wall street

In the next few weeks, we will unveil a major upgrade to our website, TSI Network (www.tsinetwork.ca). We launched the current website in 2009 to host our four newsletters (Canadian Wealth Advisor, Stock Pickers Digest, The Successful Investor and Wall Street Stock Forecaster), our Inner Circle service and over 2,000 articles on individual investments. The current site served its purpose, but it’s time to move ahead with an advanced redesign....

Every Thursday we bring you one of our best U.S. stock picks. 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, most often from coverage in our newsletter on U.S. investing, Wall Street Stock Forecaster.

WAL-MART STORES INC. (New York symbol WMT; www.walmart.com) gets about 60% of its sales from its 4,516 stores in the U.S., including 3,407 supercentres, which sell both groceries and general merchandise. Groceries now supply 56% of Wal-Mart’s U.S. sales.

In 1991, the company opened its first store outside of the U.S. through a joint venture with a Mexican retailer. Its international division (29% of total sales) now operates 6,290 stores in 26 countries.

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UNITED TECHNOLOGIES CORP., $118.74, New York symbol UTX, announced this week that it’s considering selling or spinning off its Sikorsky helicopter division. The company expects to make a final decision by the end of 2015. Sikorsky supplied 11% of United Technologies’ 2014 revenue but just 2% of its profits. That’s mainly due to a one-time charge after it renegotiated a contract to build helicopters for the Canadian government. The helicopter business has little in common with United Technologies’ larger divisions (Otis elevators, Carrier heating and air conditioning, Pratt & Whitney jet engines, and aircraft controls), so spinning it off makes sense....

In the next few weeks, we will unveil a major upgrade to our website, TSI Network (www.tsinetwork.ca). We launched the current website in 2009 to host our four newsletters (Canadian Wealth Advisor, Stock Pickers Digest, The Successful Investor and Wall Street Stock Forecaster), as well as over 2,000 articles on individual investments. The current site served its purpose, but it’s time to move ahead with an advanced redesign. So we are building a new site with significant upgrades for our subscribers....

Dun & Bradstreet’s has kept its credit report business thriving with its ability to harness new technologies like cloud computing.

VISA INC., $269.34, New York symbol V, and Citigroup Inc. (New York symbol C) have won a contract with retailer Costco Wholesale Corp. (Nasdaq symbol COST). Under the deal, which takes effect April 1, 2016, Costco will only accept Visa credit cards at its 474 warehouse stores in the U.S. In addition, Citigroup will offer Costco members a new co-branded Visa card with an enhanced loyalty rewards program—though shoppers can also use Visa cards issued by other banks. This deal should increase Visa’s payment volumes and earnings. Moreover, the company’s risk is low, as Citigroup will issue the cards and collect the payments....

Every Thursday we bring you one of our best U.S. stock picks. 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, most often from coverage in our newsletter on U.S. investing, Wall Street Stock Forecaster.

AT&T INC. (New York symbol T; www.att.com) is the largest wireless provider in the U.S., with 120.6 million subscribers. Wireless accounts for 55% of AT&T’s revenue and 75% of its earnings.

The remaining 45% of revenue and 25% of earnings comes from its wireline division, which sells phone services, television packages and high-speed Internet access to 34.4 million customers.

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3M COMPANY, $168.65, New York symbol MMM, has agreed to buy Polypore International’s (New York symbol PPO) Separations Media division. This business makes membranes and filters for a variety of industrial and health-care uses, including dialysis, purifying drugs and filtering water. 3M will pay $1.0 billion when the deal closes in the next few months. The company held cash of $2.5 billion, or $3.97 a share, as of December 31, 2014, so it can comfortably afford this purchase. Excluding integration costs, Separations Media will add $0.04 a share to 3M’s earnings in the first year. To put that in context, 3M earned $7.49 a share in 2014. However, earnings from this new business should improve over the next few years as 3M uses its extensive distribution network to sell more of its products....

Every Thursday we bring you one of our best U.S. stock picks. 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, most often from coverage in our newsletter on U.S. investing, Wall Street Stock Forecaster.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency plans to bring in new rules forcing power plants to cut their greenhouse gas emissions by 30% by 2030.

Alliant is upgrading its facilities in response. Regulators will probably let it pass along most of the extra costs to customers in the form of higher rates. We feel Alliant is in a good position to handle the new regulations.

ALLIANT ENERGY CORP. (New York symbol LNT; www.alliantenergy.com) sells electricity and natural gas to 1.4 million customers in Wisconsin, Iowa and Minnesota.

The company has earmarked $5.2 billion for plant upgrades and replacing older transmission lines and pipelines between 2014 and 2018. These funds include $750 million for a gas-fired plant that should replace some of its older coal facilities (coal accounts for about half of Alliant’s electricity production).

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WAL-MART STORES INC., $84.30, New York symbol WMT, reported better-than-expected quarterly earnings this week. However, the stock fell 2% as sales missed the consensus forecast. The company also plans to boost its U.S. workers’ pay. In the fourth quarter of its 2015 fiscal year, which ended January 31, 2015, Wal-Mart’s earnings rose 14.2%, to $5.2 billion, or $1.53 a share. A year earlier, it earned $4.5 billion, or $1.34. Without unusual items, such as costs to close some less profitable stores in Japan, the company’s earnings rose 0.6%, to $1.61 a share from $1.60. That beat the consensus estimate of $1.54....