commodity

GUGGENHEIM CHINA SMALL CAP ETF $22.04 (New York symbol HAO) aims to track the AlphaShares China Small Cap Index, which is made up of all Chinese stocks that are legal for foreign investors and have market caps between $200 million and $1.5 billion.

Chinese stocks have plunged since this summer. Chinese leader Xi Jinping seems focused on shoring up the Communist party and the Chinese stock market, rather than strengthening the Chinese economy.

Brazil has officially entered a recession with news that its economy shrank in the second quarter this year, at a faster rate than in the first. Brazil’s per-capita income has been falling since last year, and the Brazilian real has lost a quarter of its value in the year to date. State-controlled oil and gas giant Petrobras is also in the midst of a huge corruption scandal.

...

ISHARES MSCI AUSTRALIA ETF $18.19 (New York symbol EWA; buy or sell through brokers) is an ETF that holds the 71 largest Australian stocks.

The fund’s top holdings include Commonwealth Bank of Australia, 11.3%; Westpac Banking Corp., 8.6%; National Australia Bank, 7.2%; BHP Billiton, 7.2%; Australia and New Zealand Banking Group, 6.9%; Wesfarmers, 4.1%; and CSL Ltd., 3.9%.

The iShares MSCI Australia ETF was launched on March 12, 1996. It has a 0.48% expense ratio.

...

ATLANTIC TELE-NETWORK, $73.32, symbol ATNI on Nasdaq, is raising its quarterly dividend by 10.3% with the October 2015 payment, to $0.32 from $0.29. This is the company’s 17th consecutive annual dividend hike. The shares now yield 1.8%. Atlantic owns wireless and wireline (traditional telephone and Internet) operations in the U.S. Southwest, New England, New York State, Guyana, Bermuda and parts of the Caribbean islands. The company continues to expand its wireless capacity and coverage. That’s paying off as customers use more mobile data for services like music downloads, mobile gaming and e-books....

SHERRITT INTERNATIONAL $0.98 (Toronto symbol S; TSINetwork Rating: Speculative) (1-800-704-6698; www.sherritt.com; Shares outstanding: 293.9 million; Market cap: $285.1 million; Dividend yield: 4.1%) reported revenue of $99.6 million in the three months ended June 30, 2015, down 23.5% from $130.2 million a year earlier, mostly due to lower oil and gas prices. However, cash flow per share doubled, to $0.08 from $0.04, mostly because of lower interest and tax payments. Sherritt has also cut about 10% of its salaried workforce. The company needs an improving global economy to fuel commodity demand, but it’s well positioned to profit from a rebound....

What are mining stocks and how can you successfully invest in them?

FINNING INTERNATIONAL INC. $22 (Toronto symbol FTT; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Manufacturing& Industry sector; Shares outstanding:171.4 million; Market cap: $3.8 billion; Price-to-salesratio: 0.6; Dividend yield: 3.3%; TSINetwork Rating:Above Average; www.finning.com) started up in1933 and is now the world’s largest dealer of tractors, bulldozers and trucks made by Caterpillar Inc. (New York symbol CAT). It also sells heavy equipment made by other firms. Finning’s clients are mainly in the mining, forest products and construction industries. Western Canada (B.C., Alberta, Yukon, Northwest Territories and parts of Nunavut) supplied 53%of Finning’s revenue in 2014, followed by South America (Argentina, Chile, Uruguay and Bolivia),which contributed 32%, and the U.K. and Ireland(15%). Big growth in services...

ALIMENTATION COUCHE-TARD INC., $59.94, symbol ATD.B on Toronto, hit a new all-time high this week after reporting improved profits in the latest quarter. Couche-Tard operates 7,987 convenience stores throughout North America. The Canadian outlets operate under the Couche-Tard and Mac’s banners, while the U.S. stores mainly use the Circle K brand. In Europe, the company operates 2,229 stores across Scandinavia (Norway, Sweden and Denmark), Poland, the Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania) and Russia....

We think conservative investors could hold up to 10% of their portfolios in foreign stocks. One way to do that is to buy carefully chosen exchange traded funds (ETFs) that have an overseas focus. The best ETFs offer very low management fees and well-diversified, tax-efficient portfolios of highquality stocks. Here’s a look at five international ETFs:...

We have changed our recommendations on these four ETFs from buy to hold: ISHARES MSCI BRAZIL INDEX FUND $23.94 (New York symbol EWZ) is an ETF that’s designed to track the Brazilian stock market. ISHARES CHINA LARGE-CAP ETF $34.67 (New York symbol FXI) is an exchange traded fund that aims to track the Financial Times Stock Exchange (FTSE) China 50 Index, which is made up of the 50 largest, most liquid Chinese stocks....

SHERRITT INTERNATIONAL $0.98 (Toronto symbol S; TSINetwork Rating: Speculative) (1-800-704-6698; www.sherritt.com; Shares outstanding: 293.9 million; Market cap: $285.1 million; Dividend yield: 4.1%) reported revenue of $99.6 million in the three months ended June 30, 2015, down 23.5% from $130.2 million a year earlier, mostly due to lower oil and gas prices.

However, cash flow per share doubled, to $0.08 from $0.04, mostly because of lower interest and tax payments. Sherritt has also cut about 10% of its salaried workforce.

The company needs an improving global economy to fuel commodity demand, but it’s well positioned to profit from a rebound.

...