SAP

SAPUTO INC. $48 (Toronto symbol SAP; Aggressive Growth Portfolio, Consumer sector; Shares outstanding: 392.3 million; Market cap: $18.8 billion; Priceto- sales ratio: 1.7; Dividend yield: 1.3%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.saputo. com) is Canada’s largest producer of dairy products, including milk, butter and cheese....

These three Consumer sector companies continue to benefit from improving efficiency. That has spurred their earnings and stock prices. We still like the outlook for all of them, but they’re now expensive in relation to their immediate prospects.

RESTAURANT BRANDS INTERNATIONAL INC....

We think conservative investors can hold up to 10% of their portfolios in foreign stocks. One way to do that is to buy carefully chosen exchange-traded funds (ETFs) that have an overseas focus.

The best ETFs continue to offer very low management fees and well-diversified, tax-efficient portfolios of high-quality stocks....

SAPUTO INC. $40 (Toronto symbol SAP; Aggressive Growth Portfolio, Consumer sector; Shares outstanding: 392.8 million; Market cap: $15.7 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 1.4; Dividend yield: 1.4%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.saputo.com) is Canada’s largest producer of dairy products, including milk, butter and cheese....

SAPUTO INC. $40 (Toronto symbol SAP; Aggressive Growth Portfolio, Consumer sector; Shares outstanding: 392.8 million; Market cap: $15.7 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 1.4; Dividend yield: 1.4%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.saputo.com) is Canada’s largest producer of dairy products, including milk, butter and cheese....

ISHARES MSCI GERMANY FUND $25.96 (New York symbol EWG; buy or sell through brokers) tracks the stocks in the MSCI Germany Index.

These holdings aim to replicate 85% of the market capitalization of the German stock market. The remaining 15% is unavailable for investment, partly due to limitations on foreign ownership....

We think conservative investors can hold up to 10% of their portfolios in foreign stocks. One way to do that is to buy carefully chosen exchange traded funds (ETFs) that have an overseas focus.

The best ETFs offer very low management fees and well-diversified, tax-efficient portfolios of highquality stocks....

SUNCOR ENERGY INC., $35.86, Toronto symbol SU, has completed its all-stock takeover of Canadian Oil Sands (Toronto symbol COS). Under the deal, Canadian Oil Sands investors received 0.28 of a Suncor share for each share they held. As a result, the Toronto Stock Exchange delisted Canadian Oil Sands’ shares on March 23, 2016. Based on Suncor’s share price just before the deal closed, it paid $4.8 billion for Canadian Oil Sands. If you include Canadian Oil Sands’ debt of $2.4 billion, the total price was $7.2 billion. To put that in context, Suncor’s market cap (the value of all outstanding shares) is $55.6 billion....

Two international ETFs offers low MERs and exposure to strong foreign markets through tax-efficient, high-quality portfolios.

SAPUTO INC. $40 (Toronto symbol SAP; Aggressive Growth Portfolio, Consumer sector; Shares outstanding: 392.9 million; Market cap: $15.7 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 1.5; Dividend yield: 1.4%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.saputo.com) is Canada’s largest producer of dairy products, including milk, butter and cheese. It also operates dairies in the U.S., Australia and Argentina. The company’s sales rose 2.8% in its fiscal 2016 third quarter, which ended December 31, 2015, to $2.9 billion from $2.8 billion a year earlier. It gets 65% of its sales from outside Canada, and the lower Canadian dollar added $261 million to the latest quarter’s sales. Lower selling prices for cheese and butter cut sales by $191 million. Earnings gained 15.8%, to $0.44 a share from $0.38. That’s mainly due to better efficiency and lower ingredient costs....