Thomson Reuters Corp.
Toronto symbol TRI, divides its operations into two divisions: Markets, which provides financial information products to banks and other financial institutions; and Professional, which sells specialized information to professionals in the legal, accounting, scientific and healthcare fields.
IVY CANADIAN FUND $24.81 (CWA Rating: Conservative) invests in high-quality, large capitalization stocks. The $2.6 billion fund’s top holdings include Shoppers Drug Mart, Toronto-Dominion Bank, Manulife Financial, Canadian National Railway, Becton Dickinson & Co., Enbridge, McDonald’s Corp., Thomson Reuters, Imperial Oil and Nestle SA. Ivy Canadian’s breakdown by industry is: Consumer staples, 30.4%; Financials, 18.8%; Consumer discretionary, 13.5%; Energy, 10.9%; Industrials, 9.7%; Health care, 6.7%; and Information technology, 4.7%....
IVY GROWTH AND INCOME FUND $20.21 (CWA Rating: Conservative) (Mackenzie Financial Corp., 150 Bloor St. West, Toronto, Ont. M5S 3B5. 1-800-387-0780; Web site: www.mackenziefinancial.com. Load fund — available from brokers) is a balanced fund, holding a mixture of stocks, bonds and cash. The fund has returned 5.7% annually for the 10 years. It lost 0.8% over the last year. The fund’s MER is 2.09%. The fund’s top stock holdings are Shoppers Drug Mart, Manulife Financial, Enbridge, Canadian National Railway, McDonald’s Corporation, Thomson Reuters Corp., Toronto-Dominion Bank and Imperial Oil. The $2.4 billion Ivy Growth & Income Fund holds 22% of its assets in bonds. Interest rates on bonds are now under 5% annually in Canada. That’s the total return that a bond can provide, from today until it matures. However, bonds leave investors at the mercy of inflation, which shrinks the purchasing power of all fixed-return investments. In fact, an upsurge in inflation could wipe out all returns on bonds, and some of their principal besides....
At one time, mutual funds within a particular ‘fund family’ often shared some key investment characteristic, such as a conservative or aggressive investment approach, or a stress on value as opposed to growth. However, due to corporate mergers and takeovers in the mutual-funds industry, and more aggressive marketing, a fund’s membership in a fund family now has little bearing on its investment approach or appeal as an investment. Below, for instance, we analyse five funds from the Ivy Group. (Note that Ivy is now part of Mackenzie Financial, which in turn is part of IGM Financial. The contact information listed for Ivy Growth and Income also applies to the other four.)...
Today’s rebound in the market is reassuring, but I expect stocks to remain highly volatile for a month or more. After that, we could see a six-month rebound in prices. The U.S. bailout of major financial institutions raises inflation risk over the next few years, but it heads off panic. Nobody can predict market bottoms, but I suspect we are much closer to the bottom than the top. NORTEL NETWORKS CORP. $3.25, Toronto symbol NT, fell 50% this week after the company cut its revenue and earnings outlook for 2008. Due to slowing demand for telecommunications equipment, unfavourable foreign exchange rates and delays delivering certain products, Nortel now expects revenue for 2008 will be 2% to 4% lower than in 2007. It had earlier predicted that revenue would rise this year. Due to the lower revenues, Nortel will probably lose $0.39 U.S. a share in 2008. That estimate excludes the costs of a new restructuring plan. Nortel earned $0.37 U.S. a share before unusual items in 2007....
AIC DIVERSIFIED CANADA FUND $42.87 (CWA Rating: Conservative) mainly holds shares of Canadian companies of average or above-average quality. It also holds stocks of some U.S. firms. The $1.0 billion fund’s 10 largest holdings are Power Financial, Canadian Oil Sands Trust, TD Bank, Shoppers Drug Mart, FedEx, Thomson Reuters Corporation, Brookfield Asset Management, Royal Bank of Canada, Manulife Financial and Johnson & Johnson. AIC Diversified Canada holds just 17 stocks. The fund holds 49.6% of its assets in Financial services stocks. The rest of the portfolio breaks down as follows: Energy, 15.2%; Consumer staples, 10.6%; Consumer discretionary, 8.0%; Health care, 7.4%; Industrials, 3.6%; and Conglomerates, 2.3%....
These two AIC funds hold much of their portfolios in financial services stocks. This sector has moved down lately, mostly on concerns over a lack of liquidity for asset-backed securities and exposure to the U.S. subprime residential mortgage market. We prefer diversified funds. But if you must focus on something, the finance sector still offers sound long-term prospects. If you invest in these funds, be sure to adjust the rest of your portfolio so you won’t overly concentrate your stock and mutual fund holdings in the financial sector. AIC AMERICAN ADVANTAGE FUND $5.70 (CWA Rating: Aggressive) (AIC Group of Funds, 1375 Kerns Road, Burlington, Ont., L7R 4X8, 1-800-263-2144; Web site: www.aicfunds.com. Buy or sell through brokers) invests mostly in U.S. stocks, with over 99% of assets in the financial services area....
THOMSON REUTERS CORP. $31 (Toronto symbol TRI; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Consumer sector; Shares outstanding: 816.6 million;Market cap: $25.3 billion; SI Rating: Above average) provides information products to over 30 million professionals in five areas: Legal (45% of 2007 revenues), Financial (30%), Tax & Accounting (9%), Scientific (9%) and Healthcare (6%). The company took its present form on April 17, 2008. That’s when The Thomson Corp. (old symbol TOC) merged with UK-based information provider Reuters Group plc. Thomson shareholders received one share of Thomson Reuters for each Thomson Corp. share they held....
THOMSON REUTERS CORP. $31 (Toronto symbol TRI; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Consumer sector; Shares outstanding: 816.6 million;Market cap: $25.3 billion; SI Rating: Above average) provides information products to over 30 million professionals in five areas: Legal (45% of 2007 revenues), Financial (30%), Tax & Accounting (9%), Scientific (9%) and Healthcare (6%). The company took its present form on April 17, 2008. That’s when The Thomson Corp. (old symbol TOC) merged with UK-based information provider Reuters Group plc. Thomson shareholders received one share of Thomson Reuters for each Thomson Corp. share they held....
TRIMARK CANADIAN FUND $18.44 (CWA Rating: Aggressive) (AIM Funds Management Inc., 5140 Yonge Street, Suite 900, Toronto, Ontario M2N 6X7. 1-800-631- 7008; Website: www.aimfunds.ca. Buy or sell through brokers.) uses a bottom-up stock-picking style (using fundamentals such as earnings, cash flow and low debt) that looks at valuation measures and then tries to pick stocks selling at a discount to long-term value. The fund’s 10 largest holdings are Thomson Reuters Corp., TD Bank, Bank of Nova Scotia, MacDonald Dettwiler, Time Warner, Willis Group Holdings, Alimentation Couche-Tard, Power Corporation, Toromont Industries and Molex Inc. The fund’s portfolio breaks down by sector as follows: Financials, 26.3%; Consumer discretionary, 20.1%; Information technology, 10.8%; Materials, 9.8%; Energy, 4.2%; and Industrials, 7.8%....
THOMSON REUTERS CORP. $35 now trades under the symbol “TRI”. It plans to resume regular share buybacks following the recent merger of The Thomson Corp. and Reuters Group plc. The company aims to repurchase 2% of its shares. Buy.