Updating our Conservative Investor stocks Bank of Montreal, TransCanada Corp. and EnCana Corp.

Article Excerpt

BANK OF MONTREAL $49 (Toronto symbol BMO) earned $0.98 a share in its third fiscal quarter, ended July 31, 2008, down 23.4% from $1.28 a year earlier. The drop was mainly caused by higher loan-loss provisions, particularly from two corporate loans linked to the weak U.S. mortgage market. However, overall revenue rose 7.5%, to $2.75 billion from $2.6 billion, reflecting strong gains at all of its main businesses. Buy. TRANSCANADA CORP. $38 (Toronto symbol TRP) has agreed to combine its natural gas transmission assets in Alberta with those of Canadian Utilities Ltd. Each company will continue to separately manage its own assets, but regulators will treat the merged system as a single entity with a single rate structure. This alliance should improve the efficiency of both systems. Conservative Investor Best Buy. ENCANA CORP. $69 (Toronto symbol ECA) is down 30% from its all-time peak of $98 in May 2008, largely because of falling oil and natural gas prices. However, EnCana’s upcoming split…