stock prices

DUN & BRADSTREET CORP., $125.84, New York symbol DNB, provides credit reports on over 230 million companies. Its clients use this information to make lending and buying decisions. In 2010, the company sold subsidiary Dun & Bradstreet Credibility Corp. (DBCC) to private investors. DBCC sells credit reports and related services to small businesses in the U.S. and pays licensing fees to use the Dun & Bradstreet brand. DBCC’s new owners focused on developing products specifically for small businesses. Since the sale, DBCC has doubled its annual revenue to $135 million....

INTEL CORP., $32.47, Nasdaq symbol INTC, announced first-quarter earnings that matched the consensus estimate this week, though revenue fell short of expectations. Still, the stock rose 2% on signs that Intel is cutting its reliance on personal-computer chips. In the three months ended March 28, 2015, the company’s earnings rose 3.2%, to $2.0 billion from $1.9 billion a year earlier. Intel spent $750.0 million on share buybacks during the quarter, so per-share earnings rose at a faster pace of 7.9%, to $0.41 from $0.38. Overall revenue rose just 0.1%, to $12.78 billion from $12.76 billion, missing the consensus forecast of $12.9 billion. Revenue from personal-computer chips and mobile devices (58% of the total) fell 8.4%. The year-earlier quarter benefited as many businesses bought new machines after Microsoft stopped supporting its older Windows XP operating system....

“Averaging down” and “averaging in” sound similar, but a wide gap separates the two. Mixing them up can cost you money. Averaging down is the well-known trader’s tactic of buying more shares of a stock you own as the price falls. The idea is that this will cut your average cost per share. That way, you make more money (per share, at least) when the stock turns around and goes up. One problem with averaging down is you are betting you were right when you bought the stock the first time. You assume the $20 stock you bought is an even better buy at $15. You may be right. You may be ignoring warning signs, because you don’t want to admit you were wrong....

PLEASE NOTE: Due to the Good Friday holiday, our next Hotline will go out on Thursday, April 2, 2015. CAE INC., $14.86, Toronto symbol CAE, announced this week that it has sold five flight simulators to WestJet and other customers. In all, these orders are worth $70 million, or 3% of CAE’s $2.2 billion of annual revenue. The company has now sold 36 simulators in its 2015 fiscal year, which began April 1, 2014. It sold a record 48 simulators in fiscal 2014....

The four lenders below (including American Express— see box) have passed the Federal Reserve’s latest “stress test,”which measures how financial firms would cope with a jump in unemployment, falling stock prices and other unfavourable conditions. As a result, they have all raised their dividends and announced new share buyback plans. WELLS FARGO & CO. $55 (New York symbol WFC; Conservative Growth and Income Portfolios, Finance sector; Shares outstanding: 5.2 billion; Market cap: $286.0 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 3.4; Dividend yield: 2.7%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.wellsfargo.com) will raise its quarterly dividend by 7.1%, to $0.375 a share from $0.35. The new annual rate of $1.50 yields 2.7%....

Here’s the text of the quarterly letter I recently sent to our Portfolio Management clients: “A client of mine, Dr. J., recently said, “Pat, you advise investors to spread their money out across most if not all of the five main economic sectors. Why not just leave out the resource sector?” I think that’s a bad idea. It disregards the one key contribution that resource stocks make to a sound portfolio, as you’ll see below. But I’m sure many investors agree with Dr. J. After all, the weak performance of the resource sector goes back much further than the recent plunge in the price of oil (from $110 U.S. a barrel last July to a recent low near $45 U.S.)....

T. ROWE PRICE GROUP INC. $84 (Nasdaq symbol TROW; Aggressive Growth Portfolio, Finance sector; Shares outstanding: 260.7 million; Market cap: $21.9 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 5.5; Dividend yield: 2.5%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.troweprice .com) sells mutual funds and wealth management services. In 2014, the company earned $1.23 billion, or $4.55 a share. That’s up 17.4% from $1.05 billion, or $3.90 a share, in 2013. Revenue gained 14.3%, to $4.0 billion from $3.5 billion. On December 31, 2014, the company had a record $746.8 billion of assets under management, up 7.9% from $692.4 billion at the end of 2013. About 93% of that increase came from higher stock prices. The company’s fee income varies with the value of the assets it manages, so it gains from rising stock markets. Higher mutual fund sales (net of redemptions) supplied the remaining 7%....

T. ROWE PRICE GROUP INC. $84 (Nasdaq symbol TROW; Aggressive Growth Portfolio, Finance sector; Shares outstanding: 260.7 million; Market cap: $21.9 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 5.5; Dividend yield: 2.5%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.troweprice .com) sells mutual funds and wealth management services.

In 2014, the company earned $1.23 billion, or $4.55 a share. That’s up 17.4% from $1.05 billion, or $3.90 a share, in 2013. Revenue gained 14.3%, to $4.0 billion from $3.5 billion.

On December 31, 2014, the company had a record $746.8 billion of assets under management, up 7.9% from $692.4 billion at the end of 2013. About 93% of that increase came from higher stock prices. The company’s fee income varies with the value of the assets it manages, so it gains from rising stock markets. Higher mutual fund sales (net of redemptions) supplied the remaining 7%.

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The Blackstone Group LP, $36.61, symbol BX on New York (Shares outstanding: 520.5 million; Market cap: $21.5 billion; www.blackstone.com), is a global alternative asset manager and provider of financial advisory services. The company’s alternative asset management businesses include managing corporate private equity funds, real estate opportunity funds, hedge funds, mezzanine funds, senior debt funds and closed-end mutual funds. Mezzanine financing is a mixture of debt and equity financing that private companies use to fund expansion. Mezzanine debt gives the lender the right to convert the debt to equity if the borrower defaults. It typically entails less due diligence by the lender, and the borrower puts up little or no collateral....

ROYAL BANK OF CANADA $79 (Toronto symbol RY; Conservative Growth and Income Portfolios, Finance sector; Shares outstanding: 1.4 billion; Market cap: $110.6 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 3.8; Dividend yield: 3.8%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.rbc.com) earned $2.3 billion in its fiscal 2014 fourth quarter, which ended October 31, 2014. That’s up 11.0% from $2.1 billion a year earlier. Per-share earnings rose 12.9%, to $1.57 from $1.39, on fewer shares outstanding. Revenue improved 5.8%, to $8.4 billion from $7.9 billion.

Earnings at Royal’s Canadian and U.S. retail banking division (which supplied 52% of the total) rose 7.6% on strong loan growth and higher fee-based income. The securities trading division (18% of total earnings) saw its profits fall 14.3% on lower trading volumes, and costs to comply with new U.S. securities regulations.

The bank’s wealth management division (13%) reported 41.1% higher earnings, mainly because rising stock prices increased the value of its assets under administration. Insurance earnings (12%) jumped 139.3%, mainly because a charge related to new Canadian tax laws depressed the year-earlier earnings. Without this charge, this business’s earnings rose 14% on fewer claims. The investor and treasury services business’s earnings (5%) gained 24.2%, thanks to higher deposit volumes and better efficiency.

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