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. We prefer chipmakers that dominate their niche markets. Texas Instruments cuts its risk with a variety of niche products and customers. TEXAS INSTRUMENTS INC. (Nasdaq symbol TXN; www.ti.com) used to focus on chips for cellphones, but has shifted to analog chips, which convert inputs like touch, sound and pressure into electronic signals that computers can understand. Manufacturers use these chips in a variety of products, including cars, medical devices and appliances....

Market Vectors Africa Index ETF, $32.10, symbol AFK on New York (Units outstanding: 4.0 million; Market cap: $128.4 million; www.vaneck.com), aims to match the performance of the Market Vectors GDP Africa Index. This index tracks the performance of the largest and most liquid companies in Africa. A country’s weighting in the index is determined by the size of its gross domestic product. The ETF’s top holdings are Commercial International Bank Egypt SAE, Guaranty Trust Bank plc (Nigeria: banking), Acergy SA (U.K.: offshore oilfield services), Zenith Bank plc (Nigeria: banking), Orascom Telecom Holding SAE (Egypt: telecom), Nigerian Breweries plc, Naspers Ltd. (South Africa: media and Internet), Talaast Moustafa Group (Egypt: real estate), Attijarwafa Bank (Morocco: banking) and Tullow plc (U.K.: oil and gas)....

Every Monday we feature “A Stock to Sell” as our daily post. With every stock we recommend as a sell, we give you a full explanation of why we advise against investing in the stock at this time. Timbercreek Senior Mortgage Investment Corp. (symbol MTG on Toronto; www.timbercreek.com), is a mortgage investment corporation....

Pat McKeough responds to many requests from members of his Inner Circle for specific stock advice, 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. Recently we had a question from an Inner Circle member on an industrial firm that serves a diverse clientele. Ingersoll Rand, an Irish-based company that trades on the New York exchange, has one segment devoted to Climate Control and another to Industrial Technologies. Pat examines Ingersoll’s different businesses and looks at its prospects in light of a spinoff the company executed last year and an acquisition it has just agreed to make. Q: Hello: What is your opinion of Ingersoll-Rand? Thank you....

PRECISION DRILLING CORP. $13 (Toronto symbol PD; Aggressive Growth Portfolio, Resource sector; Shares outstanding: 292.7 million; Market cap: $3.8 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 1.7; Dividend yield: 1.8%; TSINetwork Rating: Extra Risk; www.precisiondrilling.comtarget="_blank”) provides contract drilling services to land-based oil and gas producers, mainly in North America. It operates 333 rigs. Higher oil and gas prices have spurred demand for Precision’s drilling services. As a result, revenue rose 25.4% in the second quarter of 2014, to $475.2 million from $378.9 million a year ago. However, the company lost $7.2 million, or $0.02 a share. Precision recently changed the way it calculates depreciation on its rigs, and the new method cut its earnings by $14 million, or $0.05 a share. A year earlier, it earned $473,000, or nil per share....

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. AMERICAN EXPRESS CO. (New York symbol AXP; www.americanexpress.com) started up in 1850 and is now one of the world’s largest issuers of payment cards, with 109.9 million cards outstanding in over 130 countries. Billionaire investor Warren Buffett owns 14.3% of the company. Amex issues two types of cards: charge cards, which have no pre-set spending limit and must be paid in full each month; and traditional credit cards, which let users carry a balance....

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 advice. Each Investor Toolkit update gives you a fundamental piece of strategy, and shows you how you can put it into practice right away. Today’s tip: “Dividends can produce as much as a third of your total return over long periods.”...

One of the ways a company can try to unlock its own hidden value is by creating a separate company out of a subsidiary. The parent company can either sell stock in the new company to the public, or spin it off—hand the stock out to its own investors. In the past few years, it has become common to do both. The parent company starts by selling a portion of the new company to the public, to establish a market and a following among investors. That way, by the time of the spin-off, stock in the new company may be liquid enough to be sold relatively easily, or retained with some confidence as a worthwhile investment. In our experience, and in most academic studies of the subject, this helps the parent and the spin-off. Both generally do better than comparable companies for at least several years after the spin-off takes place....

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. CRESCENT POINT ENERGY CORP. (Toronto symbol CPG; www.crescentpointenergy.com) produces oil and natural gas in Western Canada, with a focus on its Bakken light oil development in southeastern Saskatchewan. Its output is 91% oil and 9% gas. In the three months ended June 30, 2014, Crescent Point’s cash flow rose 26.2%, to $636.7 million from $504.4 million a year earlier....

ARCHER DANIELS MIDLAND CO., $50.36, New York symbol ADM, processes corn, wheat, soybeans, canola, flax seed, peanuts, cocoa and other crops into a wide variety of food ingredients, such as flour, oils and sweeteners. It is also the largest maker of ethanol from corn in the U.S. This week, the company agreed to sell its global chocolate operations, including three plants in North America and three in Europe, to privately held Cargill Inc. These businesses process cocoa into chocolate for candy makers and other food companies. Archer Daniels will receive $440 million when it completes the sale in the first half of 2015. That’s equal to 83% of the $533 million, or $0.81 a share, that it earned in the three months ended June 30, 2014....