mckeough

Investment Counsellor
Every Thursday we bring you our best U.S. stock picks. You get our specific recommendation on the stocks we profile, with a full explanation of how we arrived at our opinion. You will read about stocks making moves you should know about, most often from coverage in our newsletter on U.S. investing, Wall Street Stock Forecaster.

This company provides vital services in the investment industry. It’s a market leader with a well-established brand, which makes it hard for competitors to lure away its customers.

BROADRIDGE FINANCIAL SERVICES INC. (New York symbol BR; www.broadridge.com)serves the investment industry in three main areas: investor communications, securities processing and transaction clearing. The company processes 85% of all proxy votes in the U.S.

Without one-time items, Broadridge earned $0.30 a share in its fiscal 2015 first quarter, which ended September 30, 2014. That’s down 23.1% from $0.39 a year earlier. The decline came from higher compensation, plus expanded sales and marketing costs, related to new business.

Overall revenue gained 1.9%, to $555.8 million from $545.2 million. Revenue from contracts that pay recurring fees rose 4% and accounted for two-thirds of the total. The remaining third comes from one-time events, such as notifications of special shareholder meetings and distributing information when mutual funds change managers.

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Income Investing
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 tips and stock market advice. Each Investor Toolkit update gives you a fundamental piece of investment advice, and shows you how you can put it into practice right away. Today’s tip: “While stock options frequently make a lot of money for brokers, but most investors are more likely to lose with options. Here are seven ways they can cost you money.”...
Income Investing
Every Tuesday we bring you “Best Canadian Stocks.” You get our specific recommendation on the stocks we profile, with a full explanation of how we arrived at our opinion. You’ll read about stocks making moves you should know about, from coverage in one of our three newsletters featuring Canadian stocks—The Successful Investor, Stock Pickers Digest and Canadian Wealth Advisor.

BROOKFIELD RENEWABLE ENERGY PARTNERS L.P. (Toronto symbol BEP.UN; www.brookfieldrenewable.com) owns 196 hydroelectric generating stations, 11 wind farms and two natural-gas-fired plants. In all, it has 6,700 megawatts of generating capacity.

Roughly 31% of that capacity is in Canada, with another 52% in the U.S. and 17% in Brazil.

In the quarter ended September 30, 2014, Brookfield’s cash flow per share fell 46.3%, to $0.22 from $0.41 a year earlier. That’s because below-normal rainfall slowed the company’s hydroelectric production. However, rainfall averages out over time: in the nine months ended September 30, cash flow per share fell just 4.1%, to $1.65 from $1.72....
Shipping Terminal
Every Monday we feature “A Stock to Sell” as our daily post. With every stock we recommend as a sell, we give you a full explanation of why we advise against investing in the stock at this time. Westshore Terminals Investment Corp. (symbol WTE on Toronto; www.westshore.com) owns a coal storage and loading terminal at Roberts Bank, B.C., about 30 kilometres south of Vancouver. The terminal started up in 1970....
Investment Advice
Pat McKeough responds to many requests from members of his Inner Circle for specific advice on stock investment 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 a report on one of the stocks profiled in these Q&A sessions. We give you Pat’s buy-hold-sell recommendation as well as his analysis of the stock. This is part of the specific buy, hold and sell advice we offer you in our daily posts. Every week you get “A Stock to Sell” on Monday, “Best Canadian Stocks” on Tuesday, and “Our Top U.S. Stocks” on Thursday.

This week an Inner Circle member asked us about the biggest retailer of natural and organic foods in the U.S. Whole Foods is the clear leader in its niche market and has expanded beyond the United States with nine stores in Canada and nine in the U.K. Pat assesses the company’s success in tapping into the growing interest in natural foods, its ambitious expansion plans and the state of its balance sheet. He also looks at its ability to improve efficiency and keep prices in line as it attempts to capture a growing share of the increasingly health-conscious baby boom generation.

Q: Hi, Pat. Thanks for your many years of great advice. Could you please give me your thoughts on Whole Foods?

A: Whole Foods Market Inc. (symbol WFM on Nasdaq; www.wholefoodsmarket.com), is the largest retailer of natural and organic foods in the U.S. The company was founded in Austin, Texas, in 1980, when three local businessmen decided the natural food industry was ready for a supermarket format.

