stocks to buy

Every Tuesday we bring you “Best Canadian Stocks.” You get our specific recommendation 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.

DOREL INDUSTRIES (Toronto symbol DII.B; www.dorel.com) makes a range of items, including ready-to-assemble home and office furniture; juvenile products, such as car seats, strollers, high chairs, toddler beds and cribs; and recreational goods, mainly bicycles.

In the three months ended June 30, 2014, Dorel’s sales rose 9.2%, to $655.8 million from $600.4 million a year earlier (all figures except share price and market cap in U.S. dollars). Sales rose 20.2% at the recreational segment and 3.2% at the juvenile products division. Home furnishing sales fell slightly.

Earnings per share rose 14.6%, to $0.47 from $0.41. Sales of its highly profitable Cannondale and Pacific Cycle premium bikes remain strong. That offset a small loss from Dorel’s 70% stake in Caloi, which it bought for an undisclosed amount last year.

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Every Thursday we bring you “Best U.S. Stocks.” 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, from coverage in our newsletter on U.S. investing, Wall Street Stock Forecaster. CONAGRA FOODS INC. (New York symbol CAG; www.conagrafoods.com) makes a wide variety of packaged foods, including Chef Boyardee canned pasta, Hunt’s tomato sauce, Peter Pan peanut butter, Orville Redenbacher popcorn and Reddiwip whipped cream. Consumers account for 70% of ConAgra’s sales. Businesses, like restaurants and other food makers, provide the remaining 30%. Sales rose 9.8%, from $12.1 billion in 2010 to $13.3 billion in 2012 (fiscal years end May 31). In January 2013, ConAgra paid $4.75 billion for Ralcorp Holdings, the largest maker of private label food in the U.S. The purchase lifted ConAgra’s sales to $15.5 billion in 2013 and to $17.7 billion in 2014. Private label foods now supply 26% of ConAgra’s total sales....

Every Thursday we bring you “Best U.S. Stocks.” 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, from coverage in our newsletter on U.S. investing, Wall Street Stock Forecaster. AMERICAN EXPRESS CO. (New York symbol AXP; www.americanexpress.com) started up in 1850 and is now one of the world’s largest issuers of payment cards, with 109.9 million cards outstanding in over 130 countries. Billionaire investor Warren Buffett owns 14.3% of the company. Amex issues two types of cards: charge cards, which have no pre-set spending limit and must be paid in full each month; and traditional credit cards, which let users carry a balance....

Every Tuesday we bring you “Best Canadian Stocks.” You get our specific recommendation 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. IGM Financial is in a strong position to profit as baby boomers sign up for retirement planning services. The company also trades at a low multiple to its earnings and will probably raise its dividend in 2015. IGM FINANCIAL INC. (Toronto symbol IGM; www.igmfinancial.com) is Canada’s largest independent mutual fund firm. Power Financial owns 58.7% of IGM, along with 67.0% of Great-West....

We’ve just updated and re-released one of our most popular free reports: Dividend Paying Stocks: How High Dividend Stocks Can Supercharge Your Income Investing. It’s ready for you to download now. With today’s low interest rates, investors are paying more attention to dividend yields. Dividend paying stocks are responding by doing their best to maintain, or even increase, their payouts. In fact, dividends can now contribute up to a third of your long-term investment returns, without even considering the tax-cutting effects of the dividend tax credit....

Beginning today, we launch Our Top U.S. Stocks, a feature which will appear every Thursday as our daily post. We are also launching a new approach—you will get our specific advice on whether to buy, hold or sell 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 covered in our newsletter on U.S. investing, Wall Street Stock Forecaster. On Monday, look for our new weekly feature on stocks we believe investors should avoid, A Stock to Sell. YUM! BRANDS INC. (New York symbol YUM; www.yum.com) has 40,324 fast-food restaurants in over 110 countries. Its main banners include KFC (fried chicken), Pizza Hut and Taco Bell (Mexican food). Franchisees operate 80% of these outlets....

Pat McKeough responds to many requests from members of his Inner Circle for specific advice on stocks to buy as well as questions on investment strategy and the economy. Every week, his comments and recommendations on the most intriguing questions of the past week go out to all Inner Circle members. And each week, we offer you one of the highlights from these Q&A sessions. While we reserve our buy-hold-sell advice for Inner Circle members, these excerpts provide a great deal of information and analysis on stocks we’ve covered for members of Pat’s Inner Circle. This week an Inner Circle members asked us about one of the world’s best known entertainment companies. Walt Disney now has five separate businesses and continues to add to its assets. Pat examines the company’s entertainment empire and the impact of several recent high-profile acquisitions. He also consider the company’s financial outlook and whether the shares can continue their recent rise. Q: What is your opinion about Disney? Thanks....

Our Successful Investor portfolio strategy has three key points:

1. Invest mainly in well-established companies;
2. Spread your investments out across the five main economic sectors;
3. Downplay or avoid stocks in the broker-media limelight.

The first two rules in the strategy come natural to many investors. In contrast, many investors find the third rule is harder to accept—or easier to disregard. In fact, doing the reverse seems to come natural to a lot of investors. These investors seem to scour the broker media limelight for tips on stocks to buy. They feel that stocks in the limelight come with a special pedigree, almost a guarantee of top performance....

Pat McKeough responds to many requests from members of his Inner Circle for specific advice on stocks to buy as well as questions on investment strategy and the economy. Every week, his comments and recommendations on the most intriguing questions of the past week go out to all Inner Circle members. And each week, we offer you one of the highlights from these Q&A sessions. While we reserve our buy-hold-sell advice for Inner Circle members, these excerpts provide a great deal of information and analysis on stocks we’ve covered for members of Pat’s Inner Circle....

When we look for stocks to buy for our portfolio-management clients, we pay special attention to hidden assets. These are assets that companies own, but that do not carry much weight on company balance sheets. You might think of them as a bonus asset that you get for free. For instance, when a company buys real estate, the purchase price goes on its balance sheet as the value of the asset. Over a period of years or decades, the market value of that real estate may climb substantially. But the purchase price remains unchanged on the balance sheet. You have to look closely to spot this hidden value. At times, the hidden value in a company’s real estate can come to exceed the market value of its stock. This hidden value may only become apparent to investors when the company upgrades the use of the real estate. For example, a merchandiser might repurpose a parking lot to build a shopping mall with a residential condo tower on higher floors, and a parking garage down below....