How To Invest

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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The federal government’s tax on income-trust distributions took effect on January 1, 2011. Most trusts have since converted to corporations.


Real estate investment trusts (REITs) were exempted from the income-trust tax. As a result, high-quality REITs should remain attractive to income-seeking investors.

A: La-Z-Boy Inc., $40.10, symbol LZB on New York (Shares outstanding: 41.3 million; Market cap: $1.6 billion; www.la-z-boy.com), is a furniture retailer and manufacturer famous for inventing the recliner. The company was founded in 1927 and is headquartered in Monroe, Michigan. LA-Z-Boy went public in November 1972 with its listing on the New York exchange.


The company’s sales are mainly in the U.S. (90%), while most of its manufacturing takes place in North America. This has helped it to navigate the current higher U.S. tariffs on imported goods. There are eight manufacturing facilities and 14 distribution centres in North America.



La-Z-Boy operates through two main segments: Wholesale and Retail.
A: Perimeter Solutions Inc., $27.30, symbol PRM on New York (Shares outstanding: 147.9 million; Market cap: $4.1 billion; www.perimeter-solutions.com), is a specialty chemicals business providing fire safety products and services.


The Clayton, Missouri-based company went public in November 2021 with a listing on the New York exchange. Its roots as a private firm date back more than 60 years.



Perimeter serves wildland agencies (including the USDA Forest Service and CalFire), municipal fire departments, industrial sites handling flammable liquids, and global producers of lubricant additives. It operates manufacturing and distribution facilities in the U.S., Canada, Europe and Australia, with customers in over 100 countries. In the key U.S. market, Perimeter holds a dominant position in aerial fire retardants for wildland operations.



The company has two main business segments, namely Fire Safety (75% of sales) and Specialty Products (25%). Physical products provide 80% of revenue; and services, 20%. Revenue is mostly generated from clients in the U.S., with smaller contributions from Europe and Canada.

A: Foran Mining, $4.03, symbol FOM on Toronto (Shares outstanding: 511.6 million; Market cap: $2.3 billion; www.foranmining.com), explores for and develops mining sites in central Canada to extract copper and gold, along with other base and precious metals.


The company’s flagship McIlvenna Bay Project is located in east central Saskatchewan, 65 kilometres west of Flin Flon, Manitoba. McIlvenna Bay has one of the largest undeveloped Volcanogenic Massive Sulfide deposits in the region.



Sulfide minerals were formed at or near the seafloor by hydrothermal vents. These deposits are a major source of base metals copper and zinc as well as precious metals gold and silver. The ore is found in clusters, which makes for low-cost mining.
A: Canadian National Railway Co., $134.49, Symbol CNR on Toronto (Shares outstanding: 615.5 million; Market cap: $82.4 billion; Manufacturing sector; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.cn.ca) operates Canada’s largest railway. Its 30,250-kilometre network stretches across the country and travels down through the U.S. Midwest, connecting Canada to the Gulf of Mexico.


CN’s wide geographic reach reduces its reliance on any single region; that lowers risk for investors. In 2024, 17% of its revenue came from Canadian domestic traffic; 16% from U.S. domestic traffic; 32% from cross-border shipments; and 35% from overseas traffic.



The company serves a wide variety of customers, which also cuts its risk. Still, the stock is down 9.1% since the start of the year, largely on uncertainty surrounding North American free trade.