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Commodity Investments
Every Thursday we bring you our best U.S. stock picks. You get our specific recommendation on the stocks we profile, with a full explanation of how we arrived at our opinion. You will read about stocks making moves you should know about, most often from coverage in our newsletter on U.S. investing, Wall Street Stock Forecaster. Today’s stock is covered in our advisory on more aggressive investing, Stock Pickers Digest.

DEVON ENERGY CORP. (New York symbol DVN; www.dvn.com) is one of the largest U.S.-based oil and natural gas explorers and producers. Its production mix is 48% gas and 52% oil.

In 2011, Devon sold all of its international and Gulf of Mexico properties, which it saw as risky and expensive to develop.

The company narrowed its focus even further with the July 2014 sale of some of its properties to Linn Energy for $2.3 billion. The sale included Devon’s holdings in the Rockies, the onshore Gulf Coast and the Mid-Continent region (which includes Oklahoma, Kansas and Texas).

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Stock Investing
Every Tuesday we bring you “Best Canadian Stocks.” You get our specific recommendation on the stocks we profile, with a full explanation of how we arrived at our opinion. You’ll read about stocks making moves you should know about, from coverage in one of our three newsletters featuring Canadian stocks—The Successful Investor, Stock Pickers Digest and Canadian Wealth Advisor.

DOREL INDUSTRIES (Toronto symbol DII.B; www.dorel.com) makes a range of items, including ready-to-assemble home and office furniture; juvenile products, such as car seats, strollers, high chairs, toddler beds and cribs; and recreational goods, mainly bicycles.

In the three months ended June 30, 2014, Dorel’s sales rose 9.2%, to $655.8 million from $600.4 million a year earlier (all figures except share price and market cap in U.S. dollars). Sales rose 20.2% at the recreational segment and 3.2% at the juvenile products division. Home furnishing sales fell slightly.

Earnings per share rose 14.6%, to $0.47 from $0.41. Sales of its highly profitable Cannondale and Pacific Cycle premium bikes remain strong. That offset a small loss from Dorel’s 70% stake in Caloi, which it bought for an undisclosed amount last year.

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Surveillance
Every Monday we feature “A Stock to Sell” as our daily post. With every stock we recommend as a sell, we give you a full explanation of why we advise against investing in the stock at this time. Avigilon Corp., (symbol AVO on Toronto; www.avigilon.com), designs, makes and sells high-definition surveillance systems. Users can view the images from this equipment on computers, tablets and smartphones....
Stock Investing
Pat McKeough responds to many requests from members of his Inner Circle for specific advice on the Canadian stock market and other investments 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 a report on one of the stocks profiled in these Q&A sessions. We give you Pat’s buy-hold-sell recommendation as well as his analysis of the stock. This is part of the specific buy, hold and sell advice we offer you in our daily posts. Every week you get “A Stock to Sell” on Monday, “Best Canadian Stocks” on Tuesday, and “Our Top U.S. Stocks” on Thursday. Recently we received a question from an Inner Circle member about a Canadian firm that specializes in mortgages. First National Financial is the largest originator of mortgages outside the banks, with almost $80 billion under administration. Pat examines the strategies by which the company sells and securitizes its mortgages in order to free up capital and looks at the effect these strategies have on the company’s short- and long-term profit margins. Q: Dear Pat: What are your thoughts on First National Financial Corp.? Thanks....
Investment counsellor
Every Tuesday we bring you “Best Canadian Stocks.” You get our specific recommendation on the stocks we profile, with a full explanation of how we arrived at our opinion. You’ll read about stocks making moves you should know about, from coverage in one of our three newsletters featuring Canadian stocks—The Successful Investor, Stock Pickers Digest and Canadian Wealth Advisor.

Torstar has struggled in the past few years as more people get their news from the Internet, rather than newspapers. But the company is doing a good job of responding to its challenges, which should let it improve its earnings and maintain its current payouts.

TORSTAR CORP. (Toronto symbol TS.B; www.torstar.com) publishes the Toronto Star, Canada’s largest daily newspaper by circulation. It also publishes three other daily papers and over 100 weeklies.

The slow economy continues to hurt advertising sales at Torstar’s newspapers. In the quarter ended June 30, 2014, the company’s revenue fell 7.4%, to $225.6 million from $243.6 million a year earlier.

Earnings jumped 44.2%, to $18.1 million, or $0.23 a share, from $12.6 million, or $0.16 a share. However, if you disregard restructuring costs and other unusual items, earnings per share fell 4.8%, to $0.20 from $0.21.

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