investment

Activist investor Jonathan Litt, through his Land & Buildings Investment Management hedge fund, has a long history of targeting under-performing real estate investment trusts (REITs) and pushing them to boost shareholder value. Here are two of his latest targets.


APARTMENT INVESTMENT & MANAGEMENT CO....

Here’s Part Two of the most-recent letter I sent to our Portfolio Management clients in February 2023:

“ Yes, but what about World War III?

After Russia invaded Ukraine around this time last year, I began to wonder if there was any real risk that this marked the start of World War III.

After all, a lot of academics seemed to be writing about the Thucydides Trap (which I mentioned in our client letter last fall), based on what seemed like rising trade tension between the U.S....

TC ENERGY INC., $55.94, Toronto symbol TRP, remains a buy.

TC generates steady cash flow for investors mainly through a 93,700-kilometre pipeline network that pumps natural gas from Alberta to eastern Canada and the U.S. Its other operations include 4,900 kilometres of crude oil pipelines and nine power plants.

The company also owns 35% of the 670-kilometre Coastal GasLink pipeline, which will pump natural gas from northeastern B.C....

You Can See Our Exchange-Traded Funds Portfolio For June 2023 here.

ETFs in brief


Exchange-traded funds are set up to mirror the performance of a stock-market index or sub-index....

On August 30, 2020, the day of his 90th birthday, billionaire investor Warren Buffett announced that his Berkshire Hathaway company (symbol BRK.B on New York) had acquired a little over 5% of each of five Japanese trading companies, or Sogo Shosha as they are called in Japan.


The five are Itochu Corp., Marubeni Corp, Mitsubishi Corp., Mitsui & Co., and Sumitomo Corp....

The Japanese economy ranks third in the world and hosts some of the most-profitable global corporations.


The economy is, however, facing a declining and rapidly aging population. Still, an older population also presents opportunities, and Japanese companies are already coming up with innovative and technology-driven aids for the elderly....

High interest rates mean dividend-paying stocks must increasingly compete for investor interest with bonds and other fixed-income instruments. However, focusing on sustainable dividends still offers an attractive and growing income stream for investors—as long as you avoid the riskier strategies that some ETF managers use to boost their yields (see supplement on page 60).


Here are three ETFs that aim to provide high-yield exposure to Canadian, as well as U.S., dividend payers.


VANGUARD FTSE CANADIAN HIGH DIVIDEND ETF $42.00 (Toronto symbol VDY; TSINetwork ETF Rating: Aggressive; Market cap: $2.1 billion) tracks the FTSE Canada High Dividend Yield Index....

You can see our Income-Seeking Portfolio for June 2023 here.

This month we update our Portfolio for Income-Seeking Investors.


In light of the current market volatility, investors are paying more attention to dividend yields (dividends paid per share divided by the current stock price)....

These top providers of real estate services are moving in different directions. FirstService is hitting new highs thanks to strong demand for its residential services and recurring contracts. Colliers, however, has dipped on concerns that the shift to remote work and high interest rates are hurting demand for office buildings....

IGM FINANCIAL INC. $39 is a buy. The mutual fund seller (Toronto symbol IGM; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Finance sector; Shares outstanding: 237.8 million; Market cap: $9.3 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 2.8; Dividend yield: 5.8%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.igmfinancial.com) is selling its Investment Planning Counsel wealth management business to Great-West Lifeco Inc....