wall street

It’s been a long time since we first pointed out that when funds hold themselves out as “socially responsible investments” it helps the fund to sell units to investors, but it’s not doing the fund buyers any favours. In fact, these virtue-signaling funds have long tended to under-perform the market on the whole.

Along the way, these funds have undergone a name change (a re-branding, you might say)....

We first recommended Cintas in the October 2005 issue of Wall Street Stock Forecaster as a buy for aggressive investors. We felt the company’s dominance in the niche uniform rentals business gave it reliable revenues and cash flows. Its ability to sell other products and services to its clients, such as floor mats and cleaning supplies, also enhanced its appeal.

The stock has not disappointed....

We’ve generally stayed out of drug stocks for much of the two decades before 2020, but that changed in the last year or two. In fact, we now expect to see many great investment opportunities in drug stocks throughout the 2020s. You could say this is related to COVID-19, but it was going to happen anyway, due to regulatory and research developments that were already underway....

Visa has been a terrific performer for you since we first recommended the stock at $19 (adjusted for share splits) in the December 2010 issue of our Wall Street Stock Forecaster.

The company first sold its stock to the public at $11 a share in March 2008. We held off recommending it at that time, as the best way to cut the risk of investing in initial public offerings is to wait till after the next market slump and/or recession comes along....

A: Utz Brands Inc., $14.29, symbol UTZ on New York (Shares outstanding: 80.7 million; Market cap: $2.0 billion; www.utzsnacks.com), is a Pennsylvania-based maker of salty snacks. Its brands include its Utz Original potato chips, Snyder of Berlin, Zapp’s, Boulder Canyon, and TGI Fridays snacks.

Founded in 1921, Utz began trading on the New York exchange in June 2020.

Rather than list through an IPO, the company undertook a reverse merger with Collier Creek Holdings....

The business of finance seems to attract large numbers of two kinds of people. Some take many things in life way too seriously. Others have a knack for spotting the humour in their work lives, sometimes to a point that jeopardizes their career success.

You can learn a lot about investing if you can bear to listen to the too-serious crowd....

In recent years, I’ve mentioned that the world is going through a gigantic monetary experiment. At first, I was referring to the “quantitative easing” that the U.S. Federal Reserve and other central banks began in 2008/2009, to offset the financial crisis. But the more I look at it, the more I see a process that’s been going on for a century.

A change in standards

Up till about a century ago, the world pretty much ran on the gold standard....

J.P. MORGAN CHASE & CO., $126.81, New York symbol JPM, remains a buy.

The stock lets investors tap the largest banking firm in the U.S., with total assets of $3.95 trillion as of March 31, 2022.

Morgan last raised your quarterly dividend with the October 2021 payment by 11.1%, to $1.00 a share from $0.90....

METRO INC., $69.82, Toronto symbol MRU, remains a buy.

The company operates 950 grocery stores and 650 drugstores, in Quebec, Ontario and New Brunswick.

To offset rising costs for labour and the impact of COVID-19 on its supply chains, Metro continues to raise its selling prices.

In the company’s fiscal 2022 second quarter, ended March 12, 2022, its overall sales rose 1.9%, to $4.27 billion from $4.19 billion a year earlier....

TECK RESOURCES LTD., $54.46, Toronto symbol TECK.B, remains a buy for investors seeking long-term gains from the Resources sector of their portfolio.

The company is a leading producer of metallurgical coal, a key ingredient in steelmaking. It also produces copper and zinc....