stock prices

REITMANS (CANADA) LTD. $6.17 (Toronto symbol RET.A; TSINetwork Rating: Extra Risk) (514-384- 1140; www.reitmans.com; Shares outstanding: 64.5 million; Market cap: $395.9 million; Dividend yield: 3.2%) owns 900 women’s clothing stores across Canada. The chain consists of 343 Reitmans, 143 Penningtons, 113 Smart Set, 102 Addition Elle, 76 RW & Co. and 68 Thyme Maternity stores. It also has 21 Thyme Maternity boutiques in some Canadian Babies “R” Us locations. In the three months ended August 2, 2014, Reitmans’ sales rose 1.9%, to $258.3 million from $253.4 million a year earlier. Same-store sales increased 4.6%....

Every Wednesday, we publish our “Investor Toolkit” series on TSI Network. Whether you’re a beginning or experienced investor, these weekly updates are designed to give you specific investment advice. Each Investor Toolkit update gives you a fundamental piece of strategy, and shows you how you can put it into practice right away. Today’s tip: “Dividends can produce as much as a third of your total return over long periods.”...

ARCHER DANIELS MIDLAND CO., $50.36, New York symbol ADM, processes corn, wheat, soybeans, canola, flax seed, peanuts, cocoa and other crops into a wide variety of food ingredients, such as flour, oils and sweeteners. It is also the largest maker of ethanol from corn in the U.S. This week, the company agreed to sell its global chocolate operations, including three plants in North America and three in Europe, to privately held Cargill Inc. These businesses process cocoa into chocolate for candy makers and other food companies. Archer Daniels will receive $440 million when it completes the sale in the first half of 2015. That’s equal to 83% of the $533 million, or $0.81 a share, that it earned in the three months ended June 30, 2014....

We made Bank of Nova Scotia our #1 safety-conscious buy in 2013 and again in 2014. The bank just reported strong quarterly results and raised its dividend. The shares are already up 18.4% this year, but we think they can still go higher. BANK OF NOVA SCOTIA $72.16 (Toronto symbol BNS; Shares outstanding: 1.2 billion; Market cap: $88.0 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; Div. yield: 3.7%, www.scotiabank.com) is the third-largest of Canada’s five big banks, with $791.5 billion of assets. In the three months ended July 31, 2014, the bank earned $1.85 a share, up 36.0% from $1.36 a year earlier. The latest quarter included a one-time gain of $0.45 a share from the sale of most of the bank’s stake in mutual fund company CI Financial for $2.3 billion. Without one-time items, earnings per share rose 8.5%, to $1.40 from $1.29....

BMTC GROUP $15.70 (Toronto symbol GBT.A; TSINetwork Rating: Extra Risk) (514-648-5757; No website; Shares outstanding: 45.1 million; Market cap: $708.0 million; Dividend yield: 1.6%) is one of Quebec’s biggest retailers of furniture, electronics and appliances, with 36 outlets. It mainly sells these products through its two affiliates: Brault & Martineau and Ameublements Tanguay.

In March 2012, BMTC introduced a new banner, Economax, which offers lower-priced products. The company rebranded four outlets that it had operated as Brault & Martineau liquidation centres.

In 2013, BMTC opened four more EconoMax stores, and it added one, in Joliette, in March 2014. It plans to open another, in LaSalle, this fall.

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TIM HORTONS INC., $87.40, symbol THI on Toronto, jumped 27% this week after agreeing to a friendly takeover offer from Miami-based Burger King Worldwide (New York symbol BKW). The combined firm would be the world’s third-largest fast-food operator, after McDonald’s and Yum Brands, with annual sales of $23 billion U.S. and 18,000 restaurants in over 100 countries. Canada will supply 67% of the merged company’s revenue, followed by the U.S. (20%) and other countries (13%). The Tim Hortons and Burger King chains will operate independently but will probably share some back office and distribution networks. Tim Hortons can also use Burger King’s expertise to expand in the U.S. and other countries....

ROYAL BANK OF CANADA, $80.80, Toronto symbol RY, earned $2.4 billion in the three months ended July 31, 2014, up 10.2% from $2.2 billion a year earlier. Per-share earnings rose 11.0%, to $1.62 from $1.46, on fewer shares outstanding. These figures exclude unusual items, such as a $40-million loss on the recent sale of Royal’s Jamaican banking operations. On this basis, the latest earnings beat the consensus estimate of $1.54 a share. Revenue jumped 25.2%, to $9.0 billion from $7.2 billion. The bank set aside $283 million to cover bad loans in the latest quarter, up 6.0%, from $267 million. That’s mainly due to higher provisions at its Caribbean and Canadian corporate lending operations....

BELLATRIX EXPLORATION LTD., $8.53, symbol BXE on Toronto, produces natural gas (65% of output) and oil (35%) in Alberta, B.C. and Saskatchewan. Bellatrix jumped 14% this week after U.S. activist investor Orange Capital LLC revealed that it has been investing in the company since July 2. It now holds about 10.2 million shares Bellatrix shares, or a 5.3% interest. Orange Capital wants the company to discuss changing the size and composition of its 10-person board of directors. It also wants Bellatrix to hire a financial advisor to explore strategic alternatives, including selling its midstream assets (natural gas processing plants and pipeline gathering systems) or an outright sale of the entire company....

Long-time readers may recall that in the mid-1990s, I started writing about three special factors that I felt were likely to make stock prices go higher, and continue rising longer, than most investors expected. These special factors or “economic energizers” were:

1. Economic liberalization and the spread of free enterprise around the world, following the end of the Cold War and the break-up of the Soviet Union.
2. The maturing of the baby boomers, who were entering the economic prime of their lives.
3. The productivity gains available from modern computer and communications technology.

The 1990s stock market boom did indeed last longer and take prices higher than many expected. Now I’m coming around to the view that we are headed into something similar today. Here are four factors that make me optimistic about the stock market for the next five to 10 years:...

Some investors see last Thursday’s 300-plus point drop in the Dow Industrials as an omen of a more serious market downturn. They wonder if they should sell some of their stocks now, hold on to the cash for a few months, then buy the stocks back when they have obligingly come back down to lower prices. You can find plenty of support for this idea in the media. Mostly it revolves around the view that stock prices have gone up excessively, and are now too high. These assumptions rely on a highly selective view of history. For example, the Toronto exchange index has nearly doubled since March 2009, or about five and a half years. That is an unusually fast rise. But the market was at an exceptionally low level in March 2009. When you look at how the market has performed since a record-setting plunge, it always looks as if it has gone too high in an unusually short time....