price to sales ratio

STATE STREET CORP. $72 (New York symbol STT; Aggressive Growth Portfolio, Finance sector; Shares outstanding: 425.0 million; Market cap: $30.6 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 3.2; Dividend yield: 1.7%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www. statestreet.com) sells accounting and administrative services to large institutional investors, such as mutual funds and pension plans. The company’s fee income rises and falls with the value of the securities it manages. Thanks to improving stock markets and new contracts, earnings rose 5.6% in the quarter ended June 30, 2014, to $603 million from $571 million a year earlier. State Street spent $410 million on share buybacks in the latest quarter. As a result, earnings per share gained 12.1%, to $1.39 from $1.24. Revenue rose 3.7%, to $2.7 billion from $2.6 billion....

VERIZON COMMUNICATIONS INC. $52 (New York symbol VZ, Conservative Growth and Income Portfolios, Utilities sector; Shares outstanding: 4.1 billion; Market cap: $213.2 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 1.3; Dividend yield: 4.1%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.verizon.com) recently completed its $130-billion purchase of the 45% of Verizon Wireless that it didn’t already own from U.K.-based Vodafone Group. The company now owns 100% of Verizon Wireless, which sells wireless services to 104.6 million subscribers in the U.S. Wireless now supplies 68% of Verizon’s revenue. The remaining 32% comes from its 20.4 million regular phone customers and 16.2 million high-speed Internet and digital TV subscribers. Thanks mainly to the Verizon Wireless purchase, the company’s earnings per share jumped 24.7% in the three months ended June 30, 2014, to $0.91 from $0.73 a year earlier. Revenue gained 5.7%, to $31.5 billion from $29.8 billion. The company should earn $3.54 a share in 2014, and the stock trades at 14.7 times that forecast. The $2.12 dividend yields 4.1%....

BHP BILLITON LTD. ADRs $72 (New York symbol BHP; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Resources sector; ADRs outstanding: 1.6 billion; Market cap: $115.2 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 2.9; Dividend yield: 3.3%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www. bhpbilliton.com) is the world’s largest mining company, with major operations in Australia, South Africa, the U.S. and the U.K. BHP’s main products include iron ore (31% of revenue; 43% of earnings), oil and potash (20%; 32%), copper (18%; 16%), coal (17%; 6%), and aluminum, manganese and nickel (14%; 3%). BHP cuts its risk by focusing on projects with high-quality, long-lasting reserves.

Oil and gas expansion spurred results

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RIOCAN REAL ESTATE INVESTMENT TRUST $27 (Toronto symbol REI.UN; Aggressive Growth Portfolio, Manufacturing & Industry sector; Units outstanding: 304.8 million; Market cap: $8.2 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 5.9; Dividend yield: 5.2%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.riocan.com) continues to work with joint venture partners to buy mixed-use properties, particularly in urban areas. This way, the trust can apply its expertise to the retail portion of these developments, while leaving the residential and office aspects to its partners.

In the first quarter of 2014, RioCan paid $138 million for interests in six properties under development. It also bought two existing retail properties for $21 million.

Thanks to these moves, RioCan’s cash flow rose 2.4% in the quarter, to $127 million, or $0.42 a unit. A year earlier, its cash flow was $124 million, or $0.41 a unit. The lower Canadian dollar also boosted its U.S. properties’ contribution.

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LINAMAR CORP. $64 (Toronto symbol LNR; Aggressive Growth Portfolio, Manufacturing & Industry sector; Shares outstanding: 64.8 million; Market cap: $4.1 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 1.1; Dividend yield: 0.6%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.linamar.com) gets around 80% of its revenue by making engines, transmissions and other precision-machined parts for automakers. It has 44 plants in North America, Europe and Asia.

The remaining 20% of Linamar’s revenue mainly comes from self-propelled, scissor-type elevating work platforms, which it sells under the Skyjack name. The company also makes other industrial machinery, such as parts for wind farms.

Pent-up car demand boosted results

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BOMBARDIER INC. (Toronto symbols BBD.A $3.81 and BBD.B $3.75; Aggressive Growth Portfolio, Manufacturing & Industry sector; Shares outstanding: 1.7 billion; Market cap: $6.4 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 0.4; Dividend yield: 2.5%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.bombardier.com) has received new orders for up to 48 of its CSeries passenger jets.

These are the first orders since a problem with the plane’s engine forced Bombardier to suspend test flights in May 2014. The engine’s maker, Pratt & Whitney, has addressed this issue, and Bombardier expects to begin delivering these planes in 2015.

Including these new deals, the company now has firm orders for 205 CSeries planes. If buyers exercise all their options to buy additional aircraft, Bombardier’s total orders would rise to 495 planes and be worth about $35 billion U.S.

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ENBRIDGE INC. $52 (Toronto symbol ENB; Conservative Growth and Income Portfolios, Utilities sector; Shares outstanding: 834.8 million; Market cap: $43.4 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 1.2; Dividend yield: 2.7%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.enbridge.com) had hoped to complete its new Flanagan South pipeline in the third quarter of 2014, but the company now says it will start up in the fourth quarter.

Flanagan South will connect Enbridge’s main oil-export pipeline in Illinois with storage facilities in Cushing, Oklahoma. From there, the company will pump the oil to refineries in Texas. The new line will let Enbridge transport up to 775,000 barrels a day on this route, up from just 175,000 on its existing Spearhead line.

Demand for this extra capacity should be strong, because it will let oil producers ship more of their crude from Western Canada and North Dakota’s Bakken area to the U.S. Gulf Coast.

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TORSTAR CORP. $7.98 (Toronto symbol TS.B; Conservative Growth and Income Portfolios, Consumer sector; Shares outstanding: 79.9 million; Market cap: $637.6 million; Price-to-sales ratio: 0.5; Dividend yield: 6.6%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.torstar.com) is closing its free Metro daily newspapers in Regina, Saskatoon and London, Ontario, after they failed to attract enough advertisers. The company will keep publishing Metro papers in larger cities, including Toronto, Ottawa, Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Halifax and Winnipeg. Torstar has also shut down The Grid, a money-losing free weekly paper in Toronto.

The company didn’t say how much it would pay in severance and other costs, but these moves should free up cash that it can invest in its websites.

Torstar is a buy.

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ENCANA CORP. $24 (Toronto symbol ECA; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Resources sector; Shares outstanding: 740.9 million; Market cap: $17.8 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 2.6; Dividend yield: 1.3%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.encana.com) has agreed to sell its operations in Alberta’s Bighorn area to privately held Jupiter Resources.

Encana will get $1.8 billion when the sale closes in the next few weeks (all amounts except share price and market cap in U.S. dollars). To put that in context, the company earned $515 million, or $0.70 a share, in the quarter ended March 31, 2014.

The company is also selling a gas-fired power plant and its 50% stake in a second plant, both in Alberta, for an undisclosed sum.

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CAE INC. $14 (Toronto symbol CAE; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Manufacturing & Industry sector; Shares outstanding: 264.0 million; Market cap: $3.7 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 1.7; Dividend yield: 1.7%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.cae.com) has received orders for seven flight simulators and related equipment. In all, these deals are worth $120 million, or 6% of CAE’s $2.1 billion of annual revenue.

The company has sold 11 flight simulators since its 2015 fiscal year began on April 1, 2014. In fiscal 2014, the company sold a record 48 simulators.

CAE is our #1 buy for 2014.

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