries. And we felt that the domestic U.S. market offered opportunities that simply weren’t available in Canada. In the end, this advice paid off handsomely for our readers....

When you join my Inner Circle service, you get to ask me your own personal investment questions, plus you get to see what other Inner Circle members have asked, along with our answers. So you can see how the service works, and get a sense of how it might help your portfolio, I’d like to share just a couple of member questions about stock market trading strategy and stock ideas. I hope you enjoy and profit from them. Q: Dear Pat: My 79-year-old aunt has inherited $250,000 and has asked me to invest the money on her behalf. She is in good health, has pensions that cover her routine expenses, and two financially independent children who will inherit her estate. My thoughts are to invest half the money in about 10 high-quality stocks, as per your long-standing investment advice (essentially on behalf of her children), and leave the other half more liquid to cover contingencies, such as the possible need for in-home care....