Telus Corp.

ISHARES S&P/TSX 60 INDEX FUND $16.65 (Toronto symbol XIU; buy or sell through brokers; ca.ishares.com) is a good, low-fee way to buy the top stocks on the TSX. The units are made up of stocks that represent the S&P/TSX 60 Index, which consists of the 60 largest, most heavily traded stocks on the exchange. Expenses are just 0.17% of assets.

The index mostly consists of high-quality companies. However, as the fund must ensure that all sectors are represented, it holds a few stocks we wouldn’t include.

The index’s top holdings are Royal Bank, 7.2%; TD Bank, 7.0%; Bank of Nova Scotia, 5.9%; Barrick Gold, 4.4%; Suncor Energy, 4.3%; CN Railway, 3.7%; Bank of Montreal, 3.5%; Potash Corp., 3.4%; Goldcorp, 3.3%; BCE Inc., 3.2%; Canadian Natural Resources, 3.2%; Enbridge, 3.1%; TransCanada Corp., 3.0%; CIBC, 2.8%; Cenovus Energy, 2.3%; and Telus Corp., 1.9%.

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TELUS CORP. (Toronto symbols T $59 and T.A $58; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Utilities sector; Shares outstanding: 325.0 million; Market cap: $19.2 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 1.8; Dividend yield: 4.1%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.telus.com) has won a contract to help more pharmacies in Newfoundland connect to an electronic drug database....

CANADIAN IMPERIAL BANK OF COMMERCE $71 (Toronto symbol CM; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Finance sector; Shares outstanding: 404.9 million; Market cap: $28.7 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 1.8; Dividend yield: 5.1%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.cibc.com) continues to profit by focusing on retail banking, which accounts for 76% of its business. That cuts its reliance on its more-volatile corporate-lending and securities-trading divisions. In its fiscal 2012 second quarter, which ended April 30, 2012, the bank earned $766 million, or $1.90 a share. That’s up 6.1% from $722 million, or $1.80 a share, a year earlier. Without unusual items, such as losses on securities that CIBC holds, earnings per share would have risen 9.3%, to $2.00 from $1.83. Revenue rose 2.3%, to $3.1 billion from $3.0 billion. CIBC is a buy....

Most stock markets are down lately due to investor worries about a potential eurozone breakup, sluggish U.S. growth and a slowdown in China. Still, the long-term outlook is positive. One way to profit from a rebound is to add exchange traded funds (ETFs) that track major stock market indexes to your portfolio. ETFs trade on stock exchanges, just like stocks. Prices are quoted in newspaper stock tables and online. You must pay brokerage commissions to buy and sell ETFs, but their low management fees still give them a cost advantage over most mutual funds....

TELUS $57.97 (Toronto symbol T.A; Shares outstanding: 324.5 million; Market cap: $18.8 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; Dividend yield: 4.2%; www.telus.com) has dropped its plan to merge its common shares and its non-voting class A shares into a single class. The company had proposed to convert each non-voting share into one common share. However, the plan had little chance of succeeding, because U.S.-based hedge fund Mason Capital, which now owns around 19% of Telus’s common shares and a small portion of the non-voting shares, said it would vote against the proposal. Mason is using a complex stocktrading strategy that would let it lock in a profit if shareholders reject the plan. Telus still wants to eliminate the dual-class structure, and will probably reintroduce the proposal sometime in the next few months. One step it could take to help ensure the plan’s approval would be to have less time between the reintroduction of the plan and the vote. That way, Mason and other big investors who oppose the proposal would have less time to buy shares and block it....

Tip of the week: There are a few good reasons to pay a little extra money for the right class of shares in the stocks you buy.

TELUS CORP., Toronto symbols T $59.83 and T.A $58.10, has dropped its plan to merge its common shares and its non-voting class A shares into a single class. The company had proposed to convert each non-voting share into one common share. However, the plan had little chance of succeeding, because U.S.-based hedge fund Mason Capital, which now owns around 19% of Telus’s common shares and a small portion of the non-voting shares, said it would vote against the proposal. Mason is using a complex stock-trading strategy that would let it lock in a profit if shareholders reject the plan. Telus still wants to eliminate the dual-class structure, and will probably reintroduce the proposal sometime in the next few months. One step it could take to help ensure the plan’s approval would be to have less time between the reintroduction of the plan and the vote. That way, Mason and other big investors who oppose the proposal would have less time to buy shares and block it....

CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILWAY LTD., $75.67, Toronto symbol CP, is starting to benefit from its recent efficiency improvements. As well, more of its trains are running on time, thanks to the warmer-than-usual winter. In the three months ended March 31, 2012, CP’s average train speed rose 27% from a year earlier. It also had 28% more railcars in service, and terminal dwell (the time to load and unload railcars) fell 27%. As a result, CP now believes that it earned $0.80 to $0.83 a share in the quarter. That’s a lot better than the consensus estimate of $0.65 a share....

TELUS $57.67 (Toronto symbol T.A; Shares outstanding: 324.5 million; Market cap: $18.7 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; Dividend yield: 4.2%; www.telus.com) plans to merge its common shares and its non-voting class A into a single class of shares.

Telus created the non-voting shares in 1998, when U.S.-based Verizon Communications (symbol VZ on New York) held a major stake in the company. The move let Telus comply with regulations preventing foreign control of Canadian telecom firms. Verizon sold its non-voting shares in 2004. Non-Canadian investors now hold less than 20% of Telus’s stock.

Telus now has about 174.9 million common shares and 149.9 million non-voting shares outstanding. Under the proposal, each non-voting share will become one common share. Investors holding two-thirds of each share class, voting separately, must approve the change.

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MANITOBA TELECOM SERVICES INC. $33 (Toronto symbol MBT; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Utilities sector; Shares outstanding: 66.2 million; Market cap: $2.2 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 1.2; Dividend yield: 5.2%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.mtsallstream.com) has 1.3 million telephone and wireless customers in Manitoba. This business now accounts for 55% of the company’s revenue. The remaining 45% comes from its Allstream division, which provides integrated telephone, Internet and other communication services to businesses across Canada.

Like BCE and Telus, Manitoba Telecom continues to profit from fast-growing demand for smartphones and wireless service. It ended 2011 with 496,432 wireless subscribers, up 2.6% from a year earlier. About 41% of users under long-term contracts had data plans, up from 27% in 2010.

The company is also seeing strong demand for its fibre-optic Internet and TV services. It now has 188,946 high-speed Internet customers (up 2.9% from 2010) and 95,456 TV subscribers (up 6.1%).

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