investment

NorthWest HealthCare Properties REIT, $13.36, symbol NWH.UN on Toronto (Units outstanding: 38.5 million; Market cap: $514.4 million; www.nwhp.ca), owns 77 income-producing properties, with a focus on medical office buildings. The real estate investment trust (REIT) is Canada’s largest non-government owner and operator of medical office buildings. In all, NorthWest’s properties contain about 4.6 million square feet of leasable area. The REIT’s properties are located in B.C., Alberta, Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. NorthWest has a 91.3% occupancy rate. The REIT first sold units to the public for $10 each and began trading on Toronto on March 25, 2010....

Most stock markets have risen lately. But as always, they remain subject to unexpected downturns. Even so, we feel the long-term outlook is for higher stock prices. One way to profit from rising markets is to add exchange traded funds (ETFs) that track major stock indexes to your portfolio. ETFs trade on stock exchanges, just like stocks. Prices are quoted in newspaper stock tables and online. You must pay brokerage commissions to buy and sell ETFs, but their low management fees still give them a cost advantage over most mutual funds....

Investors often ask us why we don’t give price targets for the stocks we recommend. After all, stock price targets appear regularly in brokerage and media reports....

RESEARCH IN MOTION LTD., $13.01, Toronto symbol RIM, has launched two smartphones powered by its new BlackBerry 10 software: the BlackBerry Z10 uses a 4.2-inch touchscreen interface while the BlackBerry Q10 features a smaller screen and a physical keyboard. The company will start selling the Z10 in Canada, the U.K. and other countries in the next few days. However, it won’t launch the new phone in the U.S. until March. Investors fear that this delay will further erode the company’s U.S. market share. That’s the main reason why the stock fell 26% this week. RIM will launch the Q10 in April. Unlike other smartphone makers, RIM also sells software that helps businesses and governments encrypt mobile email messages and other sensitive data. The company has used its expertise in this area to create BlackBerry Balance, a feature that lets the new phones easily switch between business and personal modes. BlackBerry Balance should help RIM satisfy its corporate customers’ security needs while letting individuals enjoy personal services, such as music, movies and games....

Pat McKeough responds to many personal questions about investing in stocks and other investment topics from the members of his Inner Circle. 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, an Inner Circle member asked us about an industrial stock that is making its name in several fields, but especially in hydraulic fracturing or “fracking” for the oil and gas industry. As the company’s sales and earnings keep rising, Pat examines the prospects for this stock that has been trading for less than a year. ...

ALLIED PROPERTIES REAL ESTATE INVESTMENT TRUST $34.39 (Toronto symbol AP.UN; Units outstanding: 64.0 million; Market cap: $2.2 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Extra Risk; Dividend yield: 4.0%; www.alliedpropertiesreit.com) owns 126 office buildings, mostly in major Canadian cities....

PRIMARIS RETAIL REAL ESTATE INVESTMENT TRUST $27.02 (Toronto symbol PMZ.UN; Units outstanding: 97.8 million; Market cap: $2.6 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Extra Risk; Dividend yield: 4.7%; www.primarisreit.com) has received a friendly $28-a-share takeover bid.

The offer is from H&R REAL ESTATE INVESTMENT TRUST $23.73 (Toronto symbol HR.UN; Units outstanding: 194.2 million; Market cap: $4.6 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Extra Risk; Dividend yield: 5.7%; www.hr-reit.com).

The H&R bids tops the $26-a-share in-cash hostile takeover bid from a consortium led by Canadian private equity firm Kingsett Capital....

If you stick to dividend-paying stocks, you’ll avoid most of the market’s greatest disasters. That’s because a history of dividends says a good deal about a company’s long-term soundness and stability. Investors generally look to more conservative stocks, like banks and utilities, for income, and to more aggressive stocks for capital gains. Yet there are a number of aggressive stocks that also pay a regular dividend. Some even have dividend yields that are as high—or even higher—than yields on more established companies....

Every Wednesday, we publish our “Investor Toolkit” series on TSI Network. Whether you’re a new or experienced investor, these weekly updates are designed to give you specific advice on successful investing, including the best approach to investing in real estate. Each Investor Toolkit update gives you a fundamental tip and shows you how you can put it into practice right away....

ENCANA CORP. $19.34 (Toronto symbol ECA;Shares outstanding: 735.4 million; Market cap: $14.2billion; TSINetwork Rating: Average; Dividendyield: 4.1%; www.encana.com) is one of NorthAmerica’s largest natural gas producers. Its provenreserves should last over 14 years.

In the three months ended September 30, 2012,Encana’s cash flow per share fell 22.5%, to $1.24from $1.60 a year earlier (all amounts except shareprice and market cap in U.S. dollars).

Natural gas accounts for 95% of Encana’s production.In response to falling gas prices, the companylowered its output during the quarter; this was themain reason for the lower cash flow.
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