option

Attractive opportunities for short selling stocks come along from time to time, but it’s a hard way to make money. That’s because short sellers face a number of unique disadvantages that don’t apply to buyers. (See below for three risks to be aware of if you’re considering short selling stocks as an investment strategy.) ...

The results are in and they couldn’t be clearer: The Successful Investor is Canada’s top investment advisory. That’s according to a recent analysis by the U.S.-based Hulbert Financial Digest, which is generally thought of as the bible of investment newsletter performance measurement. According to Hulbert, The Successful Investor outperformed all other Canadian newsletters over the past 5 years — and ranked fifth among all 140 newsletters that Hulbert tracks. Hulbert has been following The Successful Investor since 2002....

The Coca-Cola Company, $54.91, symbol KO on New York (Shares outstanding: 2.3 billion; Market cap: $126.6 billion), is the world’s largest beverage company. It distributes its major brands (including Coca-Cola, diet Coke, Sprite, Barq’s, Mr. PiBB, Fanta, Fresca, Dasani, Evian, Danone, Powerade and Minute Maid) through bottlers around the world. Coke gets roughly 75% of its sales from outside of North America. In the three months ended December 31, 2009, Coke’s revenue rose 5.3%, to $7.5 billion from $7.1 billion a year earlier. Earnings rose 54.7%, to $1.5 billion, or $0.66 a share, from $995 million, or $0.43 a share. Worldwide sales volumes rose 5%, led by 6% growth outside of North America. That offset 1% sales in North America. Coke is now buying the North American operations of its largest bottler, Coca-Cola Enterprises, for $12 billion. The move follows rival PepsiCo’s $7.8-billion purchase of its two largest North American bottlers. The purchase will let Coke cut costs. It will also give it more control over its North American distribution channels....

Terrane Metals Corp. $1.06, symbol TRX on Toronto (Shares outstanding: 128 million; Market cap: $135.7 million), is Vancouver-based exploration company that is focused on building a mine at its Mount Milligan copper/gold project in British Columbia. It is also developing its Berg copper/molybdenum/silver project. The Mount Milligan deposit is located in the Omenica mining division, northwest of Prince George. The Berg project is also in north central B.C., just 22 kilometres northwest of Imperial Metals’ open-pit Huckleberry copper/molybdenum/ silver mine. Terrane’s other projects include the Maze Lake project in Nunavut, where the company is in the early stages of exploring for gold, and Howard’s Pass in the eastern Yukon, where Terrane is exploring for zinc, lead and silver. Placer Dome owned the Mount Milligan property until 2006, when the company was taken over by Barrick Gold. That’s when Terrane bought the property. From 1984 to 2004, Placer Dome completed over 200,000 metres of drilling through 900 drill holes to define a copper/gold resource. In October 2009, Terrane completed a feasibility-update study on Mount Milligan. In December 2009, the federal government approved the project’s environmental assessment....

BANK OF NOVA SCOTIA, $49.49, Toronto symbol BNS, fell 2% this week, even though it reported better-than-expected quarterly earnings. In its first quarter, which ended January 31, 2010, the bank earned $988 million. That’s up 17.3% from $842 million a year earlier. Earnings per share rose 13.8%, to $0.91 from $0.80, on more shares outstanding. That beat the consensus earnings estimate of $0.88 a share. Most of the gains came from the bank’s Canadian retail-banking operations, where earnings rose 27.9%. That’s mainly because low interest rates continue to fuel strong demand for home mortgages and personal loans. As well, improving financial markets have made it easier for companies to issue new shares and debt securities. That pushed up earnings at the bank’s capital-markets division by 27.0%....

In a recent TSI Network poll, we asked site visitors whether if trust the advice they get from their stock broker. Aside from a yes or no option, we gave visitors a third choice: “I trade online through a discount broker.” Seventy-five percent of the poll’s respondents selected this answer. You can see the full results of this poll, and a full archive of previous polls, on TSI Network. Just click the “Poll Archive” button below the main banner on the site’s home page. ...

Dividend 15 Split Corp., $11.69, symbol DFN on Toronto (Shares outstanding: 11.2 million; Market cap: $131.2 million), is a split-share investment corporation that holds shares of 15 companies: BCE Inc., CI Financial Corporation, AGF Management, TransAlta Corporation, SunLife Financial, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, TransCanada Corporation, Manulife Financial, TD Bank, TMX Group, Royal Bank of Canada, Loblaw, Bank of Montreal, Telus Corporation and Enbridge. The company can also invest up to 15% of its portfolio in other equity issues. Dividend 15 Split Corp. has two share classes: Dividend 15 Split Corp. capital shares (Toronto symbol DFN), and Dividend 15 Split Corp. preferred shares (Toronto symbol DFN.PR.A)....

TRANSALTA CORP. $22.52 (Toronto symbol TA; Shares outstanding: 218.4 million; Market cap: $4.9 billion; SI Rating: Average; Dividend yield: 5.2%) is expanding its Kent Hills wind farm in New Brunswick. That’s because it won a 25-year power contract from the provincially owned electrical utility. The company will increase Kent Hills’ capacity to 150 megawatts from 96 megawatts in partnership with Natural Forces Technologies Inc., a local wind-power developer. Natural Forces owns 17% of Kent Hills, and will have an option to buy an additional 17% by the end of 2010, when the partners expect to finish the expansion. At that point, TransAlta will have 1,000 megawatts of wind-power generating capacity. The 18-turbine project will cost roughly $100 million. TransAlta earned $66 million, or $0.34 a share, in the third quarter of 2009....

TRANSALTA CORP. $24 (Toronto symbol TA; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Utilities sector; Shares outstanding: 198.0 million; Market cap: $4.8 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 1.7; Dividend yield: 4.8%; SI Rating: Average) is expanding its Kent Hills wind farm in New Brunswick. That’s because it won a 25-year power contract from the provincially owned electrical utility. The company will expand Kent Hills’ capacity to 150 megawatts from 96 megawatts in partnership with Natural Forces Technologies Inc. (NFT), a local wind-power developer. NFT owns 17% of Kent Hills, and will have an option to buy an additional 17% by the end of 2010, when the partners expect to finish the expansion. The project will cost roughly $100 million. TransAlta earned $66 million, or $0.34 a share, in the third quarter of 2009....

Members of our Inner Circle service ask us a lot of very interesting questions. For example, one member was buying a new home at what he considered to be an extremely attractive price. However, he had not yet sold his current home. He worried about the risk of owning two homes, even for a few months. He wanted to hedge against a drop in the value of his existing home in the period before it sold. To hedge against this Canadian real estate investing risk, his broker suggested that he buy some put options on Bank of Montreal stock....