manulife financial
Toronto symbol MFC, sells life and other forms of insurance, as well as mutual funds and investment management services. It operates in 19 countries and territories worldwide.
BMO Dividend and RBC Canadian Dividend hold mostly high-quality stocks. Even high-quality stocks sometimes run into trouble and go through lengthy struggles, just like lesser investments. Eventually, though, most solve their problems and go on to thrive anew. Both funds hold a high proportion of their assets in financial services stocks. However, if you must focus on something, finance is a relatively stable sector, at least in Canada. If you do invest in these funds, be sure to adjust the rest of your portfolio so these funds won’t overly concentrate your holdings in the financial sector....
TRIMARK CANADIAN FUND $18.44 (CWA Rating: Aggressive) (AIM Funds Management Inc., 5140 Yonge Street, Suite 900, Toronto, Ontario M2N 6X7. 1-800-631- 7008; Website: www.aimfunds.ca. Buy or sell through brokers.) uses a bottom-up stock-picking style (using fundamentals such as earnings, cash flow and low debt) that looks at valuation measures and then tries to pick stocks selling at a discount to long-term value. The fund’s 10 largest holdings are Thomson Reuters Corp., TD Bank, Bank of Nova Scotia, MacDonald Dettwiler, Time Warner, Willis Group Holdings, Alimentation Couche-Tard, Power Corporation, Toromont Industries and Molex Inc. The fund’s portfolio breaks down by sector as follows: Financials, 26.3%; Consumer discretionary, 20.1%; Information technology, 10.8%; Materials, 9.8%; Energy, 4.2%; and Industrials, 7.8%....
ISHARES CDN LARGECAP 60 INDEX FUND $83.94 (Toronto symbol XIU; buy or sell through a broker) (formerly called iUnits S&P/TSX 60 Index Participation Fund) is a good low-fee way to buy the top stocks on the TSX. The units hold a basket of stocks that represent the S&P/TSX 60 Index. The index is made up of the 60 largest and most heavily traded stocks on the TSX. Expenses on the units are just 0.17% of assets. Most of the 60 stocks in the index are good quality companies. However, to meet the requirement that all sectors are represented, the index holds a few firms we wouldn’t include, such as Biovail Corp. The index’s top holdings are: Potash Corporation, 6.2%; EnCana Corporation, 5.9%; Royal Bank, 5.2%; Research in Motion, 5.0%; Suncor Energy, 4.6%; Canadian Natural Resources, 4.6%; Manulife Financial, 4.5%; TD Bank, 4.4%; Bank of Nova Scotia, 3.9%; Barrick Gold, 3.4%; Goldcorp, 2.8%; BCE Inc., 2.4%; Petro-Canada, 2.3%; Canadian Oil Sands Trust, 2.2%; and Sun Life Financial, 2.0%. The shares trade on the TSX, just like stocks. Prices are quoted daily in newspaper stock tables. You’ll have to pay brokerage commissions to buy and sell the units, although you’ll quickly make that back by paying lower management fees....
We still think high-quality mutual funds with a long-term focus will beat indexes over long periods. If funds invest as we advise — sticking with well-established companies and spreading their assets out across the five main economic sectors — they will tend to lose a lot less than the market indexes in periods when the indexes fall sharply. That’s because big market slides are particularly hard on the hottest, most popular stocks of the preceding market rise, and investing as we do leads you to avoid excessive investment in the hot stocks. Index funds, in contrast, do tend to load up on the hottest, most popular stocks as they rise. That’s because, as they rise, these stocks make up a rising proportion of the index. The most recent example is Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan., which now has the highest market cap on the Toronto exchange on the strength of soaring fertilizer and agriculture prices....
CIBC CANADIAN EQUITY FUND $27.83 (CWA Rating: Conservative) (CIBC Securities, 5140 Yonge Street, Suite 900, Toronto, Ontario M2N 6X7. 1-800-631-7008; Website: www.cibc.com. No load — deal directly with the company.) uses a “bottom-up” approach (using fundamentals such as earnings, cash flow and low debt) to identify companies that trade at reasonable valuations and also have growth potential. The $560.8 million fund’s top holdings are EnCana, Manulife Financial, Research in Motion, Bank of Nova Scotia, TD Bank, Teck Cominco, Suncor Energy, Canadian Natural Resources and Petro-Canada. The fund’s MER is 2.22%. CIBC Canadian Equity holds 40.3% of its portfolio in Resource sector stocks and 31.5% in Financial services stocks....
BMO EQUITY FUND $33.80 (BMO Mutual Funds, 77 King Street West, Suite 4200, Royal Trust Tower, Toronto, Ont., M5K 1J5, 1-800-665-7700; Web site: www.bmo.com. No load — deal directly with the bank) (CWA Rating: Conservative) generally invests mostly in ‘blue-chip” Canadian companies. These stocks are selected based on the manager’s outlook for the industry they operate in, the earnings record of each company, the strength of management and the potential for growth. BMO Equity Fund’s 10 largest holdings are Potash Corp., Manulife Financial, EnCana Corporation, Suncor Energy, Royal Bank of Canada, TD Bank, Canadian Natural Resources, Bank of Nova Scotia, Sun Life Financial and Research in Motion. The $2.1 billion fund currently holds 43.6% of its portfolio in the Resources sector. Its next-largest holding is Financial services at 24.4%....
The performance of these five large funds run by each of Canada’s big-five banks has differed widely. That’s because they typically have high weightings in certain sectors — most recently Financial services and Resources stocks. Some, like TD Canadian Equity have benefited from a focus on Resources. Others, like CIBC Canadian Equity were hurt by a concentration in Finance shares. We still feel that the best way to profit in the stock market is to stick with high-quality, well-established companies, and to diversify among the five sectors, and within each sector. However, you won’t go too far wrong with these five funds. They stick with high-quality issues with sound fundamentals, so their concentrations in certain sectors don’t add a lot of risk over the long term. Each has its quirks, but overall they are well positioned for low-risk returns....
MANULIFE FINANCIAL $39.37 (Toronto symbol MFC; SI Rating: Above-average) sells life and other forms of insurance, as well as mutual funds and investment management services. It operates in 19 countries and territories worldwide. Manulife has assets under administration of $396.3 billion....
Portfolio diversification is an important strategy for cutting risk. We like all five big Canadian banks. But we still think adding non-bank stocks like these three insurance companies to your finance-sector holdings is a good idea for portfolio diversification: MANULIFE FINANCIAL $39.37 (Toronto symbol MFC; SI Rating: Above-average) sells life and other forms of insurance, as well as mutual funds and investment management services. It operates in 19 countries and territories worldwide. Manulife has assets under administration of $396.3 billion. Its geographic diversification in the U.S. and Asia, including China, offers growth prospects. The shares yield 2.2%. Manulife is a buy....
IVY CANADIAN FUND $26.71 (CWA Rating: Conservative) invests in high-quality, large capitalization stocks. The $3.0 billion fund’s top holdings include Shoppers Drug Mart, TD Bank, Manulife Financial, Canadian National Railway, Becton Dickinson & Co., Enbridge, McDonald’s Corp., Thomson Corporation, Diageo plc and Walgreen Co. Ivy Canadian’s breakdown by industry is: Consumer staples, 29.3%; Financials, 17.5%; Consumer discretionary, 15.2%; Industrials, 11.7%; Health care, 6.6%; Energy, 5.6%; Information technology, 4.0%; and Utilities, 4.0%....