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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In 1994, I launched The Successful Investor with two goals in mind.
First, I wanted to create an investment advisory service that would deliver profitable, easy-to-read investing advice to Canadians at low cost. The advice had to reflect our three keys to successful investing: invest mainly in high-quality companies; diversify; and avoid investment fads....
First, I wanted to create an investment advisory service that would deliver profitable, easy-to-read investing advice to Canadians at low cost. The advice had to reflect our three keys to successful investing: invest mainly in high-quality companies; diversify; and avoid investment fads....
Canadian aerospace and transportation giant Bombardier is counting on the sales of its CSeries business jets to spur its growth. In September we reported on the new jet’s first successful test flight: click here to see the article. Here is our latest report on Bombardier’s progress from The Successful Investor. ...
More and more investors seem to look on the involvement of celebrity investors like Warren Buffett or Bill Gates as something of a pedigree for a stock. They reason that if Bill or Warren is involved, the stock must have some good qualities. So, they wonder, how far wrong can they go if they buy too? This attitude suits the times we live in. Up till a few months ago, many investors were pessimistic about the long-term stock market outlook. Recently, though, the economy has gained some momentum. The stock market (especially in the U.S.) has shot up and shows no sign of exhaustion. Investors take some encouragement from these events, but they are still eager for signs of confirmation. In today’s celebrity-obsessed world, it’s natural for them to place a premium on celebrity-investor endorsements. Predictably, the newsletter industry has seized on implied celebrity endorsements as a marketing tool. Some publishers try to reduce a celebrity investor’s stock-picking approach to a repeatable collection of ratios. Others just apply labels like “Warren-Buffett Style buy” to their personal favourites....
C.R. BARD INC. (New York symbol BCR; www.crbard.com) makes vascular products, such as stents and catheters (29% of its 2012 sales); oncology products that detect and treat various types of cancer (27%); urology products, such as drainage and incontinence devices (26%); and surgical tools and other products (18%). The company mainly makes single-use, disposable products, so customers must continually buy new ones. This continued demand for supplies helped Bard’s sales rise 20.6%, from $2.5 billion in 2008 to $3.0 billion in 2012. Earnings improved by 24.1%, from $455.4 million in 2008 to $565.3 million in 2012. The company is an aggressive buyer of its own stock. This cuts its total shares outstanding, so per-share earnings jumped 48.0%, from $4.44 to $6.57....
PRECISION DRILLING CORP., $9.75, Toronto symbol PD, sells contract drilling services to oil and natural gas producers. The stock fell sharply after the Alberta Investment Management Company (AIMCo) sold its entire 15% stake in the company for $9.50 to $9.75 a share. AIMCo is a Crown corporation that manages Alberta’s public-sector pension plans and other special funds. Precision ran into trouble in 2009, because the credit crisis hurt its ability to refinance short-term loans it needed to buy U.S.-based contract driller Grey Wolf Inc. That’s when AIMCo purchased notes and shares in Precision....
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 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....
Oil prices have soared from around $18 U.S. a barrel in 1993 to around $97 U.S. today. However, new drilling technologies have made it easier to extract oil from hard-to-reach deposits, such as oil sands and shale rock formations. Rising production from these sources could hurt oil prices in the same way the shale gas boom has depressed natural gas prices....
Basing investment decisions on short-term economic statistics is always a bad idea, but especially today. These short-term stats are subject to all sorts of random influences, including variations in weather, news developments that burn up consumers’ shopping time, timing of TV series finales, not to mention future revisions of the statistics. This alone makes short-term economic statistics a poor investment guide. But today there are two much bigger concerns that are influencing consumer decisions in the U.S. in a random fashion. One is Obamacare. It has rattled the entire U.S. health industry, which makes up around a seventh of the U.S. economy. Many Americans don’t know if they’ll have health insurance next year, or what it will cost. News items come along almost every day that either foretell a collapse of the Obamacare system altogether, or promise a miraculous fix. This hinders long-term consumer spending and planning. The other is the inevitable rise in interest rates that will take place when the U.S. Federal Reserve cuts back on or ends its monthly $85 billion purchases of long-term U.S. government bonds. This coming rise in rates undermines job security and corporate planning and hiring. This helps keep the jobless rate high....