general electric

HARBOUR FUND $21.66 (CWA Rating: Conservative)(C.I. Mutual Funds, 151 Yonge St., 7th Floor, Toronto, ON M5C 2W7. 1-800-268-9374; Web site: www.cifunds.com. Load fund — available from brokers) invests in only 25 to 40 high-quality mostly Canadian stocks, and it may hold stocks for four or five years to realize their value. The $5.2 billion Harbour Fund’s top holdings include Royal Bank, CN Railway, Goldcorp Inc., Suncor Energy, Bank of Nova Scotia, General Electric, EnCana Corp., Petro-Canada, Rio Tinto, TD Bank and BHP Billiton. The Harbour Fund gained 5.5% over the last year. Its MER is 2.33%....

GENERAL ELECTRIC CO. $37 (New York symbol GE; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Manufacturing & Industry sector; Shares outstanding: 10.0 billion; Market cap: $370.0 billion; WSSF Rating: Above average) is one of the world’s largest industrial corporations. GE’s products include major appliances; lighting products; medical imaging equipment; power generation and delivery products; and aircraft jet engines. It also owns 80% of media company NBC Universal, which operates the NBC television network, Universal Studios and several cable and Internet properties. GE sells a wide range of environmentally friendly consumer products, including low-wattage light bulbs and energy-efficient appliances. It also supplies wind turbines and solar panels to electrical utilities. As well, its expertise with nuclear power plants should help it profit from the construction of new plants around the world. Nuclear plants generate fewer emissions than gas and coalfired plants. GE earned $2.17 a share (total $22.5 billion) in 2007, up 8.5% from $2.00 ($19.4 billion) in 2006. Revenue rose 13.8%, to $172.7 billion from $151.8 billion. Research and development spending was 2.4% of revenues. Long-term debt of $319.0 billion is a high 86% of its market cap, but won’t likely hinder GE’s ability to expand research or make acquisitions of companies with environmental technologies....

Growing interest in the environment continues to prompt changes in consumer spending habits. Here are five companies with the technology and size to profit from this trend. GENERAL ELECTRIC CO. $37 (New York symbol GE; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Manufacturing & Industry sector; Shares outstanding: 10.0 billion; Market cap: $370.0 billion; WSSF Rating: Above average) is one of the world’s largest industrial corporations. GE’s products include major appliances; lighting products; medical imaging equipment; power generation and delivery products; and aircraft jet engines. It also owns 80% of media company NBC Universal, which operates the NBC television network, Universal Studios and several cable and Internet properties. GE sells a wide range of environmentally friendly consumer products, including low-wattage light bulbs and energy-efficient appliances. It also supplies wind turbines and solar panels to electrical utilities. As well, its expertise with nuclear power plants should help it profit from the construction of new plants around the world. Nuclear plants generate fewer emissions than gas and coalfired plants....

IDEARC INC. $3.86, New York symbol IAR, fell 15% on Friday after the company said it will stop paying its $0.3425 a share quarterly dividend. Idearc does not expect any near-term liquidity problems. However, it wishes to conserve cash as the slowing economy has hurt demand for advertising at its Yellow Pages phone directories, which supplies 90% of its revenue. Idearc is now a hold. J.C. PENNEY CO. INC. $37.48, New York symbol JCP, fell 7% on Friday after it said it would earn about $0.50 a share in its first fiscal quarter ending April 30, 2008. That’s about a third less than its previous estimate of up to $0.80 a share. Higher gasoline, food and other costs have hurt customer traffic and sales....

TRIMARK U.S. COMPANIES FUND $4.85 (CWA Rating: Conservative) (AIM Funds Management, 5140 Yonge Street, Suite 900, Toronto, Ontario M2N 6X7. 1-800-631-7008; Website: www.aimfunds.ca. Buy or sell through brokers.) uses a value-based approach to select U.S. companies that the managers see as inexpensive in relation to earnings, cash flow and other valuation measures. The top holdings of this $169.5 million fund are Wells Fargo & Co., ACE Ltd., Target Corporation, Ametek Inc., United Parcel Service, Praxair, CVS/ Caremark, Omnicom Group, Phillips-Van Heusen Corp. and General Electric. The fund’s portfolio breaks down by sector as follows: Information technology, 21.0%; Financials, 17.3%; Industrials, 16.5%; Health care, 14.9%; Consumer discretionary, 11.1%; Consumer staples, 6.3%; Energy, 5.3%; Materials, 3.1%; and Telecommunication services, 2.8%....

S&P DEPOSITORY RECEIPTS $135 (American Exchange symbol SPY; buy or sell through brokers) are commonly called ‘Spiders’. The fund holds the stocks in the S&P 500 Index. This index is comprised of 500 major U.S. stocks chosen for market size, liquidity, and industry group representation....

We think high-quality mutual funds with a long term focus will beat indexes over long periods. If funds invest as we advise — sticking with well established companies and spreading their assets out across the five main economic sectors — they will tend to lose a lot less than the market indexes in periods when the indexes fall sharply. That’s because big market slides are particularly hard on the hottest, most popular stocks of the preceding market rise, and investing as we do leads you to avoid excessive investment in the hot stocks. Index funds, in contrast, do tend to load up on the hottest, most popular stocks as they rise. That’s because, as they rise, these stocks make up a rising proportion of the index. Index funds are a better deal than the majority of funds now available, however. So if you merely want to equal the indexes, here are some of the best deals available in ETFs. We’ve also analysed one we don’t like....

UNITED CORPORATIONS $62.50 (Toronto symbol: UNC) (165 University Ave., 10th Floor, Toronto, ON M5H 3B8. 416-947-2583. Buy or sell through a broker) invests in a wide variety of average-quality to above-average quality Canadian and foreign stocks. At last report, 34.6% of the fund’s $1.1 billion portfolio was invested in Canadian equities, 23.7% in the U.S., 20.7% in Europe, 6.2% in the UK, 13.1% in Asia and 1.0% in Mexico and Latin America. The fund’s largest holdings included Bank of Nova Scotia, Royal Bank of Canada, Manulife, Talisman Energy, Algoma Central Corporation, Nexen, TransCanada Corporation, General Electric, TD Bank and Chevron....

ECONOMIC INVESTMENT TRUST $87.01 (Toronto symbol: EVT) holds a well-diversified portfolio of high-quality Canadian, U.S. and foreign stocks. The $724.9 million fund’s largest holdings include E-L Financial, Algoma Central Railway, Chevron, CBS Corp., Marathon Oil, Conoco- Phillips, General Electric, Posco, Renault, Xstrata plc and Sumitomo Mitsui Financial. The fund breaks down geographically as follows: Canada, 47.6%; the U.S., 18.5%, Europe, 18.4%, Asia, 13.4%; and Latin America, 1.1%....

HARBOUR FUND $22.47 (CWA Rating: Conservative)(C.I. Mutual Funds, 151 Yonge St., 7th Floor, Toronto, ON M5C 2W7. 1-800-268-9374; Web site: www.cifunds.com. Load fund — available from brokers) invests in only 25 to 40 high-quality Canadian stocks, and it may hold stocks for four or five years to realize their value. The $5.3 billion Harbour Fund’s top holdings include Royal Bank, CN Railway, Suncor Energy, Petro-Canada, CIBC, General Electric, EnCana Corp., Rio Tinto, TD Bank and BHP Billiton. The Harbour Fund gained 17.2% over the last year. Its MER is 2.33%....