commodity

Wells Fargo and J.P. Morgan passed the Federal Reserve’s latest “stress test,” which measures how well financial firms would cope with a sharp jump in unemployment, falling stock prices and other unfavourable conditions. Here is our analysis of the two banks, both of which we cover regularly in our advisory on U.S. stocks, Wall Street Stock Forecaster....

TOROMONT INDUSTRIES LTD (Toronto symbol TIH; www.toromont.com) distributes a broad range of industrial equipment, including machinery made by Caterpillar Inc. It also makes refrigeration systems through its CIMCO division. The company completed the spinoff of Enerflex Ltd. (see below) in July 2011. Shareholders received shares of both the new Toromont Industries and Enerflex....

Wells Fargo and J.P. Morgan passed the Federal
Reserve’s latest “stress test,”which measures how well
financial firms would cope with a sharp jump in unemployment,
falling stock prices and other unfavourable
conditions. That gives both banks more room to raise
their dividends and buy back shares....

DUNDEE CORP. $17 (Toronto symbol DC.A; Aggressive Growth Portfolio, Finance sector; Shares outstanding: 54.1 million; Market cap: $919.7 million; Price-to-sales ratio: 2.4; No dividends paid; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.dundeecorp.com) owns businesses in the wealth management, real estate, natural resource and agriculture industries.

The company lost $92.6 million, or $1.88 a share, in 2013. That’s a big drop from the $25.2 million, or $0.29 a share, it earned in 2012. Revenue fell 6.3%, to $200.7 million from $214.2 million.

The declines are mainly because weak commodity prices hurt the contribution of Dundee’s resource holdings. As well, fewer firms issued shares in 2013, which hurt profits at its Dundee Securities brokerage firm. The company is also spending more to expand its agriculture businesses, which further depressed results.
...

J.P. MORGAN CHASE & CO.
$56 (New York symbol JPM;
Income Portfolio, Finance sector;
Shares outstanding: 3.8 billion;
Market cap: $212.8 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 2.2;
...

Pat McKeough responds to many requests from members of his Inner Circle for specific advice on stocks as well as questions on investment strategy and the economy. Every week, his comments and recommendations on the most intriguing questions of the past week go out to all Inner Circle members. And each week, we offer you one of the highlights from these Q&A sessions. While we reserve our buy-hold-sell advice for Inner Circle members, these excerpts provide a great deal of information and analysis on stocks we’ve covered for members of Pat’s Inner Circle. This week an Inner Circle member asked us about one of the Canadian commodity stocks operating in a risky part of the world (a week ago, Pat reported on a Canadian mining stock whose big property is in Eritrea: see the article here.) Allana Potash is developing a project in neighbouring Ethiopia. While the property holds mineable potash, a mine is still in the planning stages. Pat examines Allana’s progress toward building that mine, including a major strategic alliance it has formed, and assesses the company’s prospects for success. ...

DUNDEE CORP. $17 (Toronto symbol DC.A; Aggressive Growth Portfolio, Finance sector; Shares outstanding: 54.1 million; Market cap: $919.7 million; Price-to-sales ratio: 2.4; No dividends paid; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.dundeecorp.com) owns businesses in the wealth management, real estate, natural resource and agriculture industries.

The company lost $92.6 million, or $1.88 a share, in 2013....

SYMANTEC CORP., $18.20, Nasdaq symbol SYMC, fell 13% on Friday after it fired Steve Bennett, its president and CEO. The company said the decision resulted from an ongoing review and wasn’t in response to any single event. Symantec has appointed board member Michael Brown as its interim CEO. The company sells computer-security technology, including anti-virus and email-filtering software, to businesses and consumers. Symantec is in the midst of a major restructuring that mainly involves cutting jobs and streamlining its product lines and marketing operations. The plan should help the company expand its profit margin (operating income divided by revenue) to over 30.0% by 2017; in the current quarter, which ends March 31, 2014, Symantec expects its profit margin to range from 24.5% to 26.0%....

SHERRITT INTERNATIONAL $3.64 (Toronto symbol S; TSINetwork Rating: Speculative) (1-800-704-6698; www.sherritt.com; Shares outstanding: 297.3 million; Market cap: $1.1 billion; Yield: 1.1%) has cut its dividend to $0.01 a share from $0.043. It now yields 1.1%.

In the quarter ended December 31, 2013, Sherritt’s revenue fell 16.7%, to $108.6 million from $130.3 million a year earlier....

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 that will help you develop a successful approach to investing. Each Investor Toolkit update gives you a fundamental tip and shows you how you can put it into practice right away. Today’s tip: “While many numbers and statistics frequently prove to be of limited value in judging stocks, there is one that is often undervalued: market cap.”...