cp rail

CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILWAY LTD., $240.18, Toronto symbol CP, gained 3% this week after reporting record first-quarter revenue and earnings. The company earned $375 million in the three months ended March 31, 2015, up 49.4% from $251 million a year earlier. Per-share earnings jumped 59.2%, to $2.26 from $1.42, on fewer shares outstanding. These results exclude unusual items, such as a foreign-exchange loss on CP’s U.S. dollar-denominated debt and severance costs stemming from a recent restructuring. On that basis, the latest earnings beat the consensus estimate of $2.19. Revenue rose 10.3%, to $1.67 billion from $1.51 billion, matching the consensus forecast....

p>CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILWAY LTD. $232 (Toronto symbol CP; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Manufacturing & Industry sector; Shares outstanding: 164.2 million; Market cap: $38.1 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 7.1; Dividend yield: 0.6%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.cpr.ca) transports freight over a 22,000-kilometre rail network between Montreal and Vancouver, as well as hubs in the U.S. Midwest and Northeast. The U.S. supplies 40% of its revenue. CP’s shares have soared 236.2% since we made it our Stock of the Year for 2012, when it was trading at $69. That’s mainly due to a major restructuring that has improved its efficiency with new locomotives, better tracks and software that optimizes train loads and speeds.

Speedier service boosted results

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ISHARES S&P/TSX 60 INDEX ETF $21.90 (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, 7.8%; TD Bank, 7.1%; Valeant Pharmaceuticals, 5.6%; Bank of Nova Scotia, 5.4%; CN Railway, 4.8%; Suncor Energy, 3.6%; Enbridge, 3.6%; Bank of Montreal, 3.5%; BCE, 3.2%; Manulife Financial, 3.1%; Canadian Natural Resources, 2.9%; Trans- Canada Corp., 2.8%; Brookfield Asset Management, 2.7%; CIBC, 2.6%; and CP Rail, 2.5%.

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CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILWAY LTD. $232 (Toronto symbol CP; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Manufacturing & Industry sector; Shares outstanding: 164.2 million; Market cap: $38.1 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 7.1; Dividend yield: 0.6%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.cpr.ca) transports freight over a 22,000-kilometre rail network between Montreal and Vancouver, as well as hubs in the U.S. Midwest and Northeast. The U.S. supplies 40% of its revenue. CP’s shares have soared 236.2% since we made it our Stock of the Year for 2012, when it was trading at $69. That’s mainly due to a major restructuring that has improved its efficiency with new locomotives, better tracks and software that optimizes train loads and speeds. Speedier service boosted results...

Exchange traded funds (ETFs) are set up to mirror the performance of a stock market index or sub-index. 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....

Building on the strong performance of its shopping mall empire, RioCan REIT unlocks more property value in a deal with Hudson’s Bay.

Every Monday we feature “A Stock to Sell” as our daily post. With every stock or investment we recommend as a sell, we give you a full explanation of why we advise against investing in it at this time. In today’s article we have two sells, both from an industry which has a great deal of promise for the future, but hurdles to overcome in the present.

3D Systems Corp. (symbol DDD on New York; www.3dsystems.com), makes and services 3-D printers and provides print materials.

The company’s sales rose 23.0% in the three months ended September 30, 2014, to $166.9 million from $135.7 million a year earlier, though its earnings per share fell 30.7%, to $0.18 from $0.26, on higher research and marketing spending.

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Every Wednesday, we publish our “Investor Toolkit” series on TSI Network. Whether you’re a beginning or experienced investor, these weekly updates are designed to give you specific investment tips and stock market advice. Each Investor Toolkit update gives you a fundamental piece of investment advice, and shows you how you can put it into practice right away.

Today’s tip: “Investor shorthand can provide a useful guide to investment information, but it can also oversimplify analysis and events and steer investors into bad decisions.”

Investor shorthand can help you think about and talk about large blocks of investment information. But it may also lead you to make associations and come to conclusions that can cost you money.

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Prompted by an increase in smartphone contracts and success with Fibe TV and Crave TV, BCE Inc. hikes its dividend by 5.3%.

Transcontinental’s ability to keep the right assets in the fast-changing publishing industry makes it one of our top stocks to buy.