investment

I’d say a product walking out of the store is a good reason for further study, but don’t buy blind. Because there might have been a temporary

There’s no limit to the types of financial questions members of my Inner Circle can ask me and my team of investment experts. Aside from questions on specific investments like stocks and exchange-traded funds, members ask us many other questions about how they should be investing their money. One very interesting question came from a member who asked whether there is any advantage to investing money in a prepaid funeral. So you can get a sense of how our Inner Circle works, I’d like to share this question, and our answer, with you. Q: At 57 years old, it seems reasonable to me to lock in funeral costs at today’s prices and pay for it now. This makes even more sense since I can reasonably expect to live another 25 years. Funeral costs for any level of funeral have doubled every 10 years over the past 30 years, according to the brochure. Does this make sense to you?...

Some investors rely on technical analysis (basically, chart reading) when picking stocks. Relying on charts seems simpler than delving into a company’s fundamentals.

SHAWCOR LTD. $30 (Toronto symbol SCL.A; Aggressive Growth Portfolio, Manufacturing & Industry sector; Shares outstanding: 70.6 million; Market cap: $2.1 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 1.9; Dividend yield: 1.1%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.shawcor.com) gets 88% of its revenue by making sealants and coatings that keep oil and gas pipelines from rusting. It gets the remaining 12% by making electrical wire and protective sheaths.

ShawCor has won over $800 million of new contracts since October 2011. That includes a $400-million U.S. deal to coat an undersea natural gas pipeline in western Australia.

These new orders pushed up the company’s revenue by 11.9% in 2011, to $1.2 billion from $1.0 billion in 2010. ShawCor gets two-thirds of its revenue from outside Canada, and the high Canadian dollar cut the contribution of its overseas operations by $22.4 million.

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BANK OF NOVA SCOTIA $55 (Toronto symbol BNS; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Finance sector; Shares outstanding: 1.1 billion; Market cap: $60.5 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 2.2; Dividend yield: 4.0%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.scotiabank.com) is Canada’s third-largest bank, with assets of $637.1 billion.

During the financial crisis, the bank’s revenue fell 4.9%, from $12.5 billion in 2007 to $11.9 billion in 2008 (fiscal years end October 31). As the crisis passed, revenue rebounded by 45.6%, to $17.3 billion, in 2011.

Earnings fell 23.9%, from $4.01 a share (or a total of $4.0 billion) in 2007 to $3.05 a share (or $3.0 billion) in 2008. That’s largely because the bank’s loan-loss provisions rose as some of its clients fell behind on their payments. Writedowns of securities also contributed to the drop. However, earnings recovered to $3.31 a share (or $3.4 billion) in 2009, and reached $4.62 a share (or $5.0 billion) in 2011.

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Pat McKeough responds to many personal questions on specific 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. Last week, an Inner Circle member, pleased with his investment in one U.S. stock, wanted to know if it would continue to pay off. This company uses personal sales representatives to sell its skin care and nutritional products and gets most of its sales in foreign markets like China....

CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILWAY LTD., $76.45, Toronto symbol CP, reported higher-than-expected earnings this week. In the three months ended March 31, 2012, the company’s earnings soared 317.6%, to $142.0 million from $34.0 million a year earlier. Earnings per share rose 310.0%, to $0.82 from $0.20, on more shares outstanding. That beat the consensus estimate of $0.75 a share. Severe winter weather and avalanches in B.C. delayed the company’s trains and depressed the year-earlier results. This was the main reason for the earnings jump....

This is the latest in a series of video interviews in which Pat McKeough will give his advice on a variety of topics. Some will deal with his overall investment philosophy, others on specific investment strategies and still others will be comments on events that are affecting the markets and the economy. In this session, Pat responds to a question about those analysts who are making grim predictions of a looming stock market crash. He introduces a note of calm, pointing out that when it comes to real estate investments, just because a boom cools down doesn’t mean it’s going to go bust.
Should You Worry About a Real Estate Crash?...

3 tips for lowering risk when you’re investing in stocks have long been a part of the advice we give in our investment services and newsletters.

Uranium Participation Corporation, $5.56, symbol U on Toronto (Shares outstanding: 106.4 million; Market cap: $591.6 million; www.uraniumparticipation.com), is a holding company that was created to invest almost all of its assets in uranium oxide (U3O8). Denison Mines (symbol DML on Toronto) manages Uranium Participation Corporation. The company began trading in May 2005 after it issued 20 million units at $5 each to raise $100 million. Each unit consisted of one common share of Uranium Participation Corporation and one-quarter of one warrant. Each whole warrant entitled the holder to acquire one common share at $6.25 per share until May 2007. Uranium prices reached an all-time high of $136 U.S. a pound in 2007 on fears of shortages. As a result, shares of Uranium Participation Corporation hit an all-time high of almost $19. However, the shortages never materialized. Uranium prices steadily declined to a low of $40 a pound in 2009, then rebounded to $64 in February 2011. Uranium Participation Corporation’s shares hit a low near $5 in the fall of 2008. Since then, they have mainly stayed between $6 and $9.50....