BCE Inc.

BCE INC. $57 (Toronto symbol BCE; Conservative Growth and Income Portfolios, Utilities sector; Shares outstanding: 849.4 million; Market cap: $48.4 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 2.3; Dividend yield: 4.6%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.bce.ca) continues to benefit from strong demand for its wireless and high-speed Fibe Internet and TV services. In the quarter ended September 30, 2015, BCE’s earnings rose 21.9%, to $790 million from $648 million a year earlier. Per-share profits gained just 12.0%, to $0.93 from $0.83, on more shares outstanding. Revenue rose 2.9%, to $5.3 billion from $5.2 billion. The company added 77,655 new wireless subscribers under long-term contracts, net of cancellations, beating the consensus forecast of 77,400. Most of these customers use smartphones, which generate higher monthly fees than regular cellphones....

Purpose Core Dividend Fund ETF, $24.97, symbol PDF on Toronto (Units outstanding: 8.2 million; Market cap: $204.8 million; www.purposeinvest.com), holds U.S. and Canadian stocks its managers see as being able to sustain and grow their dividends. The ETF yields 3.3%. The fund holds mostly high-quality companies. Its holdings include Rogers Communications, Peyto Exploration, CIBC, SNC-Lavalin, BCE, Altria Group, Bank of Montreal, General Motors and Philip Morris. The Purpose Core Dividend Fund ETF holds 61.0% of its funds in Canadian stocks, 36.6% in U.S. stocks and 2.4% in cash. Its breakdown by industry is as follows: Financials, 14.9%; Utilities, 14.7%; Energy, 14.5%; Real Estate, 14.4%; Consumer Discretionary, 12.3%; Telecom Services, 10.0%, Industrials, 7.5%; Consumer Staples, 5.2%; and Materials, 4.2%....

ISHARES S&P/TSX 60 INDEX ETF $20.99 (Toronto symbol XIU; buy or sell through brokers; 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.

The index mostly consists of high-quality companies. However, it must ensure that all sectors are represented, so it holds a few we wouldn’t include.

The index’s top holdings are Royal Bank, 8.3%; TD Bank, 7.3%; Bank of Nova Scotia, 5.7%; CN Railway, 4.7%; Suncor Energy, 3.9%; Bank of Montreal, 3.8%; Valeant Pharmaceuiticals, 3.8%; Enbridge, 3.7%; BCE, 3.2%; Manulife Financial, 2.9%; TransCanada Corp., 2.9%; CIBC, 2.9%; Canadian Natural Resources, 2.8%; CP Rail, 2.5%; and Potash Corp., 2.5%.

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ISHARES CANADIAN SELECT DIVIDEND INDEX ETF $22.48 (Toronto symbol XDV; buy or sell through brokers; ca.ishares.com) holds 30 of the highestyielding Canadian stocks. Its selections are based on dividend growth, yield and payout ratio. The weight of any one stock is limited to 10% of the ETF’s assets. The fund’s MER is 0.55%, and it yields 4.3%.

The fund’s top holdings are CIBC, 9.7%; Bank of Montreal, 6.8%; Royal Bank, 6.5%; BCE, 5.8%; Bank of Nova Scotia, 5.5%; Laurentian Bank of Canada, 5.0%; Rogers Communications, 4.5%; Manitoba Telecom, 4.4%; TD Bank, 4.4%; National Bank, 4.1%; IGM Financial, 4.0%; and Emera Inc., 3.8%.

The ETF holds 53.7% of its assets in financial stocks. The top Canadian finance stocks have sound prospects, but 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.

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ISHARES S&P/TSX 60 INDEX ETF $20.47 (Toronto symbol XIU; buy or sell through brokers; 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 0.18% of assets, and the units yield 3.1%.

The index mostly consists of high-quality companies. However, it must ensure that all sectors are represented, so it holds a few we wouldn’t include.

The index’s top holdings are Royal Bank, 8.3%; TD Bank, 7.7%; Valeant Pharmaceuticals, 6.0%; Bank of Nova Scotia, 5.6%; CN Railway, 4.7%; Suncor Energy, 4.0%; Bank of Montreal, 3.7%; BCE, 3.6%; Enbridge, 3.3%; Manulife Financial, 3.2%; CIBC, 3.0%; Brookfield Asset Management, 2.8%; and TransCanada Corp., 2.4%.

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Exchange traded funds (ETFs) are set up to mirror the performance of a stock market index or subindex. They hold a more or less fixed selection of securities that represent the holdings that go into the calculation of the index or sub-index. ETFs trade on stock exchanges, just like stocks. That’s different from mutual funds, which you can only buy at the end of the day at a price that reflects the fund’s value at the close of trading. Prices of ETFs are quoted in newspaper stock tables and online. You pay brokerage commissions to buy and sell them, but their low management fees give them a cost advantage over most mutual funds....

ENCANA $11.04 (Toronto symbol ECA; Shares outstanding: 842.5 million; Market cap: $8.9 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Average; Dividend yield: 3.3%; www.encana.com) continues to increase production at its four main properties: Montney (B.C.), Duvernay (Alberta) and Eagle Ford and Permian (both in Texas). These fields produce large amounts of oil and natural gas liquids, such as propane and butane, making Encana less reliant on natural gas. In August 2015, these four properties produced an average of 257,000 barrels of oil equivalent a day (including gas), up 15.2% from 223,000 barrels in the second quarter of 2015. Encana expects these fields’ output to rise to 270,000 barrels a day in the fourth quarter of 2015....

BMO S&P/TSX Laddered Preferred Share Index ETF holds floating-rate preferred shares that fluctuate with changes in interest rates. Our view.

BCE INC. $54 (www.bce.ca) recently started offering tri-band LTE advanced (LTE-A) service, which is 1.9 times faster than its main LTE network, in Halifax, Hamilton, Oakville and Toronto. Faster wireless service should prompt more of its subscribers to upgrade to smartphones, which generate higher profits than regular cellphones....

BCE INC. $52.87 (Toronto symbol BCE; Shares outstanding: 848.1 million; Market cap: $44.1 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; Dividend yield: 5.0%; www.bce.ca) has sold its 15% stake in the Globe and Mail newspaper to Woodbridge Co., the private firm controlled by the Thomson family. Woodbridge now owns 100% of the Globe.

The company didn’t say how much it received, but the sale will let it focus on its main media businesses, including CTV Television, specialty channels, radio stations and their related websites.

In the second quarter of 2015, the media division’s earnings rose 2.4% from a year earlier and accounted for 9.8% of BCE’s total.

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