investment

When they look for stocks to buy, investors sometimes fall into a habit of focusing on those with a particularly attractive reading on a single investment measure. These readings include a low per-share ratio of price-to-earnings, a low price-to-book-value ratio, or a high dividend yield. This seems like a quick, easy way of spotting an investment bargain. However, most investment measures fall on a spectrum that ranges from suspiciously cheap to extraordinarily expensive. For example, suppose you decide you will only consider buying stocks with a per-share price-to-earnings ratio of 10.0 or less. That way, you hope to get more earnings for each dollar you invest. But the “e” or earnings in the p/e only covers earnings, or an earnings estimate, for a single year. The year your low p/e covers may coincide with a peak in the company’s earnings, for any number of reasons....

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.

RepliCel Life Sciences Inc., (symbol RP on Toronto; www.replicel.com), aims to develop and patent its hair-loss treatment.

RepliCel’s technology uses cells taken from each patient’s own healthy hair follicles to reproduce and “reintroduce” cells to the affected areas. RepliCel also believes it can use its technology to treat a variety of issues that stem from cell deficiencies, including chronic tendinosis and aging skin.

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TIM HORTONS INC., $96.97, Toronto symbol THI, shareholders will vote on the friendly takeover offer from BURGER KING WORLDWIDE INC., $34.81, New York symbol BKW, on Tuesday, December 9, 2014. If the deal is approved, Tim Hortons investors will have a number of options: They can sell their shares on the Toronto exchange and receive the current trading price of $96.97 (less brokerage commissions). If they don’t do that, they can opt for one of the three choices below by notifying their brokers no later than 5:00 p.m. ET on Tuesday, December 9, 2014....

We think conservative investors could hold up to 10% of their portfolios in foreign stocks. One way to do that is to buy carefully chosen exchange traded funds (ETFs) that have an overseas focus. The best ETFs offer very low management fees and well-diversified, tax-efficient portfolios of high quality stocks. Here’s a look at six global ETFs:...

Pat McKeough responds to many requests from members of his Inner Circle for specific tips on trading stocks 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 “U.S. Stock Picks” on Thursday.

This week an Inner Circle member asked us about Canadian engineering firm WPS Group. This firm’s growth strategy centres on the steady acquisition of smaller firms. This approach (similar to that of Edmonton-based engineering firm Stantec, a stock we follow in Stock Pickers Digest) has been producing profitable results for WPS. Pat examines all four of the company’s 2014 acquisitions and assesses the risk that comes with the acquisition and integration of new firms.

Q: Dear Pat: I would like to have your opinion on WSP Global. Thank you very much.

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RIOCAN REAL ESTATE INVESTMENT TRUST $26.85 (Toronto symbol REI.UN; Units outstanding: 307.8 million; Market cap: $8.5 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Average; Dividend yield: 5.3%; www.riocan.com) continues to open new shopping malls and, with partners, mixeduse properties with office and residential space. The trust is also selling off less profitable properties. In the third quarter of 2014, RioCan’s net leasable area shrank by 2.5%, to 71.6 million square feet from 73.5 million a year earlier. But thanks to strong demand from retailers, it’s renewing leases at higher rental rates. That’s why its cash flow rose 7.4% in the latest quarter, to $131 million from $122 million. Cash flow per unit gained 5.0%, to $0.42 from $0.40, on more units outstanding. RioCan’s revenue rose 10.0%, to $296 million from $269 million....

SUN LIFE FINANCIAL $43.15 (Toronto symbol SLF; Shares outstanding: 611.6 million; Market cap: $25.9 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; Dividend yield: 3.3%; www.sunlife.ca) sells life insurance, savings, retirement and pension products to individuals and corporations. The company has $698.2 billion of assets under management. It mainly operates in Canada, the U.S. and the U.K., but it continues to expand into Asia. In August 2013, Sun Life sold its riskier, money-losing U.S. annuity business, which offers products that guarantee minimum long-term returns even if markets fall....

CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILWAY $224.79 (Toronto symbol CP; Shares outstanding: 171.0 million; Market cap: $37.7 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Average; Dividend yield: 0.6%; www.cpr.ca) has agreed to sell the southern portion of its Delaware & Hudson Railway in Pennsylvania and New York State to Norfolk Southern Corp. (New York symbol NSC). CP will keep the northern part of this line, which runs between the village of Rouses Point and Albany, New York. If U.S. transportation regulators approve, CP will receive $217 million U.S. That’s equal to 62% of the $400 million (Canadian), or $2.31 a share, that it earned in the third quarter of 2014. This line is losing money, so selling it will free up cash that CP can use to upgrade its other tracks and locomotives....

Every Thursday we bring you one of our best U.S. stock picks. You get our specific recommendation on the stocks we profile, with a full explanation of how we arrived at our opinion. You will read about stocks making moves you should know about, most often from coverage in our newsletter on U.S. investing, Wall Street Stock Forecaster.

VISA INC. (New York symbol V; www.visa.com) operates the world’s largest electronic payments network, through which it processes credit, debit, prepaid and commercial transactions.

Visa gets most of its revenue from fees it charges the card issuers and merchants that use its network. It bases these fees on transaction volumes and other factors. The banks that issue the cards are responsible for evaluating customer creditworthiness and collecting payments, not Visa.

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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 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: “Bottom-up investors have the great advantage of basing their decisions on what they know about stocks, rather than trying to guess how stocks might be affected by a random series of events.”

In the early chapters of any good book on fundamental stock market advice, you will come across the two basic ways to make investment decisions: bottom-up and top-down....