stock pickers

MITEL NETWORKS CORP., $12.24, symbol MNW on Toronto, has agreed to buy Mavenir Systems (symbol MVNR on New York) for $560 million U.S. in cash and stock. Right now, Mitel mainly offers communication services to businesses over land-line phones. Mavenir will help Mitel move into the market for voice-over long-term evolution, or VoLTE. This technology repackages voice calls as data and transmits them over wireless networks. It’s quickly becoming the standard for high-speed wireless communications. Users of Mavenir’s networking software include T-Mobile and Verizon Communications. In all, the company serves 130 telecom firms, including 15 of the world’s 20 largest mobile carriers....

Prompted by an increase in smartphone contracts and success with Fibe TV and Crave TV, BCE Inc. hikes its dividend by 5.3%.

Promoting clean, environmentally sound solutions for office design, DIRTT has a respected CEO but may struggle against strong competition.

AMERIGO RESOURCES, $0.32, symbol ARG on Toronto, processes copper and molybdenum from waste rock at Chile’s El Teniente, the world’s largest underground copper mine. This includes rock from the mine’s current production and tailings from the nearby Colihues deposit. This contract runs at least through 2037. The company gets 94% of its revenue by processing copper. The remaining 6% comes from molybdenum. In the quarter ended December 31, 2014, Amerigo’s copper output fell 7.4%, to 11.35 million pounds from 12.25 million a year earlier. Molybdenum production declined 11.8%, to 160,107 pounds from 181,464....

DIRTT Environmental Solutions, $4.49, symbol DRT on Toronto (Shares outstanding: 75.5 million; Market cap: $343.9 million; www.dirtt.net), designs and builds customized office interiors. DIRTT stands for “doing it right this time.” The company believes its ICE 3-D software lets it deliver premade, customizable interiors faster and more efficiently than traditional construction methods. DIRTT first sold shares to the public at $3 each and began trading on Toronto in November 2013. In the three months ended September 30, 2014, the company’s revenue rose 27.1%, to $46.7 million from $36.7 million a year earlier. The higher U.S. dollar increased the contribution of its U.S. sales. The company also completed the remaining one-third of the $12.0 million of major projects it won in January 2014. DIRTT made $1.5 million, or $0.02 a share, compared to a loss of $494,000, or $0.01....

Transcontinental’s ability to keep the right assets in the fast-changing publishing industry makes it one of our top stocks to buy.

Every Monday we feature “A Stock to Sell” as our daily post. With every stock or investment we recommend as a sell, we give you a full explanation of why we advise against investing in it at this time.

Linn Energy (symbol LINE on Nasdaq; www.linnenergy.com) acquires and develops oil and gas properties in the Mid-Continent region in the southern U.S., the Permian Basin (Texas and New Mexico) and the Hugoton Basin (Texas and Kansas), as well as in California, Michigan and Illinois.

In December 2013, Linn bought Berry Petroleum for $4.3 billion in stock. The move added long-lasting, mature properties and boosted Linn’s growth prospects. Berry’s reserves were roughly 75% oil.

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MENTOR GRAPHICS CORP., $25.30, symbol MENT on Nasdaq, makes hardware and software for improving the design of electronic products and speeding up their development. For example, Mentor’s software lets automakers use less wiring in a car, identify potential safety issues and minimize electromagnetic effects on sensitive components. In the quarter ended October 31, 2014, Mentor’s revenue rose 6.2%, to $292.7 million from $275.6 million a year earlier. Excluding one-time items, earnings per share gained 6.3%, to $0.34 from $0.32....

Every Thursday we bring you one of our best U.S. stock picks. You get our specific recommendation on the stocks we profile, with a full explanation of how we arrived at our opinion. You will read about stocks making moves you should know about, most often from coverage in our newsletter on U.S. investing, Wall Street Stock Forecaster. This week’s U.S. pick comes from our advisory for more aggressive investors, Stock Pickers Digest.

Over 30 billion devices—including things like home thermostats and appliances—will be connected to the Internet by 2020.

That means you’ll be able to control them with a smartphone, set them up to adapt to factors like outside temperatures and have them notify you if, for example, there is smoke or carbon monoxide in your home.

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Every Tuesday we bring you “Best Canadian Stocks.” You get our specific recommendations on the stocks we profile, with a full explanation of how we arrived at our opinion. You’ll read about stocks making moves you should know about, from coverage in one of our three newsletters featuring Canadian stocks—The Successful Investor, Stock Pickers Digest and Canadian Wealth Advisor. ENBRIDGE INC. (Toronto symbol ENB; www.enbridge.com) gets 90% of its revenue from pipelines that pump oil and natural gas from Western Canada to Eastern Canada and the U.S. The remaining 10% mainly comes from distributing gas to 2.1 million consumers in Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick and New York State. Since 2008, Enbridge has spent $20 billion on 39 new pipelines and other projects. Thanks to these investments, the company’s revenue soared 164.1%, from $12.5 billion in 2009 to $32.9 billion in 2013. Its revenue probably increased to $37.7 billion in 2014....