stock pickers

Every Wednesday, we publish our “Investor Toolkit” series on TSI Network. Whether you’re a new or experienced investor, these weekly updates are designed to give you specific investment advice, including tips for lower-risk aggressive investing. Each Investor Toolkit update gives you a fundamental piece of investing strategy, and shows you how you can put it into practice right away. Today’s tip: “What you need to know about ‘thin traders’” Many speculative stocks, including some of our recommendations in Stock Pickers Digest, our newsletter for aggressive investing, are inactive or “thin” traders. They trade a few hundred to a few thousand shares daily, compared to hundreds of thousands, if not several million, for a Canadian bank....
Wyndham Worldwide Corp., symbol WYN on New York, is the third-largest hotel company in the world with 7,190 franchised hotels. It operates under a number of brands, including Wyndham Hotels and Resorts, Ramada, Days Inn, Super 8, Wingate by Wyndham, Baymont Inn & Suites, Microtel Inns & Suites, Hawthorn Suites, Howard Johnson, Travelodge, Knights Inn and Ameri-host Inn. We analyze Wyndham in Stock Pickers Digest, our newsletter for stocks that are appropriate for your aggressive portfolio. In addition to hotels, Wyndham manages a number of vacation resorts, rental properties, luxury clubs and time-shares. The aggressive portfolio stock now has 97,000 vacation rental properties worldwide....
FIRSTSERVICE CORP., $35.77, symbol FSV on Toronto, serves the following areas of the real-estate market: commercial real estate; residential property management; and property improvement. In the three months ended March 31, 2011, revenue jumped 18.9%, to $478.4 million from $402.4 million a year earlier (all figures except share prices in U.S. dollars). The company saw higher revenue across all of its divisions: the commercial real-estate division’s revenue jumped 26.9%; residential-property-management revenue rose 14.6%; and property-services revenue rose 12.9%....
Chipotle Mexican Grill, symbol CMG on New York, is a Denver-based Mexican-restaurant chain. In the three months ended March 31, 2011, Chipotle’s revenue rose 24.3% to $509.4 million from $409.7 million a year earlier. The company’s restaurants attracted more customers during the quarter. That pushed up its same-restaurant sales by 12.4%. Chipotle also opened 12 new restaurants. It now has a total of 1,095 locations. Earnings rose 22.5%, to $46.4 million from $37.8 million. Earnings per share rose 24.2%, to $1.49 from $1.20, on fewer shares outstanding. The company holds cash of $282.9 million, or $9.10 a share, and has no debt....
Sherritt International Corp., symbol S on Toronto, is a diversified natural-resource company that produces nickel, cobalt, thermal coal, oil and gas. It also licenses its own mining technologies to other metals companies, and manages 376 megawatts of power-generation capacity in Cuba. In the three months ended March 31, 2011, the Canadian mining stock’s earnings jumped 116.3%, to $63.6 million, or $0.22 a share. A year earlier, it earned $29.4 million, or $0.10 a share. Revenue rose 29.5%, to $474.5 million from $366.4 million a year earlier. Higher prices for nickel, coal and oil were the main reasons for the improved results....
In the April 21, 2011, Successful Investor Email/Telephone Hotline, we’ve updated our buy/sell/hold advice on grocery retailer Metro Inc. (symbol MRU.A on Toronto).

Inside this growth stock’s evolution from an aggressive to a conservative pick

Metro is a good example of a stock that has graduated from Stock Pickers Digest, our newsletter for aggressive investors, to The Successful Investor, which focuses on more conservative selections....
Every Wednesday, we publish our “Investor Toolkit” series on TSI Network. Whether you’re a new or experienced investor, these weekly updates are designed to give you specific investment advice, including how to use financial ratios. Each Investor Toolkit update gives you a fundamental piece of investing strategy, and shows you how you can put it into practice right away. Today’s tip: “How we use financial ratios to spot bargain stocks.” If you want to shop for bargain stocks, it’s best to focus on shares of high-quality companies that have a history of sales and earnings, plus a strong hold on a growing clientele....
Intuitive Surgical, symbol ISRG on Nasdaq, makes the “da Vinci,” a computerized surgical system. Intuitive trades at a high price per share, but you can buy as few as you wish through any broker. You can get our stock advice on Intuitive and other aggressive picks in our Stock Pickers Digest newsletter. Guided by a miniature camera connected to a 3-D monitor, surgeons use the da Vinci to operate by remotely manipulating tiny robotic arms. This is safer and far less invasive than regular surgery. It reduces the patient’s recovery time, post-operative discomfort, scarring and infection risk....
PLEASE NOTE: We’ve put 12 sell recommendations, and our reasons for those recommendations, in the latest issue of Stock Pickers Digest. Here are the sells: Tethys Petroleum, symbol TPL on Toronto Pulse Seismic, symbol PSD on Toronto...
If you subscribe to Stock Pickers Digest, our newsletter that recommends stocks for your aggressive portfolio, you’ll want to take a very close look at the current issue. In it, we reveal the names of 12 stocks you should sell right away—and avoid the potential for big losses. (Note: if you are a current Stock Pickers Digest subscriber or Inner Circle member, click here to view the latest issue, which contains these 12 sell recommendations. Be sure to log in first.) If you’re a long-time subscriber to one or more of our newsletters, you likely know that we downplay market-timing and stock-price predictions in the advice we give you. Instead, we focus on investment quality. This includes the stocks for your aggressive portfolio that we recommend in Stock Pickers Digest....