investment
An investment is an asset or property acquired to generate income or gain appreciation. Appreciation is the increase in the value of an asset over time. It requires the outlay of a resource today, like time, effort, and money, for a greater payoff in the future or for generating a profit.
An investment involves using capital in the present to increase an asset’s value over time.
Investments may include bonds, stocks, real estate, or alternative investments.
Investments can be diversified to reduce risk, though this may reduce the amount of earning potential.
In business contexts, investments are financial; however, consider how some people spend time to make higher incomes in the future (i.e. invest in a college education).
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TD (see page 31) and Bank of Nova Scotia are our top picks among Canada’s big five banks right now, due to their wide international exposure. But we still like the prospects of Royal Bank, Bank of Montreal and CIBC. All three are well positioned to weather any downturn in the Canadian economy. They also trade at attractive multiples to earnings and continue to raise their dividends. ROYAL BANK OF CANADA $76 (Toronto symbol RY; Conservative Growth and Income Portfolios, Finance sector; Shares outstanding: 1.4 billion; Market cap: $106.4 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 3.2; Dividend yield: 4.1%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.rbc.com) recently said it would buy City National (New York symbol CYN)....
GREAT-WEST LIFECO INC. $35 (Toronto symbol GWO; Conservative Growth and Income Portfolios, Finance sector; Shares outstanding: 996.7 million; Market cap: $34.9 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 0.9; Dividend yield: 3.7%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.greatwestlifeco.com) is paying an undisclosed sum for the Irish operations of Legal & General Group plc. This business provides investment and tax-planning services to wealthy individuals. It looks like a nice fit with Irish Life, a leading insurance firm Great-West acquired in 2013. Thanks to Irish Life’s contribution and savings from eliminating duplicate functions, Great-West’s earnings jumped 34.7% in the three months ended December 31, 2014, to $0.66 a share from $0.49 a year earlier. Revenue rose 33.1%, to $10.7 billion from $8.1 billion. The company has also raised its quarterly dividend by 6.0%, to $0.3260 a share from $0.3075. The new annual rate of $1.30 yields 3.7%....
RIOCAN REAL ESTATE INVESTMENT TRUST $28 (Toronto symbol REI.UN; Aggressive Growth Portfolio, Manufacturing & Industry sector; Units outstanding: 315.4 million; Market cap: $8.8 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 7.0; Dividend yield: 5.0%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.riocan.com) owns all or part of 292 shopping centres in Canada, including 15 under development. These holdings account for 84% of the REIT’s rental revenue. The remaining 16% comes from 48 malls in the U.S. In the past few years, RioCan took advantage of lower property values and interest rates to expand its portfolio. As a result, its revenue jumped 39.8%, from $882 million in 2010 to $1.2 billion in 2014. Due to gains and losses on property sales, earnings fell from $6.04 a unit (or a total of $1.5 billion) in 2010 to $3.25 (or $873 million) in 2011. Earnings rebounded to $4.57 a unit (or $1.3 billion) in 2012 but declined to $2.10 a unit (or $663 million) in 2014....
Dun & Bradstreet’s has kept its credit report business thriving with its ability to harness new technologies like cloud computing.
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 tips and stock market 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: “When you need to sell stocks, take the opportunity to improve your portfolio by making a careful inventory of what investments will do more harm than good over time.”
When you need to sell, here’s one key factor to consider: how soon do you need to take your money out of the market?
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Today’s tip: “When you need to sell stocks, take the opportunity to improve your portfolio by making a careful inventory of what investments will do more harm than good over time.”
When you need to sell, here’s one key factor to consider: how soon do you need to take your money out of the market?
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Here’s the text of the quarterly letter I recently sent to our Portfolio Management clients: “A client of mine, Dr. J., recently said, “Pat, you advise investors to spread their money out across most if not all of the five main economic sectors. Why not just leave out the resource sector?” I think that’s a bad idea. It disregards the one key contribution that resource stocks make to a sound portfolio, as you’ll see below. But I’m sure many investors agree with Dr. J. After all, the weak performance of the resource sector goes back much further than the recent plunge in the price of oil (from $110 U.S. a barrel last July to a recent low near $45 U.S.)....
Partners Real Estate Investment Trust, $3.66, symbol PAR.UN on Toronto (Units outstanding: 26.4 million; Market cap: $96.6 million; www.partnersreit.com), owns 36 shopping centres in B.C., Alberta, Manitoba, Ontario and Quebec. In all, these properties contain 2.5 million square feet of leasable space. The trust’s occupancy rate is 96.0%. Partners’ malls are mostly in smaller cities, such as London, Ontario, and Selkirk, Manitoba. Its largest tenants include Shoppers Drug Mart, Wal-Mart, Metro, the Quebec government, Sears, Rona and Loblaw. The units dropped sharply in August 2014, from over $5 to $4, when the trust cut its monthly distribution by 50.0%, to $0.02083 from $0.04167. The units now yield 6.8%....
Every Tuesday we bring you “Best Canadian Stocks.” You get our specific recommendations 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.
We continue to recommend that investors aim to own two or more of Canada’s big five banks. But we also feel that conservative investors should further diversify their Finance-sector holdings with stocks like Great-West Lifeco.
GREAT-WEST LIFECO (Toronto symbol GWO; www.greatwestlifeco.com) has reported strong results in its latest quarter and raised its dividend.
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We continue to recommend that investors aim to own two or more of Canada’s big five banks. But we also feel that conservative investors should further diversify their Finance-sector holdings with stocks like Great-West Lifeco.
GREAT-WEST LIFECO (Toronto symbol GWO; www.greatwestlifeco.com) has reported strong results in its latest quarter and raised its dividend.
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Every Monday we feature “A Stock to Sell” as our daily post. With every stock or investment we recommend as a sell, we give you a full explanation of why we advise against investing in it at this time. In today’s article we have two sells, both from an industry which has a great deal of promise for the future, but hurdles to overcome in the present.
3D Systems Corp. (symbol DDD on New York; www.3dsystems.com), makes and services 3-D printers and provides print materials.
The company’s sales rose 23.0% in the three months ended September 30, 2014, to $166.9 million from $135.7 million a year earlier, though its earnings per share fell 30.7%, to $0.18 from $0.26, on higher research and marketing spending.
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3D Systems Corp. (symbol DDD on New York; www.3dsystems.com), makes and services 3-D printers and provides print materials.
The company’s sales rose 23.0% in the three months ended September 30, 2014, to $166.9 million from $135.7 million a year earlier, though its earnings per share fell 30.7%, to $0.18 from $0.26, on higher research and marketing spending.
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ENCANA CORP., $14.66, Toronto symbol ECA, fell 10% this week after the company issued 85.6 million common shares to a group of underwriters for $14.60 each. The company plans to use the $1.25 billion of proceeds to redeem $1.6 billion worth of notes. As of December 31, 2014, Encana’s long-term debt was $7.3 billion U.S., or a high 84% of its $10.9 billion (Canadian) market cap. If the underwriters exercise their option to buy an additional 12.8 million shares, Encana would receive $1.44 billion. Including this option, the extra shares would increase the total outstanding by roughly 13%....