dividends paid
FAIR ISAAC CORP. $96 (New York symbol FICO; Aggressive Growth Portfolio, Manufacturing & Industry sector; Shares outstanding: 31.4 million; Market cap: $3.0 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 3.5; Dividend yield: 0.1%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.fico.com) is best known for its FICO Scores computer program, which helps lenders make better decisions about customer creditworthiness. It also makes software that helps credit card issuers control fraud and analyze cardholders’spending patterns. The company is now applying its banking expertise to other areas of cybersecurity. It recently won a patent for a system that monitors corporate networks for suspicious activity or online attacks. It received another patent for a similar program that helps power, gas and water utilities detect unusual consumption patterns. However, the stock trades at a high 29.4 times the $3.26 a share that Fair Isaac will probably earn in its 2016 fiscal year, which ends September 30, 2016....
CHIPOTLE MEXICAN GRILL $514.01 (New York symbol CMG; TSINetwork Rating: Speculative) (303-595-4000; www.chipotle.com; Shares outstanding: 31.2 million; Market cap: $14.8 billion; No dividends paid) has implemented a number of measures to address food-safety concerns after E. coli sickened 52 customers late last year at its restaurants in nine states. The measures include: changes to food preparation and handling practices such as shredding cheese before it gets to its stores, blanching some produce in boiling water before serving and new rules for marinating chicken and steak. Chipotle will also implement regular training on safety standards for all workers. As well, it now offers paid sick leave to keep workers at home when they are ill....
MITEL NETWORKS $9.69 (Toronto symbol MNW; TSINetwork Rating: Extra Risk) (613-592-2122; www.mitel.ca; Shares outstanding: 120.8 million; Market cap: $1.2 billion; No dividends paid) moved up recently after it announced that it now expects to report earnings per share of $0.27 to $0.28 in the fourth quarter of 2015, on revenue of $330 million to $335 million. The company previously forecast fourth-quarter earnings to a range of $0.22 to $0.27 per share on revenue of $315 million to $340 million. Mitel is increasingly moving from selling programs that are installed at its customers’ offices to a cloud model, where it keeps its software on its own servers and sells it by subscription. That provides steadier recurring revenue. The company added 152,000 cloud subscriptions in the 2015 third quarter and now has 1.76 million cloud users, up 69.7% from 1.04 million a year earlier....
CHIPOTLE MEXICAN GRILL $514.01 (New York symbol CMG; TSINetwork Rating: Speculative) (303-595-4000; www.chipotle.com; Shares outstanding: 31.2 million; Market cap: $14.8 billion; No dividends paid) has implemented a number of measures to address food-safety concerns after E. coli sickened 52 customers late last year at its restaurants in nine states. The measures include: changes to food preparation and handling practices such as shredding cheese before it gets to its stores, blanching some produce in boiling water before serving and new rules for marinating chicken and steak. Chipotle will also implement regular training on safety standards for all workers. As well, it now offers paid sick leave to keep workers at home when they are ill....
STANTEC INC. $32.04 (Toronto symbol STN; TSINetwork Rating: Extra Risk) (780-917-7288; www.stantec.com; Shares outstanding: 94.4 million; Market cap: $3.0 billion; Dividend yield: 1.3%) continues to grow by acquisition. Its latest is VOA Associates, a 280-person architecture and planning firm based in Chicago. VOA’s recent Chicago projects include the 32-story Wabash “vertical campus” Building at Roosevelt University and waterfront reconstruction of the landmark Navy Pier. Stantec cuts its costs by sharing administrative expenses, financing and employee benefits among its divisions. But continually buying new firms adds risk, including the risk of writedowns....
CGI GROUP INC. $57 (Toronto symbol GIB.A; Aggressive Growth Portfolio, Manufacturing & Industry sector; Shares outstanding: 313.4 million; Market cap: $17.9 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 1.7; No dividends paid; TSINetwork Rating: Extra Risk; www.cgi.com) is one of eight firms the U.S. Navy has chosen to help it upgrade its computer systems. CGI hasn’t yet said how much it would receive under its initial one-year contract. However, the Navy has set aside a total of $809.5 million U.S. for this project, which it expects to complete in 2020. The company’s strong reputation should continue to help it win more contracts from military clients. Moreover, CGI’s $21.5-billion backlog of contracts (at December 31, 2015) is equal to 2.1 times its annual revenue....
