investment advice

Every Tuesday we bring you “Best Canadian Stocks.” You get our specific recommendation on the stocks we profile, with a full explanation of how we arrived at our opinion. You’ll read about stocks making moves you should know about, from coverage in one of our three newsletters featuring Canadian stocks—The Successful Investor, Stock Pickers Digest and Canadian Wealth Advisor.

Torstar has struggled in the past few years as more people get their news from the Internet, rather than newspapers. But the company is doing a good job of responding to its challenges, which should let it improve its earnings and maintain its current payouts.

TORSTAR CORP. (Toronto symbol TS.B; www.torstar.com) publishes the Toronto Star, Canada’s largest daily newspaper by circulation. It also publishes three other daily papers and over 100 weeklies.

The slow economy continues to hurt advertising sales at Torstar’s newspapers. In the quarter ended June 30, 2014, the company’s revenue fell 7.4%, to $225.6 million from $243.6 million a year earlier.

Earnings jumped 44.2%, to $18.1 million, or $0.23 a share, from $12.6 million, or $0.16 a share. However, if you disregard restructuring costs and other unusual items, earnings per share fell 4.8%, to $0.20 from $0.21.

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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 investing 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: “If you consider charitable donations an investment in a good cause, be prepared to look into them as carefully as you would your investments to ensure that your money is going to the right place.”...

Pat McKeough responds to many requests from members of his Inner Circle for specific investment advice, as well as questions on investment strategy and the economy. Every week, his comments and recommendations on the most intriguing questions of the past week go out to all Inner Circle members. And each week we offer you a report on one of the stocks profiled in these Q&A sessions. We give you Pat’s buy-hold-sell recommendation as well as his analysis of the stock. This is part of the specific buy, hold and sell advice we offer you in our daily posts. Every week you get “A Stock to Sell” on Monday, “Best Canadian Stocks” on Tuesday, and “Our Top U.S. Stocks” on Thursday. Last week we had a question from an Inner Circle member about one of North America’s leading big-box retailers. Costco has built a growing business on the membership fees it charges and its policy of buying directly from manufacturers, which helps keep prices low. Pat balances the company’s rising revenues, international expansion plans and high membership renewal rate against the intensely competitive market in which it operates. Q: Pat: What is your advice on Costco? Is it a buy right now? Thank you....

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 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: “The best way to stay ahead of the market—and all the people who manage to underperform it—is to avoid going in and out trying to buy low and sell high.”...

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 advice. Each Investor Toolkit update gives you a fundamental piece of strategy, including stock trading advice, and shows you how you can put it into practice right away. Today’s tip: “Frequent portfolio turnover is a drain on your profits, so most of your investments should be ones you want to hold on to indefinitely.”...

Pat McKeough responds to many requests from members of his Inner Circle for specific investment advice, as well as questions on investment strategy and the economy. Every week, his comments and recommendations on the most intriguing questions of the past week go out to all Inner Circle members. And each week we offer you a report on one of the stocks profiled in these Q&A sessions. We give you Pat’s buy-hold-sell recommendation as well as his analysis of the stock. This is part of the specific buy, hold and sell advice we offer you in our daily posts. Every week you get “A Stock to Sell” on Monday, “Best Canadian Stocks” on Tuesday, and “Our Top U.S. Stocks” on Thursday. Recently an Inner Circle member asked us about a leading Canadian specialty food maker. Premium Brands draws two-thirds of its revenue from retail and the rest from food services. The company continues to expand aggressively and Pat assesses the flurry of acquisitions it has made in recent years. He considers the high debt Premium has assumed to make its acquisitions and whether it can continue to maintain its high dividend. Q: Pat: Can you please give me your opinion of Premium Brands for income and gains in the specialty food sector? Thanks....

Every Wednesday, we publish our “Investor Toolkit” series on TSI Network. Whether you’re an aggressive or a conservative investor, these weekly updates are designed to give you specific investment advice and stock investing tips. Each Investor Toolkit update gives you a fundamental piece of investing strategy, and shows you how you can put it into practice right away. Today’s tip: “It’s easy to assume that frequently-quoted investment rules are based on successful experience, but they can often prove to be misleading and harmful.”...

Every Monday we feature “A Stock to Sell” as our daily post. With every stock we recommend as a sell, we give you a full explanation of why we advise against investing in the stock at this time. Timbercreek Senior Mortgage Investment Corp. (symbol MTG on Toronto; www.timbercreek.com), is a mortgage investment corporation....

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 advice. Each Investor Toolkit update gives you a fundamental piece of strategy, and shows you how you can put it into practice right away. Today’s tip: “Dividends can produce as much as a third of your total return over long periods.”...

Every Monday we now feature “A Stock to Sell” as our daily post. With every stock we recommend as a sell, we give you a full explanation of why we advise against investing in the stock at this time. EL POLLO LOCO (symbol LOCO on Nasdaq; www.elpolloloco.com), specializes in Mexican-style grilled chicken. El Pollo Loco means “the crazy chicken” in Spanish. The company fire-grills citrus-marinated chicken in front of its customers. El Pollo Loco first sold shares to the public and began trading on the Nasdaq exchange on Friday, July 25, 2014. The quick-serve restaurant chain raised $100 million in an initial public offering (IPO) of 7.1 million shares priced at $15 each....