Our three top picks for 2016

Article Excerpt

We’re still positive on the long-term outlook for stocks. But in a time of rising market volatility, plunging commodity prices and international tension, it’s more important than ever to diversify, rather than focus on a single pick of the year. Moreover, we find lots of attractive long-term buys among the stocks we cover. With that in mind, we’ve chosen to highlight three picks from our Stock Pickers Digest recommendations. All three of these high-quality stocks offer strong growth prospects and trade at low multiples to earnings. AGT FOOD & INGREDIENTS $36.50 (Toronto symbol AGT; TSINetwork Rating: Extra Risk) (604-231-1100; www.agtfoods.com; Shares outstanding: 23.8 million; Market cap: $862.3 million; Dividend yield: 1.6%) buys and processes a range of pulses—which include peas, beans, lentils and chickpeas—as well as other specialty crops. Saskatchewan-based AGT owns 13 processing plants in Canada, nine in Turkey, four in Australia, two in the U.S., one in China and one in South Africa. In the three months ended September 30, 2015, AGT…