CGI GROUP INC. $57 (Toronto symbol GIB.A; Aggressive Growth Portfolio, Manufacturing & Industry sector; Shares outstanding: 313.4 million; Market cap: $17.9 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 1.7; No dividends paid; TSINetwork Rating: Extra Risk; www.cgi.com) is one of eight firms the U.S. Navy has chosen to help it upgrade its computer systems. CGI hasn’t yet said how much it would receive under its initial one-year contract. However, the Navy has set aside a total of $809.5 million U.S. for this project, which it expects to complete in 2020. The company’s strong reputation should continue to help it win more contracts from military clients. Moreover, CGI’s $21.5-billion backlog of contracts (at December 31, 2015) is equal to 2.1 times its annual revenue....
NISSAN MOTOR CO. ADR $19.90 (Nasdaq symbol NSANY; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average) (310-771-3111; www.nissanmotors.com; Shares outstanding: 2.3 billion; Market cap: $45.8 billion; No dividends paid) reported that its earnings rose 3.2% in the three months ended December 31, 2011, to 82.7 billion yen ($1.07 billion U.S.) from 80.1 billion yen ($1.04 billion U.S.) a year earlier.
That’s a particularly strong performance in light of the fact that flooding in Thailand cut Nissan’s production by 33,000 vehicles in the quarter. The strong yen also hurt the company’s profits from overseas sales. Even so, the latest earnings beat the consensus estimate of 71.7 billion yen.
Nissan’s sales are rising in all of its markets outside Japan, including Europe and the U.S., as well as China and emerging markets like India, Russia and Brazil. Overall, the car-maker sold 1.2 million vehicles during the quarter, up 19.5% from a year earlier.
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That’s a particularly strong performance in light of the fact that flooding in Thailand cut Nissan’s production by 33,000 vehicles in the quarter. The strong yen also hurt the company’s profits from overseas sales. Even so, the latest earnings beat the consensus estimate of 71.7 billion yen.
Nissan’s sales are rising in all of its markets outside Japan, including Europe and the U.S., as well as China and emerging markets like India, Russia and Brazil. Overall, the car-maker sold 1.2 million vehicles during the quarter, up 19.5% from a year earlier.
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The lower Canadian dollar has made it more expensive to buy U.S. stocks. However, the American market gives you access to the world’s leading companies. What’s more, U.S. dollar investments give you foreign currency diversification. We feel it’s more important than ever to build a varied portfolio of high-quality stocks. For 2016, we’ve chosen one from each of our portfolios (Aggressive, Conservative and Income). We think all three could post strong gains in the next two to five years. ALPHABET INC. (Nasdaq symbols GOOG $700 [class C: nonvoting] and GOOGL $718 [class A: one vote per share]; Aggressive Growth Portfolio, Manufacturing & Industry sector; Shares outstanding: 687.7 million; Market cap: $493.5 billion; Priceto- sales ratio: 7.0; No dividends paid; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.abc.xyz) is the new parent company of Google’s Internet search business (still called Google) and other operations. Each of these subsidiaries functions independently....
ADOBE SYSTEMS INC. $85 (Nasdaq symbol ADBE; Aggressive Growth Portfolio, Manufacturing & Industry sector; Shares outstanding: 498.3 million; Market cap: $42.4 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 9.0; No dividends paid since June 2005; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.adobe.com) makes software for publishing companies and website developers. Its main products include Adobe Acrobat, which lets users create and edit electronic documents in the widely used PDF format, and its Creative Suite package of photo editing and desktop publishing programs. In 2012, Adobe started selling its Creative Suite software as a cloud-based service called Creative Cloud. The company now gets 74% of its revenue from recurring sources....