Pfizer Inc.

BHP BILLITON LTD. ADRs, $36.69, New York symbol BHP, recently set up its aluminum, manganese, nickel and silver operations, as well as some coal mines, as a new firm called South32. The spinoff leaves BHP focused on four main commodities: iron ore, metallurgical coal, copper and petroleum, at properties in Australia, North America and South America. In its 2015 fiscal year, which ended June 30, 2015, BHP’s revenue fell 21.4%, to $44.6 billion from $56.8 billion in 2014. Earnings dropped 51.6%, to $6.4 billion, or $2.41 per ADR (each American depositary receipt represents two BHP common shares). In 2014, it earned $13.3 billion, or $4.99 per ADR....

PFIZER INC., $36.07, New York symbol PFE, rose 5% this week after reporting better-than-expected results. It also raised its revenue and earnings forecast for all of 2015. Before unusual items, the company earned $3.5 billion in the three months ended June 30, 2015, down 6.5% from $3.8 billion a year earlier. Pfizer spent $6.0 billion on share buybacks during the first half of 2015. Due to fewer shares outstanding, earnings per share fell 3.4%, to $0.56 from $0.58, though that still beat the consensus forecast of $0.52. Revenue declined 7.2%, to $11.9 billion from $12.8 billion, but that was also ahead of the consensus forecast of $11.4 billion. Without the negative impact of currency rates, revenue rose 1%....

Our advice is keep it simple when you invest in ETFs. Three “plain vanilla” ETFs give you an efficient way of investing in U.S. stocks.

SPDR S&P 500 ETF $204.53 (New York symbol SPY; buy or sell through brokers; www.spdrs.com) holds the stocks in the S&P 500 Index, which consists of 500 major U.S. companies that are chosen based on their market cap, liquidity and industry group.

The index’s highest-weighted stocks are Apple, ExxonMobil, Microsoft, Procter & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson, J.P. Morgan Chase, Pfizer, General Electric, Berkshire Hathaway and Wells Fargo & Co. The fund’s MER is just 0.10% and it yields 2.0%.

If you want exposure to the S&P 500 Index, the SPDR S&P 500 ETF is a buy.

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Exchange traded funds (ETFs) are set up to mirror the performance of a stock market index or sub-index. They hold a more or less fixed selection of securities that represent the holdings that go into the calculation of the index or sub-index. ETFs trade on stock exchanges, just like stocks. That’s different from mutual funds, which you can only buy at the end of the day at a price that reflects the fund’s value at the close of trading. Prices of ETFs are quoted in newspaper stock tables and online. You pay brokerage commissions to buy and sell them, but their low management fees give them a cost advantage over most mutual funds....

APPLE INC., $128.95, Nasdaq symbol AAPL, sold 61.2 million iPhones in its latest quarter, up 39.9% from 43.7 million a year earlier. That’s largely due to strong demand in developing countries. For example, Apple sold more iPhones in China (including Hong Kong and Taiwan) than in the U.S. As a result, the company’s earnings jumped 32.7% in its fiscal 2015 second quarter, which ended March 28, 2015, to $13.6 billion from $10.2 billion a year earlier. Per-share profits gained 40.4%, to $2.33 from $1.66, on fewer shares outstanding. That easily beat the consensus estimate of $2.17. Sales rose 27.1%, to $58.0 billion from $45.6 billion, also beating the consensus forecast of $56.1 billion....

GlaxoSmithKline plc (ADR), $46.85, symbol GSK on New York (ADRs outstanding: 2.4 billion; Market cap: $113.2 billion; www.gsk.com), is a U.K.-based global health care company that develops, makes and sells products in three main markets: pharmaceuticals, vaccines and consumer. It has about 98,000 employees. In the three months ended December 31, 2014, Glaxo’s sales fell 10.4%, to 6.19 billion pounds ($9.39 billion U.S.) from 6.91 billion pounds. Earnings per share declined 5.9%, to 27.3 pence ($0.41 U.S.) from 29.0 pence. The drop mainly resulted from drugs losing their patent protection and facing generic competition. Examples include Valtrex (herpes), Imitrex (migraines), Requip (Parkinson’s disease), Combivir (HIV) and Epivir (antiviral)....

SPDR S&P 500 ETF $206.43 (New York symbol SPY; buy or sell through brokers; www.spdrs.com) holds the stocks in the S&P 500 Index, which consists of 500 major U.S. companies that are chosen based on their market cap, liquidity and industry group.

The index’s highest-weighted stocks are Apple, ExxonMobil, Microsoft, Procter & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson, J.P. Morgan Chase, Pfizer, General Electric, Berkshire Hathaway and Wells Fargo & Co. The fund’s expenses are just 0.10% of its assets.

If you want exposure to the S&P 500 Index, the SPDR S&P 500 ETF is a buy.

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Exchange traded funds (ETFs) are set up to mirror the performance of a stock market index or sub-index. They hold a more or less fixed selection of securities that represent the holdings that go into the calculation of the index or sub-index. ETFs trade on stock exchanges, just like stocks. That’s different from mutual funds, which you can only buy at the end of the day at a price that reflects the fund’s value at the close of trading. Prices of ETFs are quoted in newspaper stock tables and online. You pay brokerage commissions to buy and sell them, but their low management fees give them a cost advantage over most mutual funds....

PFIZER INC. $35 (New York symbol PFE; Income Portfolio, Manufacturing & Industry sector; Shares outstanding: 6.3 billion; Market cap: $220.5 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 4.4; Dividend yield: 3.2%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.pfizer.com) has received approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for new breast cancer drug palbociclib. Pfizer will market this treatment under the Ibrance brand. Ibrance will probably contribute $4 billion to the company’s annual revenue by 2020; last year, Pfizer’s revenue was $49.6 billion. The company spends a high 17% of its revenue on research. This hurts its short-term earnings but lets it develop innovative drugs like Ibrance. New treatments like these help Pfizer offset sales of other drugs that have lost their patent protection, like Lipitor (cholesterol) and Celebrex (arthritis)....