general electric

SPDR S&P 500 ETF $202.31 (New York symbol SPY; buy or sell through brokers; www.spdrs.com) holds the stocks in the S&P 500 Index, which consists of 500 major U.S. companies that are chosen based on their market cap, liquidity and industry group.

The index’s highest-weighted stocks are Apple, ExxonMobil, Microsoft, Procter & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson, J.P. Morgan Chase, Chevron, General Electric, Berkshire Hathaway, and Wells Fargo & Co. The fund’s expenses are just 0.10% of its assets.

If you want exposure to the S&P 500 Index, the SPDR S&P 500 ETF is a buy.

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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....

Every Thursday we bring you one of our best U.S. stock picks. You get our specific recommendation on the stocks we profile, with a full explanation of how we arrived at our opinion. You will read about stocks making moves you should know about, most often from coverage in our newsletter on U.S. investing, Wall Street Stock Forecaster.

GENERAL ELECTRIC CO. (New York symbol GE; www.ge.com) recently agreed to form a major new alliance with France’s Alstom SA, a leading maker of electrical-transmission equipment and parts for power plants.

Under the deal, GE will form three 50/50 joint ventures with Alstom. One will combine the companies’ electrical grid operations, while a second will focus on products for renewable energy projects, like offshore wind farms. The third will hold Alstom’s nuclear-equipment division.

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General Electric and ABB Ltd. (see box) are refocusing on their industrial operations. That positions them to profit as both developed and emerging nations upgrade their power grids. GENERAL ELECTRIC CO. $24 (New York symbol GE; Conservative Growth and Income Portfolios, Manufacturing & Industry sector; Shares outstanding: 10.0 billion; Market cap: $240.0 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 1.7; Dividend yield: 3.8%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.ge.com) recently agreed to form a major new alliance with France’s Alstom SA, a leading maker of electrical-transmission equipment and parts for power plants. Under the deal, GE will form three 50/50 joint ventures with Alstom. One will combine the companies’ electrical grid operations, while a second will focus on products for renewable energy projects, like offshore wind farms. The third will hold Alstom’s nuclear-equipment division....

GENERAL ELECTRIC CO. $24 (New York symbol GE; Conservative Growth and Income Portfolios, Manufacturing & Industry sector; Shares outstanding: 10.0 billion; Market cap: $240.0 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 1.7; Dividend yield: 3.8%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.ge.com) recently agreed to form a major new alliance with France’s Alstom SA, a leading maker of electrical-transmission equipment and parts for power plants.

Under the deal, GE will form three 50/50 joint ventures with Alstom. One will combine the companies’ electrical grid operations, while a second will focus on products for renewable energy projects, like offshore wind farms. The third will hold Alstom’s nuclear-equipment division.

In all, GE will pay $10 billion when the Alstom deal closes in 2015. The new operations it brings should add about $0.07 a share to GE’s annual earnings, starting in 2016.

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The ALPS Sector Dividend Dogs ETF, $38.79, symbol SDOG on New York (Units outstanding: 24.3 million; Market cap: $942.6 million; www.alpssectordividenddogs.com), is an ETF that applies the “Dogs of the Dow” theory on a sector-by-sector basis using the stocks in the S&P 500. The fund’s MER is 0.40%. The Dogs of the Dow approach involves buying the lowest-priced, highest-yielding stocks in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. At the end of each year, you pick the 10 stocks from the 30-stock Dow with the highest dividend yields. You then invest an equal dollar amount in each, hold them for one year and repeat these steps annually. The ALPS Sector Dividend Dogs ETF picks five stocks from each of the 10 sectors as defined by the S&P 500 index—consumer discretionary, consumer staples, energy, financials, health care, industrials, information technology, materials, telecommunication services and utilities. The ETF picks the stocks with the highest dividend yields. Each holding is then equally weighted so that every company has a similar influence on the ETF’s total return. The end result is a portfolio of 50 large cap stocks....

SPDR S&P 500 ETF $194.35 (New York symbol SPY; buy or sell through brokers; www.spdrs.com) holds the stocks in the S&P 500 Index, which consists of 500 major U.S. companies that are chosen based on their market cap, liquidity and industry group.

The index’s highest-weighted stocks are Apple, ExxonMobil, Microsoft, Procter & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson, J.P. Morgan Chase, Chevron, General Electric, Berkshire Hathaway, Wells Fargo, IBM, Pfizer, Verizon and AT&T. The fund’s expenses are just 0.10% of its assets.

If you want exposure to the S&P 500 Index, the SPDR S&P 500 ETF is a buy.

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Mutual funds are okay to hold if you own them, but we have moved away from recommending them in favour of lower-fee exchange traded funds (ETFs). We feel most fund investors should shift into ETFs wherever possible. (That why we’ve shifted our focus to ETFs in Canadian Wealth Advisor.) The Vanguard FTSE All-World ex-Canada Index ETF, $24.53, symbol VXC on Toronto (Units outstanding: 670,000; Market cap: $16.4 million; www.vanguardcanada.ca), aims to track the FTSE All-World ex-Canada Index, which is a broad global equity index that focuses on large- and mid-capitalization stocks in emerging and developed markets, excluding Canada. To do this, the ETF mainly invests in units of the U.S.-based Vanguard Large-Cap ETF, as well as the Vanguard FTSE Europe ETF, Vanguard FTSE Pacific ETF and Vanguard FTSE Emerging Markets ETF....

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....

APPLE INC., $101.66, Nasdaq symbol AAPL, unveiled several upgrades to its hugely popular iPhone smartphone this week. The new model comes in two screen sizes, 4.7 inches (called the iPhone 6) and 5.5 inches (iPhone 6 Plus), both of which are larger than the current 4.0-inch iPhone 5. The bigger screens should help Apple compete with cheaper smartphones powered by Google’s Android software, particularly in emerging markets. The iPhone 6 also includes the company’s new wireless payment system, called Apple Pay. With this service, users add their credit card information to their phones. They can then use them to pay for goods at any tap-and-pay-enabled cash register and for some online purchases. To prevent fraudulent transactions, the phone will scan the user’s fingerprint to confirm their identity....