In addition, Pat thinks then beginner investors should cultivate two important qualities: a healthy sense of skepticism and patience.
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Investors should approach all investments with a healthy sense of skepticism. This can help keep you out of fraudulent stocks that masquerade as high-quality stocks. It will also keep you out of legally operated, but poorly managed, companies that promise more than they can possibly deliver.
If you are a new investor, you should also realize that losing patience can cause you to sell your best choices right before a big rise. All too often, investors buy a promising stock just as it enters a period of price stagnation. Even the best-performing stocks run into these unpredictable phases from time to time. They move mainly sideways in a wide range for months or years before their next big rise begins. (Stock brokers often refer to these stocks as “dead money.”)
If you lack patience, you run a big risk of selling your best choices in the midst of one of these phases, prior to the next big move upward. If you lose patience and sell, you are particularly likely to do so in the low end of the trading range, when stock prices have weakened and confidence in the stock has waned.
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AltaGas: an attractive mix of cash flow and growth
AltaGas Ltd., $54.02, symbol ALA on Toronto (Shares outstanding: 312.0 million; Market cap: $16.9 billion; Utilities sector; TSINetwork Rating: Extra Risk; Dividend yield: 2.5%; www.altagas.ca), operates as an energy infrastructure company in North America. AltaGas was founded in 1994 and is headquartered in Calgary.
The company operates through two segments: Utilities and Midstream.
Of course, some companies do a better job than others when acquiring assets. They may be able to spot companies that have over-looked value, or that will be easy to integrate with their existing operations.
AltaGas took on a lot of risk with the huge acquisition of WGL Holdings in July 2018. However, it stuck to its promise of selling other non-core assets to pay down a lot of the debt it took on with this large purchase.
Index funds are mutual funds that invest so as to match market-index performance. Exchange-traded funds (ETFs) hold baskets of stocks that represent stock indexes. ETFs trade on stock exchanges, just like stocks.
The company sells its products in its own E.L.F. stores, online, and at large retailers such as Target (18% of sales), Walmart (13%), Amazon (11%), and Sephora (10%).
The company’s products include Alpha InformatiX, which provides imaging, navigation and robotics for spine surgeries, 3D imaging, and spinal implants.