investment

PRIMARIS REAL ESTATE INVESTMENT TRUST $15 is a buy. The REIT (Toronto symbol PMZ.UN; Manufacturing sector; Units outstanding: 98.3 million; Market cap: $1.5 billion; Distribution yield: 5.3%; Takeover Target Rating: Medium; www.primarisreit.com) owns 35 enclosed and open-air shopping malls in Canada....

This is the time in each calendar quarter when we usually devote this spot in our Inner Circle to our latest letter to Portfolio-Management clients. However, recent events call for a change in our routine. In particular, before we get into the client letter, I want to address an issue that is showing up a lot in the media, in questions from our clients and readers, and in my own mind:

• What should investors do about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine?
• Do we need to worry that the conflict can explode into World War III?
• How should investors react—if at all—to Vladimir Putin’s veiled threats to bring nuclear weapons into the battlefield?

To get started, I’m going to ask readers a question: Do these lyrics sound familiar?

“In 1814, we took a little trip
Along with Colonel Jackson down the mighty Mississip’
We took a little bacon and we took a little beans
And we caught the bloody British in the town of New Orleans

We fired our guns and the British kep’ a-comin’
There wasn’ nigh as many as there was a while ago
We fired once more and they began to runnin’
way down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico

We looked down the river
And we see’d the British come
And there must have been a hundred of ‘em
Beatin’ on the drums
They stepped so high and they made their bugles ring
We hid behind our cotton bales and didn’t say a thing

We fired our guns and the British kept a-comin’
There wasn’ nigh as many as there was a while ago
We fired once more and they began to runnin’
On down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico

Old Hickory said we could take ‘em by surprise
If we didn’t fire our muskets
‘Til we looked ‘em in the eye

We held our fire
‘Til we see’d their faces well
Then we opened up our squirrel guns
And really gave ‘em, well….we…

… fired our guns and the British kept a-comin’
There wasn’ nigh as many as there was a while ago
We fired once more and they began a’runnin’
On down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico

Yeah, they ran through the briars
And they ran through the brambles
And they ran through the bushes
Where a rabbit couldn’t go
They ran so fast
That the hounds couldn’t catch ‘em
On down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico

—from “The Battle of New Orleans,” by Johnny Horton, 1958

I don’t offer the following as an exhaustive or scholarly analysis by any means....

TWITTER INC., $45.08, symbol TWTR on New York, offers users a global platform to express themselves on the Internet in real time. Its website lets people create, distribute, and discover content. Platform partners include publishers, media outlets, and developers.

Advertisers use Twitter’s Promoted Products, the majority of which are pay-for-performance, to promote their brands, products, and services....

SUNCOR ENERGY INC., $42.57, Toronto symbol SU, is a buy.

The company is Canada’s largest integrated oil firm, with major projects in the Alberta oil sands. Suncor also operates four refineries (three in Canada and one in Colorado), along with 1,875 Petro-Canada gas stations.

With the December 2021 payment, Suncor doubled your quarterly dividend to $0.42 a share from $0.21....

A: WisdomTree China ex-State-Owned Enterprises Fund, $38.77, symbol CXSE on New York (Units outstanding: 20.4 million; Market cap: $791.9 million; www.wisdomtree.com), aims to track the investment results of Chinese companies that are not state-owned enterprises.

This has some appeal for casual dabblers in the Chinese stock market....

Secular trends are changes in the economy, business and social worlds that gain strength over long periods and last a long, long time—many years, if not decades. Often, they last through several market downturns. However, there is no clear, generally accepted definition of a secular trend.

One of the most dangerous traps you can fall into as an investor is to make up your mind so firmly about an investment that you assume it is part of a secular trend and refuse to reconsider the idea....

A spinoff investment will likely be undervalued and it’s almost always a better option than a new issue or IPO

AMAZON.COM INC., $3,089.21, symbol AMZN on Nasdaq, is a buy. The company is one of the world’s largest online retailers. It’s also the third-largest digital ad provider in the U.S. Its Amazon Web Services (AWS) is one of the world’s largest cloud infrastructure service providers.

Amazon has now entered agreements with commercial space companies Arianespace, Blue Origin and United Launch Alliance to aid the execution of its new initiatives called Project Kuiper....

Physical gold, silver, and palladium have been stellar performers over the past two decades, even beating the S&P 500. In the case of silver and palladium, this came at the expense of higher volatility, but not so for gold, which had a similar level of risk to the S&P 500.


Gold producers have underperformed physical gold over the past two decades but this may change as producers tighten their capital spending and start to reward investors with better dividends and share buybacks.


Russia is a major producer of precious metals....

This month we highlight two new ETFs that invest in futures contracts linked to carbon credits.


Government regulations aimed at reducing carbon emissions include carbon credit trading systems. The systems effectively place a price on carbon emissions to compensate for their climate-change effects....