diversification

PLEASE NOTE: This is our last Hotline for 2015. Our next Hotline will go out on Friday, January 8, 2016. ATLANTIC TELE-NETWORK, $76.27, symbol ATNI on Nasdaq, 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 increase 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....

iShares Core S&P 500 Hedged ETF aims to cut currency risk by hedging against movements of the U.S. dollar vs. the Canadian dollar. Our view.

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....

We recommend that investors diversify up to 30% of their portfolios into U.S. stocks and as much as 10% into international securities. One attractive way for safety-conscious investors to do this is with exchange-traded funds (ETFs). Today we look at several ETFs from a U.S. firm that offer a low-fee way to achieve this diversification. We profile two Vanguard ETFs that track a U.S. large-cap index and an emerging market index.

Pennsylvania-based Vanguard Group is one of the world’s largest investment management companies. In all, it administers almost $3 trillion U.S. in 170 mutual funds.

Vanguard, which went into business in 1975, offers low-fee index mutual funds. Generally speaking, Canadians can’t buy units of mutual funds that are registered in the U.S., because they aren’t registered with provincial securities commissions. For that matter, some Canadian funds aren’t available in all provinces.

...

The need for perspective comes up virtually every day in the life of a successful investor. That’s because your daily experience helps to mould your view of the world. It gives you an idea, right or wrong, about how current events will affect your investments. When you lack perspective, it’s easy to jump to mistaken conclusions and make costly investing errors. This came to mind on Friday, when the Dow slumped more than 200 points. The drop was at least partly a response to the Paris terrorist attacks. Some investors undoubtedly sold stocks in panic, out of fear that similar attacks would break out throughout the west....

Top regional airline Chorus Aviation is a rising growth stock, but its affiliation with Air Canada may prove to bring as much risk as reward.

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%....

Takeovers have helped Canadian beverage maker Cott Corp gain momentum as a growth stock, but the company also faces a number of risks.

Adding high-quality resource stocks to your portfolio can provide you with a valuable hedge against inflation and provide other hidden benefits

There are two fundamental things you should know about making growth stock picks.