oil and gas

Trican Well Service, $0.51, symbol TCW on Toronto (Shares outstanding: 148.9 million; Market cap: $70.7 million; www.tricanwellservice.com), provides specialized products, equipment and services that are used during the exploration, drilling and development of oil and gas reserves. Calgary-based Trican operates in Canada, the U.S., Russia, Kazakhstan, Colombia, Saudi Arabia and Norway. Falling oil and gas prices have cut drilling activity in Canada and the U.S. by about 50% in the past year. That lowered Trican’s revenue by 52.7% in the third quarter of 2015, to $325.5 million from $688.5 million a year earlier. Excluding one-time items, it lost $53.6 million, or $0.36 a share, compared to a profit of $36.2 million, or $0.24 a share....

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We recommend that you limit aggressive holdings to 30% of your overall portfolio (10% for more conservative investors). That’s especially true in light of the recent stock market volatility. We like the long-term outlook for these five aggressive stocks. However, only four are buys right now. RIOCAN REAL ESTATE INVESTMENT TRUST $23 (Toronto symbol REI.UN; Aggressive Growth Portfolio, Manufacturing & Industry sector; Units outstanding: 320.4 million; Market cap: $7.4 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 5.7; Dividend yield: 6.1%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.riocan.com) owns all or part of 305 shopping centres in Canada, including 16 under development....

Enbridge and TransCanada are facing strong opposition to their big pipeline proposals, so they’re focusing on smaller projects instead. This will give both companies more cash for dividends, but we feel TransCanada is the better buy right now. ENBRIDGE INC. $43 (Toronto symbol ENB; Conservative Growth and Income Portfolios, Utilities sector; Shares outstanding: 867.6 million; Market cap: $37.3 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 1.1; Dividend yield: 4.9%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.enbridge.com) received regulatory approval for its $7.9-billion Northern Gateway pipeline in June 2014. This project would pump crude from Alberta to Kitimat, B.C. From there, tankers would ship it to customers in Asia. However, Ottawa recently banned oil tankers off the northern B.C. coast. Meanwhile, Enbridge is making progress on its ambitious $38-billion growth plan, which includes expanding its oil and gas pipelines and wind farms. The company will finish building these projects between 2016 and 2019....

CANADIAN IMPERIAL BANK OF COMMERCE $87 (Toronto symbol CM; Conservative Growth and Income Portfolios, Finance sector; Shares outstanding: 397.3 million; Market cap: $34.6 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 2.7; Dividend yield: 5.3%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.cibc.com) is Canada’s fifth-largest bank, with total assets of $463.3 billion. CIBC has built up its Canadian banking operations in the past few years, and this business now supplies 62% of its earnings. It gets a further 25% from its capital markets division, which provides brokerage and underwriting services in Canada, the U.S. and other countries. The remaining 13% comes from its wealth management division, which has $304.8 billion in assets under administration and management.

Steady revenue and earnings gains

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Stock market cycles occur repeatedly—and there are any number of theories as to which sectors will outperform at any given short term stage of the cycle....

Chevron dividend- Chevron’s oil gas earnings have dropped dramatically with energy prices, but its refineries new gas projects are keeping its dividend safe

In next week’s Successful Investor Hotline, we’ll reveal our top stock picks for 2016. Don’t miss this unique opportunity to profit. TRANSCANADA CORP., $43.47, Toronto symbol TRP, has launched two legal challenges to the U.S. government’s recent decision to block its proposed Keystone XL pipeline, which would have pumped crude oil from Alberta to the U.S. Gulf Coast. The company spent $4.3 billion on Keystone XL and now expects to write off between $2.5 billion and $2.9 billion of this total. To put these figures in context, TransCanada’s market cap (or the value of all outstanding shares) is $30.8 billion....

ENCANA $6.96 (Toronto symbol ECA; Shares outstanding: 840.8 million; Market cap: $6.2 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Average; Divd. yield: 1.2%; www.encana.com) continues to take steps to conserve cash while it waits for oil and gas prices to recover. Encana has cut its quarterly payout by 78.6%, to $0.015 a share from $0.07 (all amounts except share price in U.S. dollars). The stock now yields 1.2%. This should save the company $185 million a year. As well, Encana will spend $1.5 billion to $1.7 billion to expand and upgrade its properties in 2016, down about $600 million from 2015....

ARC RESOURCES $16.05 (Toronto symbol ARX; Shares outstanding: 345.1 million; Market cap: $5.7 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Speculative; Dividend yield: 7.5%; www.arcresources.com) produces oil and natural gas in Western Canada. Its average daily output of 107,261 barrels of oil equivalent is 66% gas and 34% oil. In the three months ended September 30, 2015, ARC’s cash flow per share dropped 42.7%, to $0.51 from $0.89 a year earlier. Production fell 7.2%, and its realized oil price fell 43.8%. Gas prices declined 32.1%. Like many oil and gas producers, ARC is cutting exploration and development spending. In 2016, it will devote $550.0 million to this purpose. That’s equal to what it spent in 2015 but down sharply from $945.5 million in 2014....