wall street
Pat McKeough responds to many personal questions on specific stocks and other investing topics from the members of his Inner Circle. Every week, his comments and recommendations on a selection of the most intriguing questions of the past week go out to all Inner Circle members. And every Friday, we offer you one of the highlights from these Q&A sessions. REITs continue to be popular among investors seeking income. Recently, an Inner Circle member asked about a REIT that specializes in big-box outdoor malls and features North America’s most famous big-box chain as its most important tenant. ...
As the post-Christmas shopping season opens, we look at one of the most interesting growth stocks in the retail industry. This stock began by allowing shoppers to buy and sell items from the comfort of their home computers, but it has since aggressively added to the array of online transactions it handles. EBAY INC. (Nasdaq symbol EBAY; www.ebay.com) operates the world’s largest online auction website, with over 99 million users in 39 countries. The company charges users fees to list and sell their goods through its websites....
Pat McKeough responds to many personal questions on specific stocks and other investing topics from the members of his Inner Circle. Every week, his comments and recommendations on a selection of the most intriguing questions of the past week go out to all Inner Circle members. And every Friday, we offer you one of the highlights from these Q&A sessions. This week, one Inner Circle member asked for an update on a pipeline firm that sometimes appears to be overshadowed by the most prominent names in the industry like TransCanada and Enbridge. Here is Pat’s reply. ...
PLEASE NOTE: This is our last Hotline for 2011. Our next Hotline will go out on Friday, January 6, 2012. AT&T INC., $29.66, New York symbol T, has cancelled its plan to buy rival wireless carrier T-Mobile from Germany’s Deutsche Telekom AG. Adding T-Mobile would have made AT&T the largest wireless carrier in the U.S., with 132 million subscribers. However, the company doesn’t believe that regulators will approve the purchase....
BAXTER INTERNATIONAL INC., $48.08, New York symbol BAX, is buying Synovis Life Technologies Inc. (Nasdaq symbol SYNO), which makes surgical tools and medical patches for wounds and burns. The deal will close in the first quarter of 2012. This purchase looks like a nice fit with Baxter’s existing medical products. As well, Baxter can use its distribution networks to make Synovis’s products available to more consumers, particularly in fast-growing overseas markets. The purchase price is $325 million. However, Synovis holds cash of $65 million, so Baxter is really only paying $260 million. That’s easily affordable for Baxter, which earned $624 million, or $1.09 a share, in the three months ended September 30, 2011....
Carnival Corp. operate as a single business but have separate exchange listings. Stock market investments: Carnival increases earnings despite jump in fuel costs.
INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES CORP., $194.56, New York symbol IBM, continues to expand its software business. This week, it agreed to buy DemandTec Inc. (Nasdaq symbol DMAN), which makes software that retailers and makers of consumer products use to analyze their customers’ spending habits. This information helps them predict consumer behaviour and quickly adjust their prices. Adding DemandTec will also enhance IBM’s expertise in fast-growing area of cloud computing. IBM will pay $440 million for DemandTec when the sale closes in the first quarter of 2012. The company earned $3.8 billion, or $3.19 a share, in the three months ended September 30, 2011, so it can easily afford this purchase....
Pat McKeough responds to many personal questions on stocks and other investment topics from the members of his Inner Circle. Every week, his comments and recommendations on a selection of the most intriguing questions of the past week go out to all Inner Circle members. And every Friday, we offer you one of the highlights from these Q&A sessions. A question this week touched on the well-established trend of overseas outsourcing. Specifically, an Inner Circle member asked about a leading specialist in the field with rising sales and profits and a large store of cash. ...
Calloway Real Estate Investment Trust, $26.91, symbol CWT.UN on Toronto (Units outstanding: 120.7 million; Market cap: $3.2 billion; www.callowayreit.com), owns, develops and operates big-box outdoor malls across Canada. In all, Calloway owns 129 shopping centres and two office buildings, with 25.3 million square feet of leasable area. Its malls are mainly located in the suburbs of larger cities and have lots of room for parking and additional building. The trust gets 58% of its revenue from Ontario, 15% from Quebec, 9% from B.C., 4% from Manitoba, 4% from Saskatchewan, 3% from Newfoundland and Labrador, 3% from Alberta, 2% from Nova Scotia, 1% from New Brunswick and 1% from Prince Edward Island....
LIMITED BRANDS INC., $42.61, New York symbol LTD, rose 11% this week, mainly because the company will pay a special dividend of $2.00 a share on December 23, 2011. That’s in addition to its regular quarterly dividend of $0.20 a share, for a 1.9% annualized yield. Limited Brands owns the Victoria’s Secret lingerie chain and the Bath & Body Works personal-care products stores. It also owns the La Senza lingerie chain in Canada. The company also reported that its sales fell 2.3% in November 2011, to $872.6 million from $893.0 million in November 2010. However, that’s mainly because the company recently sold 51% of a business that buys apparel from various manufacturers. On a same-store basis, sales rose 7% during the month....