stock pickers

Both Loblaw and Metro have moved up sharply in the past few months. That’s mainly because they are taking steps to unlock some of their hidden value, including selling real estate and other investments.

The companies will likely use the cash from the sales to keep improving their stores and other operations....

Alimentation Couche-Tard $53.33, symbol ATD.B on Toronto, was our #1 pick for 2012 in Stock Pickers Digest at $30.55. Its shares are now up 74.6%.

WestJet, our #1 pick for this year (see left), was trading at $14.10 when we made it our #1 Stock of the Year for 2011. It was a year late getting started, but it’s now up 58.1% since then.

Even with that jump, we think WestJet has big gains ahead. In an industry that thrives on passenger satisfaction and trust, the company’s non-unionized workforce is a huge plus.

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RESEARCH IN MOTION LTD., $13.01, Toronto symbol RIM, has launched two smartphones powered by its new BlackBerry 10 software: the BlackBerry Z10 uses a 4.2-inch touchscreen interface while the BlackBerry Q10 features a smaller screen and a physical keyboard. The company will start selling the Z10 in Canada, the U.K. and other countries in the next few days. However, it won’t launch the new phone in the U.S. until March. Investors fear that this delay will further erode the company’s U.S. market share. That’s the main reason why the stock fell 26% this week. RIM will launch the Q10 in April. Unlike other smartphone makers, RIM also sells software that helps businesses and governments encrypt mobile email messages and other sensitive data. The company has used its expertise in this area to create BlackBerry Balance, a feature that lets the new phones easily switch between business and personal modes. BlackBerry Balance should help RIM satisfy its corporate customers’ security needs while letting individuals enjoy personal services, such as music, movies and games....

CHESAPEAKE ENERGY CORP., $20.33, symbol CHK on New York, is up 7.0% from $19 this week. That’s largely because the company’s controversial co-founder, CEO and chairman, Aubrey K. McClendon, has agreed to retire on April 1, 2013. McClendon is under investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for taking out $1.1 billion of loans from EIG Global Energy Partners that may have put him in a conflict of interest. EIG is a big lender to Chesapeake, and that’s where the potential conflict arises. It has also come to light that McClendon ran a $200-million hedge fund between 2004 and 2008 that traded in the same commodities that Chesapeake produces....

If you stick to dividend-paying stocks, you’ll avoid most of the market’s greatest disasters. That’s because a history of dividends says a good deal about a company’s long-term soundness and stability. Investors generally look to more conservative stocks, like banks and utilities, for income, and to more aggressive stocks for capital gains. Yet there are a number of aggressive stocks that also pay a regular dividend. Some even have dividend yields that are as high—or even higher—than yields on more established companies....

BELLATRIX EXPLORATION, $4.97, symbol BXE on Toronto, is up over 21% this week after it announced a joint venture agreement with an unnamed South Korea-based investment fund. This deal should speed up development of Bellatrix’s undeveloped Cardium shale oil deposits in west-central Alberta. The South Korean partner will pay $150 million for 33% of production from a planned 83-well drilling program. In addition, Bellatrix will now spend a total of $230 million to $240 million on exploration and development this year, up from its earlier forecast of $180 million. The company expects its daily production to average 24,000 to 25,000 barrels of oil equivalent (including natural gas) per day this year. It could also end 2013 with production as high as 30,000 to 31,000 barrels per day. To put that in perspective, Bellatrix likely ended 2012 with average production of 19,000 to 19,500 barrels a day....

CONAGRA FOODS INC., $32.33, New York symbol CAG, is our “Stock of the Year” for 2013. ConAgra began processing grain at just four mills in Nebraska in 1919. Over the decades, it grew into one of North America’s leading food companies. In the past few years, it has sold off its fresh food operations to focus solely on its more profitable packaged food businesses. The company recently announced a major acquisition that will give it a larger share of the fast-growing private label food business. While private label foods now account for 18% of packaged food sales in the U.S., most of them just aren’t that good. That provides an opportunity for ConAgra, since it has the expertise to make branded stuff, and it can apply it to private labels....

AGRIUM INC., $115.36, Toronto symbol AGU, jumped 8% this week after the company increased its earnings forecast for the fourth quarter of 2012. Higher prices for grains and other crops are prompting farmers to apply more fertilizer. As a result, the company now expects to report fourth quarter earnings of slightly more than $2.00 a share (all amounts except share price in U.S. dollars). That’s well above its earlier forecast of $1.50 to $1.90 a share. Activist investment firm Jana Partners LLC continues to pressure Agrium to spin off its retail business as a separate company. Jana owns 6% of Agrium’s shares....

A month ago, we examined one of the energy stocks we cover in our newsletter for aggressive investing, Stock Pickers Digest. Zargon Oil and Gas (Toronto symbol ZAR) has trimmed its commitment to natural gas due to the slump in prices (view the article here). Today, in the wake of a recent rally in oil prices, we look at the prospects for a tech stock that serves the oil and gas drilling industry.
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PLEASE NOTE: Next week, Wall Street Stock Forecaster, our newsletter that focuses on the U.S. stock markets, will reveal its #1 pick for 2013. NISSAN MOTOR CO., $19.70, symbol NSANY on Nasdaq, stands to gain as the value of the Japanese yen continues to fall. The Bank of Japan, under pressure from the country’s new prime minister, Shinzo Abe, has pumped more money into Japan’s sluggish economy. These moves have weakened the yen by more than 14% against the dollar since the beginning of October 2012....