Profit from our #1 buy

Article Excerpt

This month we single out Bank of Nova Scotia as our #1 safetyconscious pick for 2013 (see left). Our Stock of the Year has turned out to be one of our readers’ favourite features&$8212;including distributions, last year’s pick RioCan REIT $26.67 (Toronto symbol REI.UN) gained almost 12%. But you might say picking a #1 stock goes against one of our key investing principles: you always need to diversify. Nobody gets it right on every one of their stock recommendations or purchases. Consequently, you need to build a balanced portfolio of mainly well-established companies, with holdings spread out across most if not all of the five main economic sectors. In choosing our #1 stock, we aim to come up with our favourite type of recommendation, which we refer to as a “heads you win, tails you break even” situation. These stocks have the potential to put on an aboveaverage rise, but are unlikely to be total disasters if they disappoint. We…