stock exchange
NEW GOLD $6.60 (Toronto symbol NGD; SI Rating: Speculative) (888-315-9715; www.newgold.com; Shares outstanding: 389.6 million; Market cap: $2.6 billion) has three operating mines: the Mesquite mine in the U.S., the Cerro San Pedro mine in Mexico and the Peak mine in Australia. It also owns 30% of the El Morro copper/gold project in Chile and 100% of the New Afton gold/copper project in Kamloops, B.C. The El Morro copper/gold project contains an estimated 4.7 million ounces of gold and 3.7 billion pounds of copper. Goldcorp owns the other 70%. New Gold expects to produce a total of 330,000 to 360,000 ounces of gold this year. Production will probably rise to over 400,000 ounces in 2012, when its New Afton mine is scheduled to start up....
NEW GOLD INC., $6.79, symbol NGD on Toronto, will be added to the FTSE Gold Mine Index on June 21, 2010. FTSE is an independent company that is jointly owned by the U.K.-based Financial Times newspaper and the London Stock Exchange. The FTSE Gold Mine Index includes all gold-mining companies that have sustainable gold production of at least 300,000 ounces a year, and get 51% or more of their revenue from mining gold. New Gold expects to produce a total of 330,000 to 360,000 ounces of gold in 2010. The company’s production will probably rise to over 400,000 ounces in 2012....
Magna International, $72.92, symbol MG.A on Toronto (Shares outstanding: 112.8 million; Market cap: $8.2 billion), has two classes of shares: the class A shares (symbol MG.A) are non-voting and the class B shares (which are not listed on a stock exchange) carry 300 votes per share. Frank Stronach, Magna’s chairman and founder, indirectly owns all of the 726,829 outstanding class B shares through the Stronach Trust. Because each class B share carries 300 votes, the Stronach Trust has about 66% of Magna’s voting rights. Stronach has proposed a plan to eliminate the dual-share structure. Subject to approval from the class A shareholders, Magna would buy all 726,829 class B from the Stronach Trust and cancel them. In return, the Stronach Trust would receive 9 million newly issued class A shares and $300 million U.S. in cash....
PT Telekomunikasi Indonesia (ADRs), $33.72, symbol TLK on New York (ADRs outstanding: 491.7 million; Market cap: $16.6 billion), is Indonesia’s largest telecommunication company by assets and subscribers. PT Telekom also owns 65% of PT Telekomunikasi Selular, Indonesia’s largest cellular operator. Singapore Telecom owns the other 35%. In the three months ended March 31, 2010, PT Telekom’s revenue rose 6.2%, to $1.8 billion from $1.7 billion a year earlier (all figures in U.S. dollars). Revenue from data and multimedia services rose 25% in the latest quarter, to $548.2 million. First-quarter earnings rose 13%, to $304.8 million, or $0.62 per ADR, from $269.7 million, or $0.55 per ADR. On March 31, 2010, the company had 82 million cellular subscribers. That’s up 14% from the same period last year....
An American Depositary Receipt, or ADR, is a certificate that represents a foreign stock that trades in the United States. Banks and brokerage firms in the U.S. issue or sponsor ADRs, and investors buy and sell them on U.S. stock markets, just like regular stocks. If you own an ADR, you have the right to obtain the foreign stock it represents. However, investors usually find it more convenient to continue holding ADRs. One ADR may represent one or more shares of the foreign stock. But if the stock is expensive, the ADR may represent a fraction of a share. That way, the ADR will start trading at a moderate price, or be in range of similar stocks on the exchange where it trades. The price of an ADR usually stays close to the price of the foreign stock in its home market. J.P. Morgan introduced ADRs in 1927 to make it easier for Americans to invest in Selfridge, the British retailer. ADRs have grown substantially since then. They make it practical for increasingly global-minded investors to invest in foreign companies, despite language barriers, shifting foreign exchange rates and the difficulty of trading in a foreign stock market....
Investing outside of Canada and the U.S. can expose you to more volatility and risk. The sharp downturn in many foreign markets during the global recession proves this. But there are still countries and regions that offer lots of growth potential and opportunities for diversification. One of the best ways to invest in foreign markets is through exchange-traded funds (ETFs). That’s because directly investing in those markets can be complicated and risky, and high-quality ETFs let you make international investments with greater safety. As well, the best ETFs offer a great combination of low fees and top-quality stocks. Here are four foreign ETFs we like:...
iShares CDN SmallCap Index Fund, $14.94, symbol XCS on Toronto (Shares outstanding: 7.3 million; Market cap: $109.1 million), holds the stocks in the S&P/TSX SmallCap Index. This index is made up of the smaller companies on the Toronto Stock Exchange. These stocks are chosen by market size (their market caps must be between $100 million to $1.5 billion) and liquidity. The fund’s expenses are 0.55% of its assets. The 10 highest-weighted stocks of the 182 companies in the index are Toromont Industries, 1.6%; New Gold, 1.4%; Bankers Petroleum, 1.4%; HudBay Minerals, 1.4%; SXC Health Care Solutions, 1.3%; Daylight Resources Trust, 1.3%; NAL Oil & Gas Trust, 1.2%; Keyera Facilities Income Fund, 1.2%; Consolidated Thompson Iron Mines, 1.2%; and Canadian Western Bank, 1.2%. The fund’s industry breakdown is as follows: Materials, 32.0%; Energy, 24.3%, Financials, 13.5%; Industrials, 11.7%; Consumer Discretionary, 6.8%; Consumer Staples, 3.7%; Health Care, 3.4%, Information Technology, 2.0% and Utilities, 1.7%....
Standard & Poor’s and the TMX Group, which operates the Toronto Stock Exchange, recently launched the S&P/TSX Clean Technology Index. This new index consists of 21 TSX-listed green technology stocks that provide products and services that help solve environmental problems.
Focus on quality when investing in green technology stocks
A number of the companies on the S&P/TSX Clean Technology Index are speculative in nature. (However, the index does contain one established company that may have found a profitable niche in wind and solar-power generation. Read on for further details.)...
BCE INC. $30 (Toronto symbol BCE; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Utilities sector; Shares outstanding: 767.2 million; Market cap: $23.0 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 1.3; Dividend yield: 5.8%; SI Rating: Above Average) is buying back 20 million, or about 3%, of its outstanding shares this year. Share buybacks raise earnings per share and other per-share calculations. Buybacks like this typically occur in small amounts over a year. However, BCE recently bought four million shares at market prices from a private seller, instead of through a stock exchange. It will count these shares toward its target of 20 million. BCE is a buy.
Exchange-traded funds (ETFs) have gained popularity in recent years, mainly because many ETFs offer very low management fees. In addition to low fees, the best ETFs offer well-diversified, highly tax-efficient portfolios. However, quality varies. The investment industry has created all sorts of ETFs. All too many exist to tap into popular, but risky, themes and fads, so you need to be highly selective with your ETF holdings. Here are five foreign ETFs we like:...