investment

Every Thursday we bring you “Best U.S. Stocks.” 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, from coverage in our newsletter on U.S. investing, Wall Street Stock Forecaster. Or, as with this stock, from coverage in our advisory on more aggressive investing, Stock Pickers Digest

CHESAPEAKE ENERGY (New York symbol CHK; www.chkenergy.com) is one of the largest U.S.-based oil and natural gas explorers and producers. Its production mix is 72% gas and 28% oil.

Chesapeake’s shares have nearly doubled since mid-2012, when activist investor Carl Icahn bought a stake in the firm. Icahn, who has a history of pushing companies to make changes that raise shareholder value, subsequently replaced four of Chesapeake’s eight board members with his nominees. The company also pushed out controversial co-founder, CEO and chairman Aubrey K. McClendon....

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.”...

FINNING INTERNATIONAL INC. $33 (Toronto symbol FTT; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Manufacturing & Industry sector; Shares outstanding: 172.2 million; Market cap: $5.7 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 0.8; Dividend yield: 2.2%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.finning.com) is the world’s largest dealer of tractors, bulldozers and trucks made by Caterpillar Inc. (New York symbol CAT). It also sells heavy equipment made by other firms.

Finning’s clients are mainly in the mining, forest products and construction industries.

In the three months ended June 30, 2014, the company’s overall revenue rose 9.1%, to $1.8 billion from $1.6 billion a year earlier.

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Altus Group, $20.20, symbol AIF on Toronto (Shares outstanding: 29.1 million; Market cap: $587.8 million; www.altusgroup.com), provides consulting services and software for the commercial real estate industry. The company has five divisions: ARGUS Software; Research, Valuation and Advisory; Property Tax Consulting; Cost Consulting and Project Management; and Geomatics. ARGUS, a leading provider of real estate valuation software, is a recent acquisition. Altus has about 2,200 employees around the world, including in Canada, the U.S., the U.K., Australia and the Asia-Pacific region. Clients include financial institutions, private and public investment funds, insurance companies, accounting firms, real estate investment trusts, health care organizations, private investors, oil and gas companies and real estate developers....

BMG Gold BullionFund is an open-ended mutual fund that holds at least 95% of its assets in gold bullion. In general, we recommend staying away from buying gold bullion, coins (unless you collect them as a hobby) or certificates representing an interest in bullion. Unlike stocks, commodity investments like gold bullion do not generate income. Instead, they come with a continuing cash drain for management, insurance and so on. In addition, the MER on BMG Gold BullionFund is a very high 3.07%. For that reason alone, we advise against investing in this fund....

ISHARES CDN REIT SECTOR INDEX FUND $16.64 (Toronto symbol XRE; buy or sell through brokers; ca.ishares.com) holds the 15 Canadian real estate investment trusts in the S&P/TSX Capped REIT Index.

iShares CDN REIT’s expenses are 0.60% of its assets. The fund yields 5.0%.

The ETF’s largest holding is RioCan REIT at 19.3%, followed by H&R REIT (14.7%), Canadian REIT (7.8%), Dream Office REIT (7.0%), Calloway REIT (6.4%), Boardwalk REIT (6.3%), Canadian Apartment REIT (6.2%), Allied Properties REIT (5.8%), Cominar REIT (5.4%), Artis REIT (5.0%), Chartwell REIT (4.6%), Granite REIT (4.5%), Crombie REIT (2.4%), Northern Property REIT (2.2%) and Dream Global REIT (2.1%).

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ISHARES MSCI CHILE INVESTABLE MARKET INDEX FUND $44.50 (New York Exchange symbol ECH; buy or sell through brokers) is an ETF that aims to track the MSCI Chile Investable Market Index, which consists of stocks that mainly trade on the Santiago Stock Exchange.

The fund’s top holdings are S.A.C.I. Falabella (retail), 9.6%; Enersis SA (electricity), 9.2%; Empresas Copec SA (conglomerate), 7.9%; Empresa Nacional de Electricidad (electricity), 6.7%; LATAM Airlines, 5.5%; Cencosud SA (retailer), 4.9%; Empresas CMPC (pulp and paper), 4.8%; Banco de Chile, 4.6%; Banco Santander Chile (banking), 4.5%; and Quimica y Minera de Chile (mining), 4.1%.

The fund’s industry breakdown is: Utilities, 25.1%; Financials, 17.8%; Consumer Discretionary, 13.2%; Materials, 12.9%; Consumer Staples, 10.0%; Industrials, 8.1%; Energy, 7.8%; Telecommunications, 2.4%; and Information Technology, 1.9%.

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ISHARES MSCI GERMANY FUND $29.36 (New York Exchange symbol EWG; buy or sell through brokers) tracks the stocks in the MSCI Germany Index. This index aims to replicate 85% of the German stock market’s market capitalization. The remaining 15% is unavailable for investment, partly due to limitations on foreign ownership.

The ETF’s top holdings are Bayer (diversified chemicals), 9.3%; Siemens (engineering conglomerate), 8.4%; BASF (chemicals), 8.0%; Daimler (autos), 6.6%; Allianz (insurance), 6.6%; SAP (software), 6.0%; Deutsche Telekom, 4.0%; BMW, 3.3%; and Volkswagen AG, 3.1%.

The fund’s industry breakdown includes: Consumer Discretionary, 21.7%; Financials, 16.1%, Materials, 14.6%; Industrials, 13.7%; Information Technology, 7.0%; Utilities, 4.9%; Telecommunication Services, 4.4%; Health Care, 4.1%; and Consumer Staples, 3.8%.

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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. WESTJET AIRLINES (Toronto symbol WJA; www.westjet.com) serves 90 destinations in North America, Central America, the Caribbean and Europe. Its fleet of 107 modern Boeing 737s are 30% more fuel efficient than older jets. In June 2013, the company launched WestJet Encore, its Canadian regional airline. This business now operates 13 Bombardier Q400 NextGen turboprop planes, which seat 78 passengers....

Pat McKeough responds to many requests from members of his Inner Circle for specific stock tips, 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. This week an Inner Circle member asked us about a company that is in the forefront of treating heart disease. Edwards Lifesciences makes the bulk of its money from heart valve technology and the rest on critical care, or hemodynamic monitoring. Pat examines Edwards’ leading products and particularly the surge in revenue from the Transcatheter Heart Valve. He also considers whether the company’s shares can continue their rise. Q: Good day, Pat: Can you please provide your opinion on Edwards Lifesciences? Thanks....