acquisition

Rising interest rates have dampened investor enthusiasm for high-yielding utility stocks. That’s because higher rates add to a utility’s interest costs and, at the same time, they increase the appeal of competing bonds by spurring their yields.


However, these four utilities get most of their revenue from rate-regulated businesses....

Rising interest rates are generally good news for banks, as higher rates increase the income from new and renewing loans. On the other hand, higher rates also increase the risk that borrowers will fall behind in their loan payments.


We feel that Bank of Montreal will ultimately benefit from higher rates, as more-stringent lending standards since the 2008 financial crisis greatly reduce the risk of big loan losses....

As we’ve often said, we think spinoffs are about as close as you can get to a sure thing in investing. Statistics show that after a company sets up one (or more) of its businesses as a separate publicly traded entity and “spins it off,” the shares of both the parent and the spinoff generally do better than comparable companies for a number of years, if not decades.

We were so impressed by the proven long-term benefit of spinoff investing that we launched an investment advisory around it—our Spinoffs & Takeovers newsletter.

Of course, this “spinoff effect” can take months or years to show itself....

BCE INC., $61.75, Toronto symbol BCE, is your #1 Income Buy for 2022.

The company is Canada’s largest traditional telephone service provider: it has 2.16 million residential customers in Ontario, Quebec, Manitoba and the Atlantic provinces. BCE also has 4.07 million high-speed Internet users and 2.74 million TV subscribers (satellite and fibre-optic)....

PFIZER INC., $47.17, New York symbol PFE, is your #1 Income Buy for 2022.

The company is one of the world’s largest makers of prescription drugs. Its top-selling brands include Enbrel (arthritis), Ibrance (breast cancer) and Prevnar (pneumonia).

Pfizer has increased its dividend rate each year since 2011....

FORTUNE BRANDS HOME & SECURITY INC., $57.46, symbol FBHS on New York, is an Illinois-based maker of home products. It currently operates three businesses: Water Innovations (31% of sales), Outdoors & Security (27%), and Cabinets (42%).

Deerfield, Illinois-based Fortune Brands Home & Security was spun-off from Fortune Brands Inc....

SUNCOR ENERGY INC., $48.70, Toronto symbol SU, remains a buy.

The company is Canada’s largest integrated oil firm, with major projects in the Alberta oil sands. Suncor also operates four refineries (three in Canada and one in Colorado), along with 1,875 Petro-Canada gas stations.

With the June 2022 payment, Suncor increased your quarterly dividend by 11.9%....

CENOVUS ENERGY, $28.17, is a buy for long-term gains. The company (Toronto symbol CVE; Shares outstanding: 1.9 billion; Market cap: $53.2 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Extra Risk; Dividend yield: 1.5%; www.cenovus.com) is now one of Canada’s top-tier producer of oil and natural gas following its all-stock acquisition of rival oil producer Husky Energy Inc....

A: B2Gold Corp., $4.33, symbol BTO on Toronto (Shares outstanding: 1.1 billion; Market cap: $4.4 billion; www.b2gold.com), owns three mines: the Otjikoto mine in Namibia; the Masbate mine in the Philippines; and the Feloka mine in Mali.

The company also has 50% interest in the Gramalote project in Colombia and an 81% interest in the Kiaka project in Burkina Faso....

A: Cryoport Inc., $27.60, symbol CYRX on Nasdaq (Shares outstanding: 48.5 million; Market cap: $1.4 billion; www.cryoport.com), is a provider of temperature-controlled supply chain solutions for the biopharmaceutical, IVF and surrogacy, and animal-health markets worldwide....