investment

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 investing strategy, and shows you how you can put it into practice right away. Today’s tip: “When you see performance numbers issued by brokers, money managers and newsletter publishers, ask yourself just how hypothetical those figures might be.”...

If you meet a large number of investors over a large number of years, it may seem they come in two basic categories—one inclined toward value investing, the other more interested in growth. This may be due in part to their early life experiences. Value investing—trying to buy assets at bargain prices—has natural appeal for those who grew up in strained economic circumstances. Growth investing—trying to identify and buy rising stocks when they have further growth ahead—seems to appeal more to those who grew up in prosperous households. Of course, having too much money early on can handicap an investor. Some investors have confided to me that they “had it too easy” in their early years. They felt this stopped them from developing that key investor attribute we often talk about, a healthy sense of skepticism. When they began investing in their middle years, they tended to be too trusting, even gullible. This can be a major obstacle to investment success. However, too much reliance on value investing can cost you money as well....

Timbercreek Mortgage Investment Corp., $9.37, symbol TMC on Toronto (Shares outstanding: 40.7 million; Market cap: $381.4 million; www.timbercreek.com), is a mortgage investment corporation, or MIC. MICs invest in pools of mortgages and distribute most of their profits to their shareholders. Some MICs yield 7% or 8% or more annually. They sound like conservative investments because they invest in mortgages rather than stocks. However, mortgages vary widely in their investment quality and risk. MICs can earn high profits because they take on riskier mortgages. Conservative mortgage lenders, such as banks and mortgage funds, mainly invest in top-quality first mortgages on commercial, industrial or residential properties....

PASON SYSTEMS (Toronto symbol PSI; www.pason.com) is trading near all-time highs as it continues to gain from the boom in U.S. shale oil and gas drilling. Pason rents equipment for monitoring and managing oil and gas rigs. It also sells communication technology, such as its satellite system, which companies use to remotely collect data from their drilling operations. Pason serves oil and gas producers and drilling contractors throughout Canada, the U.S., Mexico, Argentina and Australia....

Too much investor attention tends to be focused on economic forecasts. The fact is, forecasts provide little, if any, advantage when it comes to helpful stock market advice. Most experienced, successful investors feel skeptical, if not downright cynical, about economic forecasts, for three reasons....

Pat McKeough responds to many requests from members of his Inner Circle for specific advice on 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 one of the highlights from these Q&A sessions. While we reserve our buy-hold-sell advice for Inner Circle members, these excerpts provide a great deal of information and analysis on stocks we’ve covered for members of Pat’s Inner Circle. This week we had a question from an Inner Circle member concerning a proprietor of retirement homes in Canada. Amica Mature Lifestyles aims its appeal to members of the baby boom generation who are looking for luxury residences. Pat analyzes the company’s business and looks at its prospects as a premium brand competing in a growing retirement home market....

MONSANTO CO. (New York symbol MON; www.monsanto.com) sells technology-based agricultural products, such as genetically modified seeds, to farmers, grain processors and food producers. The company’s seeds make crops more resistant to pests, diseases and bad weather. Monsanto gets about 70% of its revenue from genetically modified seeds for corn, soybeans and other crops. The remaining 30% comes from selling herbicides, mainly under the Roundup brand....

I’ve mentioned here, and in recent letters to our portfolio-management clients, that I’m optimistic about the stock market’s direction. In fact, I suspect that a secular bull market began in March 2009, when the market began rising after the recession. Secular bull markets take a variety of shapes. Stock prices still go up and down, of course. But the key difference with a secular bull market is that each new upward thrust takes the market to higher peaks than those of the preceding rise. The post-World War Two market rise ran from the late 1940s through the late 1960s. It was a highly rewarding period for investors who followed a conservative, fundamentally based approach like ours. Another secular bull market took place from the late 1980s through around 2007. It was also a profitable time for investors who followed an approach like ours....

Digital Realty Trust Inc., $58.48, symbol DLR on New York (Units outstanding: 128.6 million; Market cap: $7.9 billion; www.digitalrealty.com), is a real estate investment trust (REIT) that owns, acquires, develops and manages technology-related properties. The trust’s assets include Internet data centres, properties containing servers and other equipment for cloud computing and manufacturing plants for products like computer chips and pharmaceuticals. Its buildings have typically undergone extensive improvements—mostly paid for by tenants—to meet demanding power and cooling requirements. Digital Realty owns 131 properties, of which 92 are located in North America, 21 are in Europe, three are in Australia and one is in Asia. Its occupancy rate is 92.6%....

CANADIAN NATIONAL RAILWAY CO. (Toronto symbol CNR; www.cn.ca) operates Canada’s largest railway. Its 32,350-kilometre network stretches across the country and through the U.S. Midwest to the Gulf of Mexico. Thanks to strong shipping volumes in the wake of the recession, CN’s revenue rose 43.5%, from $7.4 billion in 2009 to $10.6 billion in 2013....